@r000kie - So, your suggestion here is to reduce the AD supply, in your case by reducing what can be salvaged... no offense but reducing the AD supply is one of the "inane" suggestions you're referring to...
People not spending ZEN? Why should they? They can get a mount speed bonus by joining a guild. As a solo player with my own lowly guild, took me some time to understand why everyone was speeding past me in hunts.
I'm speeding past you because I have an 8350 movement bonus and a legendary mount. My guild doesn't yet have the mounted speed bonus boon... though I am anxiously awaiting getting that!
Also, people not spending ZEN? Why should they? You created the shortcuts for every new player to gain access to Barovia. They have no idea what BHE means, how to buy an account-wide mount and so on.
I don't see how access to Barovia equates to "I have no need to spend Zen". Personally, I quite regularly spend Zen on coalescent wards, preservation wards, and legendary dragon keys, as well as VIP when I am about to run out. Occasionally, I'll even buy the odd enchanted key, but usually not. As for what else they could offer that I would spend Zen on? I would love to see them sell bound-to-account rank 14 basic enchantments (azure, dark, radiant, silvery). I would spend heavily on dark enchantments to increase even my mainly invoke-and-salvage alts' movement speeds. Those characters run Sharandar and Dread Ring weekly because they can, and moving faster would be sooooooo niiiiiiice. (I even occasionally work on campaigns on them.)
95% of players do not read this forum. If OP cannot get hold of ZEN with his AD, he can buy ZEN with money, if he really needs it. If reducing the amount of salvage is inane, how those ideas of erasing AD and start using gold are?
As for 8350 movement bonus and a legendary mount, good for you - I doubt those 7-10k (alts or not) roaming the hunting plains have all legendary mounts.
At this point I gave up doing the weekly missions for AD (Tuern, Sharandar, Dread Ring, Ballad was my thing) on my 4 avas because Barovia provide me with more salvage than I can refine. That's one. Two, if you're going to provide the newcomers with armor IL540, it will be even less incentive for them to visit ZEN store to buy refining wards - refining enchants to raise IL is very ineffective today, they'll get enough IL from gear to access superior random queues and getting carried by others because they have little playing experience and boons.
For me ZEN/AD backlog is totally irrelevant. I play it regularly together with AH and events to constantly increase my stash and I did not bother to buy legendary mounts yet. Who knows, maybe in this 3rd year of VIP and 1000 keys later, I'll loot one? Or, who knows, maybe I will be able to buy one FROM THE HAMSTER ZEN STORE, account-wide?
Of course my lower IL alts don't have legendary mounts. They also don't group with anyone or run any random queues. So why should I bother with legendary mounts for them? They barely get to refine anything and their movement bonuses are nowhere near what my two main characters' are.
I still run the weeklies because: 1. It saves me a little salvage and takes less time to run those than it does to run epic dungeons for the salvage to match. 2. I get gems from some of them. 3. On my characters that have completed the campaigns, it gives me something to donate to my guild's coffer. 4. On my characters that have not completed the campaigns, they make slow progress. Since I don't care when they finish those campaigns, slow progress is perfectly acceptable.
As for newbies not refining enchantments, that's not true. If they were previously inclined to do so, they'll still do it. If they weren't, then they probably will not (but they might still). I can't imagine that refining enchantments to raise IL was ever "very effective". Maybe in the first year or 18 months of this game, but the IL increases from enchantments are minuscule. Improving companion quality, getting five mounts with three insignia slots each and putting at least rare insignias into them, and doing campaigns for boons are the next fastest ways to improve IL after getting better gear. Personally, I refined artifacts on my characters before I started refining enchantments because I recognized that was going to raise my IL faster.
@r000kie - I see, you commented on the OP without really reading the subsequent conversation. When there's been 2 or 3 pages of posts, you should definitely quote the post you're responding too. I'd have ignored you had I realized you'd done likewise to most of this post and your comments were simply restating everything that's already been said....
