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Legendary Mount in Insignia Pack Great Concept - In Theory
dionchi
Member Posts: 919 Arc User
With the Legendary Mount Insignia Pack players have a "chance" to open a pack containing one of 18 legendary mounts, which is great but the type of mount the player gets is assigned randomly which for me is not so great - so not great as a matter of fact I didn't even consider buying a pack considering the law of averages...
I wouldn't mind having a legendary;
Tenser’s Floating Disk,
Arcane Whirlwind,
Black Ice Warhorse...
But I have absolutely no interest in a legendary;
Warpainted Tyrannosaur,
Commander Tyrannosaur,
Celestial Stag,
Runeclad Manticore,
Swarm,
Swift Golden Lion (mount),
Armored Griffon,
Emperor Beetle,
Imperial Rage Drake,
Skeleton Steed,
Armored Bulette,
Armored Axe Beak,
Armored Giant Strider,
Coastal Flail Snail or
War Triceratops
There are 15 reasons why I wouldn't consider purchasing a Legendary Mount Insignia Pack and only 3 reasons why I would. Yeah, yeah 'it's all random' and I might get my preferred mount on the very first try, or I might open 50+ packs and never get my preferred mount and as I said considering the law or averages, it's not something I'm particularly interested in tossing money at.
Now if the Legendary Mount Insignia Pack offered a "Player's Choice" of one of the listed beasties, yeah I'd definitely consider an out of pocket gamble but as it is... no thank you.
"A+" for Concept... Solid "D" for Execution ~
I wouldn't mind having a legendary;
Tenser’s Floating Disk,
Arcane Whirlwind,
Black Ice Warhorse...
But I have absolutely no interest in a legendary;
Warpainted Tyrannosaur,
Commander Tyrannosaur,
Celestial Stag,
Runeclad Manticore,
Swarm,
Swift Golden Lion (mount),
Armored Griffon,
Emperor Beetle,
Imperial Rage Drake,
Skeleton Steed,
Armored Bulette,
Armored Axe Beak,
Armored Giant Strider,
Coastal Flail Snail or
War Triceratops
There are 15 reasons why I wouldn't consider purchasing a Legendary Mount Insignia Pack and only 3 reasons why I would. Yeah, yeah 'it's all random' and I might get my preferred mount on the very first try, or I might open 50+ packs and never get my preferred mount and as I said considering the law or averages, it's not something I'm particularly interested in tossing money at.
Now if the Legendary Mount Insignia Pack offered a "Player's Choice" of one of the listed beasties, yeah I'd definitely consider an out of pocket gamble but as it is... no thank you.
"A+" for Concept... Solid "D" for Execution ~
DD~
1
Comments
I view it as a lottery ticket. buy 1 or 3 and if you get lucky awesome, if you don't you had a couple fun tries and if you're really lucky you come out even.
Too much in Neverwinter is unpredictably fluid and I'm not going to (again) be one of those players who invests in a bunch of insignia for my mounts - when someone decides players really only need three which will apply to all of their mounts... People can say" "That'd never happen" - but did anyone even imagine the changes to companion gear before Neverwinter decided to do it?
And I don't spend a lot of money on gambling or lottery tickets (but I repeat myself) for the same reason I'm not presently interested in buying a Legendary Mount Insignia Pack... although it is undeniably fun when I win - it sucks when I lose and I tend to lose a lot more than I win.
Again, considering the law or averages, especially for "game gear" that has no practical value outside the game - no thank you.
Actually I just posted because if Neverwinter is actually interested in increasing their revenue, they might want to reconsider how they package some of their "special deals"... Like I said as the sale currently stands I'm not interested -
However if when I opened a pack and found "Your choice of one of the following Legendary Mounts" that, I would probably consider gambling on.
As for the suggestion I sell an unwanted mount and hope to get enough to purchase a preferred mount, I still look at Neverwinter as a "game" I enjoy and I'm not looking to turn it into a second job that has a tendency to annoy and disappoint because the time and effort invested is not close to equal to the reward.
I'd rather prefer some kind of system that counts each lockbox/lottery pack opened towards a specific goal - similar to how refining works these days - and then we get a main reward as an account bound version.
The regular main rewards would remain tradeable for all those lucky ones that get them before reaching the "unboxing" cap, but everyone else would at least have the certainty to get something good at some point.
I mean, the game allready has more then enough RNG HAMSTER going on, i'd say it's high time to tone some of it down.
Makes sense I suppose but I didn't start playing Neverwinter to become an Auction House broker or trying to accumulate a great deal of wealth instead of actually playing the game.
Seems someone at Neverwinter may have lost sight of the fact that for many of us, being able to actually play the game, even if it means running our alt. stable through the same content our mains have already done IS the purpose for playing Neverwinter. Not the relentless grind to get more/better whatever's or trying to make a in game currency killing on the Auction House (or professions for that matter).
