New lockbox paywalled?

quickfoot · July 2019

Why is the new resurgence lockbox paywalled? Before, when a new mod was about to be released, mobs stopped dropping whatever lockbox was dropping before, and started dropping the resurgence lockboxes, I would farm these and save them up for the rest of the year to open with keys from VIP. As far as I know, the only way to get these new resurgence lockboxes is from the zen store, or the ah (people who got them from the zen store).

Is this going to change? Will the new lockboxes start dropping from mobs soon, or are even these lockboxes going to be locked behind a paywall along w/ the keys?

arazith07 · July 2019

They changed to a different lockbox format back in M15 for the box with options for the higher tier rewards and are generally in place of the old GR boxes. This new one is basically an undated GR lockbox, and yes it is only able to be gotten via Zen. Which is where most of the keys in game are generated.

quickfoot · July 2019

Right, but they are paywalled. The reason I disagree with this, while maybe selfish, I'm sure plenty of other players feel the same way, is that I can't farm them, and later open them with vip keys. I have no zen, atm, and when I do, I usually don't buy keys or key packs, so I will only be able to acquire and open these boxes, if I buy them on the auction house at dramatically over priced rates.

arazith07 · July 2019

I agree, it sucks for VIP members. But I think they are looking to avoid saturation of the game market like what happened with GR boxes, in an effort to make sure that it's not the only lock box that was opened for years.

quickfoot · July 2019

They've already reduced drop rates on lockboxes though. I get significantly less than I used to, I might be able to get half a stack of each box release. Considering the shorter duration they *could* be dropping, and reduced drop rate, and popularity, I doubt there would be such an influx. For extra measure, they could always reduce the drop rate on these even further than they already have the "normal" boxes.

nic1985 · July 2019

Paywalled if it was behind a zen charge promotion or something similar.

If it is on the zen store even temporarily then AD to Zen is still an option. Unfortunately for some not having the zen saved or get the zen in time from ZAX.

quickfoot · July 2019

Regardless, the only primary source of these boxes is from the zen store, all other sources would be secondary (i.e. trade or the ah).

sandukutupu · July 2019

They probably breathed a heavy sigh of relief at Cryptic as England stated, they have no plans, at this time, to take action against loot boxes in games. I know England is just one country across the pond but I bet they make up a fair amount of the users on this game.

Link to article on BBC news

sgtpostal · July 2019

good point as mentioned in a ps4 thread..... i wanna know if this new box will get added to the game later OR if once the key pack goes away its "oh well you missed you shot at the box maybe thatll teach you to always have a savings account (stocked zen lol) eh?"

bayaz · July 2019

I think in the 2 weeks before a new module, they switched the droping lockbox to glorious before M15 changed the boxes and i think there was another LB in the 2 weeks before Undermountain too.

Maybe we will get an anouncement on Monday, that the new lockbox will start dropping on tuesday till Uprising goes live

mentinmindmaker · July 2019

They already did the end-of-module lockbox switch for this module. They just replaced a normal lockbox with another normal lockbox.

Considering the massive drop in player numbers at the moment, I am not surprised they are looking in all the corners for additional income sources. Hopefully most of the player number drop is caused by summer vacations, but the scaling mess of mod 16 followed by a very small and uninteresting mod 17 makes me fear it is not.

tom · July 2019

> @mentinmindmaker said:
> They already did the end-of-module lockbox switch for this module. They just replaced a normal lockbox with another normal lockbox.
>
> Considering the massive drop in player numbers at the moment, I am not surprised they are looking in all the corners for additional income sources. Hopefully most of the player number drop is caused by summer vacations, but the scaling mess of mod 16 followed by a very small and uninteresting mod 17 makes me fear it is not.

How do u know that there is a masive player drop?

cts2000 · July 2019

tom#6998 said:
> @mentinmindmaker said:

> They already did the end-of-module lockbox switch for this module. They just replaced a normal lockbox with another normal lockbox.

>

> Considering the massive drop in player numbers at the moment, I am not surprised they are looking in all the corners for additional income sources. Hopefully most of the player number drop is caused by summer vacations, but the scaling mess of mod 16 followed by a very small and uninteresting mod 17 makes me fear it is not.

How do u know that there is a masive player drop?

I don't know about player numbers on PC, but I can say that this summer event has been the most empty I have seen since ps4 launch. In past years there were players doing sahaa ball groups all over the place. This year that has not been the case.

hustin1 · July 2019

cts2000#2706 said:

tom#6998 said:
> @mentinmindmaker said:

> They already did the end-of-module lockbox switch for this module. They just replaced a normal lockbox with another normal lockbox.

>

> Considering the massive drop in player numbers at the moment, I am not surprised they are looking in all the corners for additional income sources. Hopefully most of the player number drop is caused by summer vacations, but the scaling mess of mod 16 followed by a very small and uninteresting mod 17 makes me fear it is not.

How do u know that there is a masive player drop?
I don't know about player numbers on PC, but I can say that this summer event has been the most empty I have seen since ps4 launch. In past years there were players doing sahaa ball groups all over the place. This year that has not been the case.