95% of players do not read this forum. If OP cannot get hold of ZEN with his AD, he can buy ZEN with money, if he really needs it. If reducing the amount of salvage is inane, how those ideas of erasing AD and start using gold are?
You're clearly not reading. The suggestion is "erase gold, start using gold, allow AD->gold transfers", not "erase AD".
Two, if you're going to provide the newcomers with armor IL540, it will be even less incentive for them to visit ZEN store to buy refining wards - refining enchants to raise IL is very ineffective today, they'll get enough IL from gear to access superior random queues and getting carried by others because they have little playing experience and boons.
I hate being the dude to say "lolnoob" but wow, lolnoob.
Ravenloft provides abundant opportunity to catch up to top-tier players. It does not make you a top-tier player. And armor IL is irrelevant, it's enchant IL that matters (and that drives ward sales).
If you think the backlog doesn't affect you, you're not qualified to participate in this discussion. Because that might be TRUE, but if it's true, your opinion is just not relevant.
There're several reasons for players to not buy ZEN with real money... + problems around ZEN Charge Promotions + more bugs and game issues with each new module + being really fast with handing out nerfs, but fixing stuff takes them a looong time + Adventurer and Fashion packs in lockboxes + removing Class packs from the ZEN shop + releasing Adventurer packs into the ZEN shop and so on.
Not to mention, that what is currently in the Wondrous Bazaar and the Tarmalune Trade Bars Store is just useless or way overpriced. I mean, do they even have plans for imroving those stores for the players at some point in the near future?
Here's an crazy idea... give us something that's actually worth spending ZEN or AD on in game for a change.
Anyway, there's more then enough options to improve the situation for players, but all we get are "special" companion auctions and another "End of Summer" bonus, which might prevent the ZAX from reaching that 21m AD backlog again... for now.
ok, 2 ways to generically fix the exchange. (do keep in mind that STO has the same system but the exchange rate almost never hits cap. BECAUSE in STO crystals are more valuable in fleet projects than AD are valued in NWO.
So, 2 ways to stabilize the exchange price.
Create a game wide system that sucks excess AD out of the game (a continuous sink) in STO it is lockbox keys for sale in AH and fleet projects. (Fleets in STO are more successful than guilds in NWO)
or
Create a continuous advantage or reward for exchanging coin for AD that can not be exploited. refine point rewards for exchanging coin? Timed exp bonuses or something like that.
My personal choice, exclusive tiered player housing. All costs are in AD including maint. Better hood, bigger residents, more area perks (exclusive dungeons and raid areas). Want you own castle? fine. Great hood? fine. buy and maintain it with AD...period. Ever hungry AD sink stabilizes exchange price.
People buy more coin, to EXCHANGE so they can keep their personal Castles going, with personal vendors, trophy rooms, pool etc.
BUT BUT that is what guilds are ? and they fail at that because more players are solo. Guilds for the groupies - Player housing for the solos.
enough said.
or if you want the really easy fix? allow anyone to buy a guild charter for X amount of AD and create a 1 person guild. Almost the same thing, less coding. But not as cool.
How about a system of gear degradation across the board? Not "empowering" like with black ice or vblod - but rather, a system where your gear degrades over time and needs to be repaired periodically. You can do it yourself with professions (requires some basic, easy to obtain mats + AD + time (something you'd do over night) OR you can pay 2 or 3x as much AD and no mats to a vendor to repair instantly.
Armor and weapons would degrade slowly, but steadily with a blanket reduction in stats from 100% to 0% over the course of, say a 2 week period. The cost wouldn't be crazy but the lower the IL the lower the price (so new and leveling players won't be overly burdened - likely leveling players wouldn't have an issue as they'd replace their gear faster than it degrades anyway).
Degraded gear cannot be salvaged, but it doesn't degrade unless it's actually being worn (however, wearing it for even 1 second would degrade it a little bit, so you'd need to repair it even then -- No returns on worn equip! Store policy).