I still find playing the game fun, maybe not as fun as going through some of the content the first few times and even more so when I'm able to help out someone new-ish to the content along the way... most of the unessential content and superfluous grinding is pretty much the antithesis of what I still enjoy about Neverwinter.
¢¢
Why am I even bringing this up? Well the problem is the only way NW stays active is if there are players willing to drop real money into the game. Without these players cryptic makes no money. So essentially cryptic has the incentive to draw in players who are willing to spend real money in the game. This often means making highly valued items easier or ONLY obtainable if a player spends real money. But this is where free to play players claim the game becomes pay to win. If you don't pay real money then you can never be as competitive, but technically this isn't true for NW since you can obtain every item without spending any money.
However the difficulty of the game now comes into question. A player who can dump cash into the game and get max ranked enchantments and legendary insignia with legendary mounts will find the content much easier than a player who is still working on building up their character while still running end game content. So this other player might not have the best enchants yet, or they might be missing their legendary mounts, or they might not even have one legendary insignia. This means there are two essential classes of players and cryptic tries to make both classes happy. The content needs to be hard enough for the player who has everything maxed but this also means that those players who don't have everything maxed will find this same content very difficult.
Most players try to use a form of punishment on players who are still working on their characters without spending money. They will refuse acceptance into end game content if they know you are this type of player. There is always a constant push to only run with players who are maxed out or very very close to max out gear. But once again, the content becomes too easy for these maxed out players who group with other maxed out players and thus causes cryptic to think the content is too easy and they bump it up which punishes those who are in the second class making the content too difficult for them.
This causes a backlash incentive for those players, now they are either forced to pay cash to get a little bump to their character progression, or they toss in the towel and say they refuse to pay any money if that is what is required to be able to finish the end game content. Cryptic actually has incentive to build this second class group of players, because they know some will break and spend cash, those who leave will be replaced by new naive players who haven't learned the system yet.
This is why we have content like TOMM where only the top 5 to 10% of the player base will complete it. This also means that only the top 5 to 10 percent will make money, thus further driving the two classes of players apart from each other.
There are a few exceptions here. One is you could be classified as a second class player and either sneak your way into the upper class groups which then can possibly bump your progression enough to maintain your upper class status. Or maybe not sneak in but a few higher class players are willing to accept the lower class player into groups for what ever reason. Perhaps because they understand this whole divide and know if they don't up the lower class some of the upper class players might quit and need to be replaced so its better to get a few lower class bumped up so they have a larger pool of players to run end game content with.
However there will always be a very very large portion of the player base, no matter how much they play, no matter how much effort they put in, they will never complete end game content like the upper class players can if at all. This is the reality of the game currently. It might change and it should change because this is a major problem currently.
Those 5% or 10% of players who can complete the most difficult and thereby most rewarding of Neverwinter content too often set themselves as the epitome of how they tend to think other players should be outfitted sometimes forgetting how long, how much effort or money they had to attribute to get where they are and the simple fact that not everyone else has the financial means or ability to commit the time and effort to get where they presently are thus not able to so easily navigate the higher level content... but they will be able to get there more quickly if they are allowed to participate in some of that higher level content.
So the clear premise as I see it is those who have not reached end game maxed out (or nearly maxed out) gear might be more willing to contribute to the financial support of Neverwinter - but not if they feel their previous former financial support (buying new gear, mounts, companions, etc.), has been and will continue to be negated by the introduction of game changes.
Those players who have reached end game maxed out (or nearly maxed out) gear are usually less willing to contribute to the financial support of Neverwinter because it is easier for them to farm more significant amounts of Astral Diamonds and trade AD's for Zen through the exchange - but without the exchange I believe a significant number of veteran players would just walk away from Neverwinter taking their accumulated skills and experience with them.
So long as there is a Zen exchange most end game players probably won't feel the need to contribute much to the financial support of Neverwinter - they really don't have to because of their ability to efficiency farm AD's and being able to convert AD's to Zen...
New and other players might be inclined to financially support the game, but that inclination tends to disappear if after their contribution the items they've purchased are nerfed by subsequent changes to existing game content that tends to render their purchased items obsolete or less effective than they were at the time of purchase, seems to me to be counter productive to the idea of continued financial support from those players.
¢¢
I say put stuff into the Zen Market that we can spend real life money on which is fun, awesome and useful LONG TERM.
Or the return of actually improved Class/Module packs including epic account wide companions/mounts.
Considering how the Devs mess around with the classes over and over again, they should really think hard about giving us more instead of less account wide goodies in the ZEN shop. Nothing like realising that you have picked the "wrong" class and seeing your whole investment of time and/or money going down the drain with a new module to close ones wallet and start looking for a new game to play...