It's gotten so bad in Chult that most of the time there is only **ONE** Soshenstar and Omu instance. That's it. One. Someone would announce, "kos up", someone else would ask, "what instance", and i'd say, "this is the only one". Now that's bad.

quickfoot · July 2019

Idk what the player count is, I guess if they release this lb in game starting Aug 1, then I would be stoked about that. Maybe it being in the zen store is a "pre-release" for those w/ zen to have early access, idk.

thefiresidecat · July 2019

player count doesn't seem that declined on xbox but maybe it is. our economy has tanked. everything is losing value. all the key sales on top of the 40 percent off sale. and that mount insignia box. the amount of leggy mounts on the market has massively increased. ppl are selling better mounts even for less than 5 mil. and nothing is moving on the market except for small things. the adx crashed to 440 from 670. yes there is 1 instance of chult but I don't see why that would be used as an indicator. yeah everyone wants hunt gear now but most have it already and it's very easy to get. the campaign itself is ancient now. why would there be multiple zones now. as also mentioned ball groups are there.. but yeah the volume is really down from past years but when this festival started a lot of people were grumpy about professions to make the ball and everyone hates saha. so it might be people have just said no to balls this year because too aggravating.

so with that in mind about the tanked economy (and now thanks to this new lockbox even the one thing that had been holding some value (new artifact) is going to tank too. I honestly don't see why people are opening lockboxes at all. just buy your mount or whatever you want. it's the cheapest it's ever going to be. someone offered me a t rex for 4.5 mil yesterday. why are people opening boxes. you aren't going to get a t rex with 4.5 mil in boxes....

autumnwitch · July 2019

Look at my last post in this thread.... the numbers are down and as I point out these may not be indicative of all of NW, but these trends usually do play out in the end.

https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/comment/13114747

finalfantasyac7 · July 2019

tom#6998 said:
> @mentinmindmaker said:

> They already did the end-of-module lockbox switch for this module. They just replaced a normal lockbox with another normal lockbox.

>

> Considering the massive drop in player numbers at the moment, I am not surprised they are looking in all the corners for additional income sources. Hopefully most of the player number drop is caused by summer vacations, but the scaling mess of mod 16 followed by a very small and uninteresting mod 17 makes me fear it is not.

How do u know that there is a masive player drop?

Most guilds are almost empty or dead.
A lot of players were banned due to mod 15 hunt exploit and many were no longer interested playing the game and left/quit due to the new changes to neverwinter mod 16.
Mod 16 seems to have messed things up for most high level characters. Most of them were big spenders i guess.

mentinmindmaker · July 2019

It is my gut feeling that game activity is all-time low.
* Low summer event activity
* Low guild activity and online numbers
* Low forums activity
* Long wait times in RQs
* Little action on AH
* Steam graphs
* 'Desperate' sales from Cryptic

Lots of small indications that things are not going well.

A fairly disastrous mod 16 followed by a small and for the average player uninteresting mod 17 is part of the background picture. They really should have used mod 17 to bombard us with level 80 unscaled content.

Oh well, lets hope it will pick up when summer is over. Low income -> small developer staff -> Less content upgrades -> Less players -> Lower income. A pretty vicious death spiral.

quickfoot · July 2019

Also keep in mind, player population always declines this time of year when school starts, and summer vaca comes to an end, though it does feel like the drop in player count is happening a couple weeks before it usually has.

As for financial motivations being the reason why this new shiney lockbox is only sourced from the Zen Store, ok point made. But what I would like to see is some reasons or a push to get this lockbox to start dropping from mobs soon, like the GR lb always has, or if you disagree w/ it dropping from mobs for whatever reason, that's cool too. But, railroading this thread to being about the ethics or legality of lockboxes or whether or not the game is "dying", is not what I had in mind, and I think those topics would best be served in their own threads.

Thanks.

fyrstigor · July 2019

Player drop in activity always starts 4-6 weeks before a new mod comes out. Less wanna farm the stuff that will be worth less or nothing in next mod. Many have already farmed everything they wanted from this mod and just waiting for next. Match that with summer and vacations.

But im sure that all the streamers and guide writers crying in all sorts of ways of how mod 16 "ruined" the game, didnt help either. Hopefully in a mod or 2 most will realize it was nothing but lies and come back and enjoy the game again.

ecrana · July 2019

thefiresidecat said:
the adx crashed to 440 from 670.

Agree with everything but this is a misrepresentation of the adx on XB. The market didn't crash out of nowhere. It has spiked because of sales, the anniversary event, etc and has now reset to where it was before any of those events. It's technically spiked multiple times this year thanks to the newly inspired marketing prowess behind these constant sales. Each time it's gone back down to where it was. 670 was an anomaly not the norm so the adx market did not crash. Now if we hit 350, then we can start talking crash since that would be a huge drop from the norm.

The mount market, that has most definitely crashed. The new "magnificent" boxes, yeah that crashed like a bullet overnight.

zimxero · July 2019

It would be awesome if players could trade a stack of 999 lock boxes for one of the "new boxes". That would remove some of the glut on the market. Right now there are so many drops its ridiculous.

New lockbox paywalled?

Comments