How about a system of gear degradation across the board? Not "empowering" like with black ice or vblod - but rather, a system where your gear degrades over time and needs to be repaired periodically. You can do it yourself with professions (requires some basic, easy to obtain mats + AD + time (something you'd do over night) OR you can pay 2 or 3x as much AD and no mats to a vendor to repair instantly.
Armor and weapons would degrade slowly, but steadily with a blanket reduction in stats from 100% to 0% over the course of, say a 2 week period. The cost wouldn't be crazy but the lower the IL the lower the price (so new and leveling players won't be overly burdened - likely leveling players wouldn't have an issue as they'd replace their gear faster than it degrades anyway).
Degraded gear cannot be salvaged, but it doesn't degrade unless it's actually being worn (however, wearing it for even 1 second would degrade it a little bit, so you'd need to repair it even then -- No returns on worn equip! Store policy).
Degrade over time? Bad. For casual player, it means every time they come back, they have a defunc gear. Degrade over use (such as combat), I also don't like it but may be.
*** 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. ***
Wrong. IL related only (no other criteria), is better to get out of the boat, go L70, get high IL gear and do not bother with enchants past R9/R10. Then get a guild with boons for extra 1500 IL or so. I already stated that IL alone do not make them efficient players.
Full R9 gives around 1300 IL combined. R12, 2200ish. R14 3100 IL, so 900 IL increase at a huge cost. My point was (in case you missed it) new players can gain IL fast (jumping from gear 420-450ish to 540), so they can join more difficult RQ with bigger rewards. So yet another AD generation adding to the backlog, besides the amount of salvageables.
Whereas what I meant was the difference between a low-end and a high-end player is the enchants, and that 1800 IL from going R9->R14 gives more stats that matter and indicates more experience than the 1800 IL going from Alliance gear to Barovian Catchup to IL 520-540 Barovian drops.
Someone with R12s in every slot and Chult gear, I figure has been gone for a few months but I expect to be good. Someone with the same IL and R9s with Barovian hunt gear, I expect to be an inexperienced player. Not necessarily bad, but just not in the same league.
I think we were talking about different things, not actually disagreeing.
As for alts not participating in RQ or hunts.. there are people and people. I have my own alts 11.5-12k (all did the campaigns the proper, painful way), but sometimes it feels like those are mains. Especially when the 8k guy and his buddies donning 540 IL gear come with T2 hunt and 3 extra difficult cards then it get mad he did not got the epic salvageable he wanted.
Well, I'm sorry to hear you ended up running with people like that. I don't consider my 8k to 10k alts to be "viable", even for Random Leveling Queue. Mainly because they aren't fun to play, in part because they run like they're hip-deep in molasses, and also because I don't feel they're able to contribute to parties enough. Therefore, I don't subject anyone but my wife (occasionally) to running with them. I'm just not able to get RP, wards, and refining stones fast enough to improve all these characters' gear.
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vinceent1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,264Arc User
edited September 2018
zax backlog is increasing - again. their AD system rework fail - again. offer 100000 rad refine into ad per account fails, because players creating many alts accounts. there are only two solutions to this mess. 1. apply ban filter on everyone who runs more than one account. 2. rework system again
Reducing AD income will only slow down character development, and not reduce ZAX queue much.
ZAX queue depends on the balance between Zen needed and AD needed to build a character. Today you need so much Zen(wards..) to build a character that our AD income outpaces the Zen supplied buy the Zen buyers, and you get the queue.
To cut the queue you need to change the balance between Zen needed and AD needed so you need more AD and less Zen to build a character.
The latest change to the Zen/AD balance was the introduction of r13 enchants, that massively increased the Zen needed and did not increase the AD needed that much. So much of todays ZAX queue probably come from that game change.
To fix the ZAX queue they need to make the players need more AD for each ward they need. Doubling the price of all marks probably would to the trick, but also would be massively unpopular with the players.