1) People who dump cash into the game and get max ranked enchantments, insignias, and mounts don't always find the content to be easier than players still working on their characters for two reasons (again I say not always). #1 SKILL - a players skill can make a big difference on how easy content ends up being. Knowing what powers to use at certain times. How they work together. What to expect. Skill can make a big difference. But there is one thing that make an even bigger difference (which I sort of already touched on) and that brings us to #2 Knowledge/Experience - This is a really big one. You can sink as much money into the game as you want but if you don't have the experience/knowledge then it was just a waste of money. It doesn't matter if you have rank 15 enchants, best mounts, best insignias, if you lack experience you will find your character dying quite often. And don't worry, many (not all) end game players can tell the difference between a player with low enchants that knows the mechanics and their character (who dies a bunch) and a player with max enchants that doesn't know the mechanics/character (and dies a bunch). (We prefer those who know what they are doing since there is a high chance of success with them compared to people with large bank accounts... I'm not joking)
2) I've notice some people saying its difficult/hard/too long to upgrade a character and that people will not invite you cause you're not maxed out (paraphrasing from several different posts). I can assure you that currently this is the easiest, quickest, and in many cases the cheapest (AD wise) it has been in the game. Back before, we had to do artifact feeding to upgrade our artifacts and the cost of RP was ridiculous. When upgrading enchantments, after Rank 7 we needed another of that current rank to sacrifice to upgrade it to the next rank. And speaking of RP, it was a lot harder to come by back then too. What people can do in a month these days use to take 6 months or more before. Players would prep for months for events like x2 refinement, so they could make some progress on their character. And the prices on the auction house are the cheapest they have ever been. I don't mean to belittle anyone and I understand that we are no longer "back in the day" but many people spent YEARS not money (but some people spent money... a lot of money) to get their characters to end game. I hope people don't find this to be harsh or insulting. That wasn't my intent.
3) I've also notice some people saying that end game players don't contribute any real world money to Cryptic. (paraphrasing of course). I can assure you that we do. Some do it every MOD to show thanks for more content. Some do it when Cryptic does something awesome in game like when they came out with "Loadouts". And some do it just to support a game they love to play. Do all? No. But many do. (But yes, a lot of the money does come from new players).
4) This is the dangerous one I want to talk about. **Putting stuff into the Zen store**. This needs to be carefully thought about. We already crossed a line when they put in the Legendary mounts for a limited time. When you start putting the best items in a cash shop two things happen. 1# people buy them and we end up with what I talked about in my first point with people knowing nothing and having everything and unable to complete content. And #2 a massive devalue of everything in game which people have been complaining about since it is so hard to find good items to sell on the auction house. I've already seen some posts about pulling rank 8-9 enchantments or artifacts from dungeon chests and complaining about how super cheap they are on the auction house. Everyone gets 2 sets of rank 8 enchantments from ravenloft and undermountain so rank 8 are now worthless. And Rank 9 enchantments are dropping from lock-boxes like they're going out of style (which they are). And older artifacts are mostly outdated and useless. So the more things you put into the cash shop, the more worthless everything else becomes making it harder to upgrade. So we must be very careful what we ask Cryptic to put into the cash shop because you could end up killing the market, which could kill the game. Also, what if that they put a Legendary mount in the cash shop that is Best In Slot and then a month or two down the road they nerf it?? Scary thought. We must be careful!!
Just my 2 cents. Might be right, might be way off the mark. Sorry if it was a bit harsh. Again that wasn't my intent.
All the best,
OPTank_
Now imagine having to do that with weapon/armor enchants?
But currently, with the HAMSTER changes from Mod16, a lot of people got HAMSTER-HAMSTER with enchants and other stuff. All of my toons have triple-stat enchants that are now absolutely worthless and many of these were made pre-2015. I made most of these (all Rank 10s or higher and a few 9's here and there) before the changes in refinement and now, I can't even recoup what I put into them to upgrade my alts to decent single stat enchants. They should still be viable, but they're not thanks to HAMSTER stat-capping.
I stopped running dungeons years ago for two reasons 1. you get nothing but junk or 2. you had to deal with an elitist mentality of "not being good enough." Jimmy is clearly one of the decent ones, but I had my fill of dealing with people demanding I change my powers to benefit their class or switching to a build I don't play, 'cos they "need it" or get kicked from the party. Add in the fact that Dungeon Bosses can still one-shot a toon in seconds (Halaster, anyone?), but god forbid a bunch of end gamers min-max buffs to melt bosses the way they do players, we have to completely change the mechanics to where it benefits the Developers and not players.
You get HAMSTER in those Legendary drops (which are now gone, btw), 'cos this game is not financially stable anymore. They're making no money off it, so if you got a Legendary drop you didn't want, which has a less than 0.04% chance to drop anyway, Cryptic doesn't care.
They've already squeeze their money out of you.....
There's a saying.....
"No matter how much you polish it, a HAMSTER is still a HAMSTER."
All the best,
OPTank_