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CDP Topic: Rewards & Progression

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  • mythdemeanourmythdemeanour Member Posts: 87 Arc User
    Overview:
    Make old mods worth while to revisit.

    Goal:
    To enable the upgrade of old (trash) armor/weapons to a higher tier.

    Functionality:
    Make it so that every new mod introduces an "upgrade" token that after much hard work (completion of the final dungeon for instance) could be used to upgrade any one gear item. This could be used to make one piece of equipment from the old mod more viable to equip (stats) and thus keep even the oldest of content relevant moving forward. Requiring many such tokens to upgrade a full set of armor/weapons for example, thus making the mixing and matching more fun/work. These tokens could be additive as in you will need to multiple tokens to upgrade one item from an old mod to make it current. For example elemental evil weapons to say an Ice wind dale ready one would require only one token, but the same weapon would require many steps and dungeon completions to make it viable as a mod 18 weapon with the stats to match, This could again make certain special weapon effects be fun to play with and variety is always a good thing.

    Risks & Concerns:
    The programming to implement these changes would require that the different mods be put in a certain order to show the progression of said mods. Along with the amount of programming to make the stages of each piece of gear is daunting but IMO for the variety and replayability alone it would make the entire game fresh again. There will again be a certain "meta" that would be the BIS, but that has always been the case anyways.

    In Conclusion:
    Once the token system is in place new mods could re-use the "old" token code thus making all old content as relevant as the new content.
  • josephskyrimjosephskyrim Member Posts: 356 Arc User

    @josephskyrim bully is an emotionally laden word to use here. No one is bullying u to use scrolls. Require and intimidate are 2 very different things. There are good reasons to require it in modern content. If u chase after a downed player the odds of the whole team going down are greatly increased and if u lose a person u may not finish

    Apologies, it seems I did the perfect example of "trying to fix something I didn't quite understand". Hopefully Cryptic takes note to not do the same. :)
    If you can't stand on a chest, it is a mimic!
  • cwhitesidedev#9752 cwhitesidedev Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 253 Cryptic Developer
    Hi All,

    I know I said I would be jumping in today but it just wasn't possible due to today ending up being a very busy day for me. I should have more time tomorrow. All i would say is keep the ideas and thoughts coming. Whilst conversation about ideas is good I wouldn't drill to far down into any specific area just yet. We will do that as part of the second phase of this CDP.

    Sorry I haven't engaged sooner and I am very much looking forward to doing so.

    Chris
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User
    > @jmiller84 said:
    > I mentioned this in the VIP CDP, but it could very easily translate into rewards progression as well.
    >
    > Trade-in and Upgrade Vendors or Professions
    >
    > When mod17 launched we were given upwards of 300+ pieces of companion equipment, most of which got turned into Gold or RP, and around 40 pieces of new shirts and pants. The only "guaranteed' piece of companion equipment we wanted was after completing the Stardock quest line to unlock Tower of the Mad Mage, but event that was only sort of what was wanted as we were only able to choose between the single-stat pieces instead of all available IL 1010 pieces.
    >
    > Personally I spent months going after 1 particular piece of companion equipment with no success. 4 toons running daily ME's along with Stardock WE's and FE's, with each having a rune placed to get an Etching upon completion. Do the math and that's about 30 Etchings per week per toon, over about 3 months. We're talking well over 1000 Zok Boxes and didn't get the 1 piece of companion gear I was chasing. Got multiples of many IL 1010 pieces, but never the Critical Strike + Critical Avoidance piece.
    >
    > Same goes for the Fragment Expeditions, so many Shirts and Pants, but only one chance a week and 4 levels of each type.
    >
    > I'd suggest one of these options:
    >
    > After you complete the Teachings of Zermithon or whatever the Stardock quest line is called in which you get the box containing your choice of companion equipment, make it a repeatable quest line. At completion you get a choice of a double stat companion gear piece or clothing of your choice. It keeps people invested in running the content while at the same time knowing that they're making progress towards the item(s) they're chasing.
    >
    > In Professions add new tasks to that would allow you to change and upgrade gear. For example, if you wanted to change a piece of companion gear into a different piece, you'd need whatever the required reagents would be, along with 2 pieces of same IL companion gear. Again, it keeps people invested in running the content while at the same time knowing that they're making progress towards the item(s) they're chasing.