If we disregard any price-increasing changes to the existing system, what Cryptic need to do is to introduce some new type of gear that needs large amounts of AD to develop while needing little Zen. This is what is popularily called an AD sink
zax backlog is increasing - again. their AD system rework fail - again. offer 100000 rad refine into ad per account fails, because players creating many alts accounts. there are only two solutions to this mess. 1. apply ban filter on everyone who runs more than one account. 2. rework system again
There are very few people willing to create an entiere another account and switching every time, just to get a tiny bit more AD...
zax backlog is increasing - again. their AD system rework fail - again. offer 100000 rad refine into ad per account fails, because players creating many alts accounts. there are only two solutions to this mess. 1. apply ban filter on everyone who runs more than one account. 2. rework system again
I very much doubt that real players are creating multiple accounts to earn more astral diamonds. The only ones making multiple accounts are going to be botters and people with way too much time on their hands. And the people with way too much time on their hands are going to spend it playing the AH, not running more RQ for rough astral diamonds. I do know one person who has four accounts, and they have had those four accounts since they started playing this game - which was before I started playing this game in May 2017. There's no reason to ban people who have more than one account, and I can't see how they could reliably determine that. My wife also plays this game. So if I log onto her account to play one of her characters for a little while or to do professions, should that account be banned? Should mine? After all, we play from the same public IP address.
I'd love to see whatever proof you could offer that players are creating "many alt accounts", though I rather doubt you have any.
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vinceent1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,264Arc User
edited September 2018
maybe, BUT refining nerf is very big, you can only refine 100 000 rad per day per account and its very big isuue in progression in my opinion. and still backlog is very big and growing? whats wrong with the game then? another resonator exploit or what? so refining nerf is worthless and they should revert it back so atleast active players should get somewhere....
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,093Arc User
Keep in mind that the change to the refining limit was only their first step. Not their last.
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, BUT refining nerf is very big, you can only refine 100 000 rad per day per account and its very big isuue in progression in my opinion. and still backlog is very big and growing? whats wrong with the game then? another resonator exploit or what? so refining nerf is worthless and they should revert it back so atleast active players should get somewhere....
LOL. No, it's not a very big issue in progression. The only people this significantly affects are people who were refining multiple hundreds of thousands or millions of astral diamonds per day. People who weren't doing 100k per day before either have seen very little, if any, change or they're now refining more than they were before. The people I know that weren't doing 100k per day before have all increased the amounts they're refining per day, but this is mostly a function of the changes to the random queues and not to the refining cap.
As @mentinmindmaker explained to you, the ZAX backlog grows because there isn't enough incentive to sell Zen for AD. I sold some Zen in July and early August because I wanted to buy some vouchers to level my guild. At this point, I'm buying a little Zen every month and I'm no longer selling it for AD; I'm using it to buy wards and get ready for the next Wondrous Bazaar sale when I can spend every last AD I have on marks. Nobody will be buying any Zen from me on the exchange probably before the beginning of 2019, if it's even that soon.
maybe, BUT refining nerf is very big, you can only refine 100 000 rad per day per account and its very big isuue in progression in my opinion. and still backlog is very big and growing? whats wrong with the game then? another resonator exploit or what? so refining nerf is worthless and they should revert it back so atleast active players should get somewhere....
Refining change was a nerf to the minority population that played multiple toons or managed alt armies. Some of these people are making 100s, if not 1000s, of K less per day now. On the other hand, the change was a bump to the majority population that played one or two toons. These people are making 28-64K more now. Essentially the earnings potential got redistributed from the hardcore players to the more casual players.
The question is what is the net effect. I think there is more AD out there now.
The question is what is the net effect. I think there is more AD out there now.
I would say there probably is, just based on my own anecdotal evidence. The people I regularly communicate with in-game are making more than they were. The real question is this: How are those people spending their new-found largesse? The people I regularly communicate with are actually not spending it. They're holding onto it for when the Wondrous Bazaar goes on sale in order to massively improve their enchantments and runestones (and artifacts, for those who have some left to refine). Even I am saving my AD and I'm not known for saving!
maybe, BUT refining nerf is very big, you can only refine 100 000 rad per day per account and its very big isuue in progression in my opinion. and still backlog is very big and growing? whats wrong with the game then? another resonator exploit or what? so refining nerf is worthless and they should revert it back so atleast active players should get somewhere....
Refining change was a nerf to the minority population that played multiple toons or managed alt armies. Some of these people are making 100s, if not 1000s, of K less per day now. On the other hand, the change was a bump to the majority population that played one or two toons. These people are making 28-64K more now. Essentially the earnings potential got redistributed from the hardcore players to the more casual players.
The question is what is the net effect. I think there is more AD out there now.
Anecdotal Part 1: I know many people who currently complain about hitting the 100K cap, who only ever had 1-3 toons before and rarely if ever hit the cap on all of them before. Anecdotal Part 2: We know from the developers that "a low-single-digit percentage" of all active players hit 100k/day before.
I think there's more people hitting 100K, and (of course) fewer people beating it.
Also, "making a second account to refine more" is unwieldy from several directions. Just for salvage, it takes a LOT of runs to make 100K *unbound* salvage to mail to a second account. Running GUINEA PIG dungeons for AD/seals on your alt accounts requires that you gear up your alt accounts at least a little, and involves giving up on your account-wide unlocks and spending time and effort for low rewards. It's a TON of time and mostly not worth the effort - you'll get the same or better profit in the same time on average running high-end dungeons searching for unbound drops and playing the market.
(Of course, there were people who ran a levelling dungeon on every alt every day before, so there clearly are people who do not value their time very highly at all. If you consider your own time to be worthless, maybe running levellings on alt accounts feels like "profit" to you.)
Comments
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
I still run the weeklies because:
1. It saves me a little salvage and takes less time to run those than it does to run epic dungeons for the salvage to match.
2. I get gems from some of them.
3. On my characters that have completed the campaigns, it gives me something to donate to my guild's coffer.
4. On my characters that have not completed the campaigns, they make slow progress. Since I don't care when they finish those campaigns, slow progress is perfectly acceptable.
As for newbies not refining enchantments, that's not true. If they were previously inclined to do so, they'll still do it. If they weren't, then they probably will not (but they might still). I can't imagine that refining enchantments to raise IL was ever "very effective". Maybe in the first year or 18 months of this game, but the IL increases from enchantments are minuscule. Improving companion quality, getting five mounts with three insignia slots each and putting at least rare insignias into them, and doing campaigns for boons are the next fastest ways to improve IL after getting better gear. Personally, I refined artifacts on my characters before I started refining enchantments because I recognized that was going to raise my IL faster.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Ravenloft provides abundant opportunity to catch up to top-tier players. It does not make you a top-tier player. And armor IL is irrelevant, it's enchant IL that matters (and that drives ward sales).
As I said: lolnoob.
If you think the backlog doesn't affect you, you're not qualified to participate in this discussion. Because that might be TRUE, but if it's true, your opinion is just not relevant.
+ problems around ZEN Charge Promotions
+ more bugs and game issues with each new module
+ being really fast with handing out nerfs, but fixing stuff takes them a looong time
+ Adventurer and Fashion packs in lockboxes
+ removing Class packs from the ZEN shop
+ releasing Adventurer packs into the ZEN shop
and so on.
Not to mention, that what is currently in the Wondrous Bazaar and the Tarmalune Trade Bars Store is just useless or way overpriced. I mean, do they even have plans for imroving those stores for the players at some point in the near future?
Here's an crazy idea... give us something that's actually worth spending ZEN or AD on in game for a change.
Anyway, there's more then enough options to improve the situation for players, but all we get are "special" companion auctions and another "End of Summer" bonus, which might prevent the ZAX from reaching that 21m AD backlog again... for now.
rate almost never hits cap. BECAUSE in STO crystals are more valuable in fleet projects than AD are valued in NWO.
So, 2 ways to stabilize the exchange price.
Create a game wide system that sucks excess AD out of the game (a continuous sink) in STO it is lockbox keys
for sale in AH and fleet projects. (Fleets in STO are more successful than guilds in NWO)
or
Create a continuous advantage or reward for exchanging coin for AD that can not be exploited.
refine point rewards for exchanging coin? Timed exp bonuses or something like that.
My personal choice, exclusive tiered player housing. All costs are in AD including maint.
Better hood, bigger residents, more area perks (exclusive dungeons and raid areas).
Want you own castle? fine. Great hood? fine. buy and maintain it with AD...period.
Ever hungry AD sink stabilizes exchange price.
People buy more coin, to EXCHANGE so they can keep their personal Castles going, with personal vendors,
trophy rooms, pool etc.
BUT BUT that is what guilds are ? and they fail at that because more players are solo.
Guilds for the groupies - Player housing for the solos.
enough said.
or if you want the really easy fix? allow anyone to buy a guild charter for X amount of AD
and create a 1 person guild. Almost the same thing, less coding. But not as cool.
Armor and weapons would degrade slowly, but steadily with a blanket reduction in stats from 100% to 0% over the course of, say a 2 week period. The cost wouldn't be crazy but the lower the IL the lower the price (so new and leveling players won't be overly burdened - likely leveling players wouldn't have an issue as they'd replace their gear faster than it degrades anyway).
Degraded gear cannot be salvaged, but it doesn't degrade unless it's actually being worn (however, wearing it for even 1 second would degrade it a little bit, so you'd need to repair it even then -- No returns on worn equip! Store policy).
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Degrade over use (such as combat), I also don't like it but may be.
Someone with R12s in every slot and Chult gear, I figure has been gone for a few months but I expect to be good. Someone with the same IL and R9s with Barovian hunt gear, I expect to be an inexperienced player. Not necessarily bad, but just not in the same league.
I think we were talking about different things, not actually disagreeing.
ZAX queue depends on the balance between Zen needed and AD needed to build a character. Today you need so much Zen(wards..) to build a character that our AD income outpaces the Zen supplied buy the Zen buyers, and you get the queue.
To cut the queue you need to change the balance between Zen needed and AD needed so you need more AD and less Zen to build a character.
The latest change to the Zen/AD balance was the introduction of r13 enchants, that massively increased the Zen needed and did not increase the AD needed that much. So much of todays ZAX queue probably come from that game change.
To fix the ZAX queue they need to make the players need more AD for each ward they need. Doubling the price of all marks probably would to the trick, but also would be massively unpopular with the players.
If we disregard any price-increasing changes to the existing system, what Cryptic need to do is to introduce some new type of gear that needs large amounts of AD to develop while needing little Zen. This is what is popularily called an AD sink
I'd love to see whatever proof you could offer that players are creating "many alt accounts", though I rather doubt you have any.
As @mentinmindmaker explained to you, the ZAX backlog grows because there isn't enough incentive to sell Zen for AD. I sold some Zen in July and early August because I wanted to buy some vouchers to level my guild. At this point, I'm buying a little Zen every month and I'm no longer selling it for AD; I'm using it to buy wards and get ready for the next Wondrous Bazaar sale when I can spend every last AD I have on marks. Nobody will be buying any Zen from me on the exchange probably before the beginning of 2019, if it's even that soon.
The question is what is the net effect. I think there is more AD out there now.
Anecdotal Part 2: We know from the developers that "a low-single-digit percentage" of all active players hit 100k/day before.
I think there's more people hitting 100K, and (of course) fewer people beating it.
Also, "making a second account to refine more" is unwieldy from several directions. Just for salvage, it takes a LOT of runs to make 100K *unbound* salvage to mail to a second account. Running GUINEA PIG dungeons for AD/seals on your alt accounts requires that you gear up your alt accounts at least a little, and involves giving up on your account-wide unlocks and spending time and effort for low rewards. It's a TON of time and mostly not worth the effort - you'll get the same or better profit in the same time on average running high-end dungeons searching for unbound drops and playing the market.
(Of course, there were people who ran a levelling dungeon on every alt every day before, so there clearly are people who do not value their time very highly at all. If you consider your own time to be worthless, maybe running levellings on alt accounts feels like "profit" to you.)