    Definitely agree on this. Yesterday I was talking to a good wizard in our alliance and he's still chasing companions belts with defense and an offensive stat in order to bring defense to cap for Tomm and TIC.
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
  • sobi#1980 sobi Member Posts: 401 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    For me, one of the most stressing part of this game is its obsession with daily/weekly limits to just about everything in the game. ME's are a great example of it and this behavior has been prevalent in the past. In essence, the consequence is the feeling of doing a chore as part of your daily life. Most of us I believe are busier one day than other and would like to catch up on those specific days. However, this is not possible because the game assumes you have free time every day 24/7. In addition, this also limits gameplay and forces players to move onto other games after they have just completed their daily "chores". I have previously mentioned about the phenomena of endless progression, something always there to do (at least until next mod), which NW is in complete contradiction to.

    This is a mixture of rewards and progression category but I have a simple currency that I personally believe people would love to grind. Once the loot chances of dungeon lockboxes are altered accordingly (preferable with dungeon difficulty tiers) then allowing players to grind REROLLs, would create an opportunity of endless progression. TOMM is an great example of it, taking into account all the pots, overloads, scrolls and etc, you really do not make profit unless you have rerolls or you grind the hell out of it.

    Risks and Concerns
    People will be less inclined to play alts but i do not like the idea of forcing players to play alts to begin with.

  • mythdemeanourmythdemeanour Member Posts: 87 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    wilbur626 said:

    > @mythdemeanour said:
    > Overview:

    > Make old mods worth while to revisit.

    > Goal:

    > To enable the upgrade of old (trash) armor/weapons to a higher tier.

    > Functionality:

    > Make it so that every new mod introduces an "upgrade" token that after much hard work (completion of the final dungeon for instance) could be used to upgrade any one gear item. This could be used to make one piece of equipment from the old mod more viable to equip (stats) and thus keep even the oldest of content relevant moving forward. Requiring many such tokens to upgrade a full set of armor/weapons for example, thus making the mixing and matching more fun/work. These tokens could be additive as in you will need to multiple tokens to upgrade one item from an old mod to make it current. For example elemental evil weapons to say an Ice wind dale ready one would require only one token, but the same weapon would require many steps and dungeon completions to make it viable as a mod 18 weapon with the stats to match, This could again make certain special weapon effects be fun to play with and variety is always a good thing.

    > Risks & Concerns:

    > The programming to implement these changes would require that the different mods be put in a certain order to show the progression of said mods. Along with the amount of programming to make the stages of each piece of gear is daunting but IMO for the variety and replayability alone it would make the entire game fresh again. There will again be a certain "meta" that would be the BIS, but that has always been the case anyways.

    > In Conclusion:

    > Once the token system is in place new mods could re-use the "old" token code thus making all old content as relevant as the new content.



    Wouldn’t it be better if crafters were able to disassemble older gear to reuse the set/equip bonuses on new gear?

    IMO a crafting add-on could be used too (or in place of) especially if requiring the higher tier mod's dependent components. Either way i'm just looking for a way to make the old mods more than just a way to get some boons. Adding some spice to old content is always a good thing IMO.
  • shrineerune#9386 shrineerune Member Posts: 48 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    Feedback Overview: I am mostly a solo player that is very motivated by story and collection of things, so when I think of "rewards" I am thinking about what makes my personal experience feel engaging and fun. I will give feedback about each of the categories we were asked to consider from that personal perspective alone. I am reading and appreciating the other experiences expressed. Thank you.

    Feedback Goal: Offering a non-technical viewpoint from a casual solo player.

    Feedback Functionality: This is where I'll break this down into the requested feedback areas.

    Reward Quality/Time Spent - I love all the game areas and stories, and enjoy going through the campaigns at first. The problem is that I hit some things like time gating, massive repetition, and required items that are hard to get as a solo person running through old content. The end result of such efforts can feel great on a story level, or even on the level of having a new transmute that shows that I've finished something. It can feel rather flat on the level of the functionality of the item really only being a transmute, small amount of RP, or small amount of currency. To make matters worse, I can't pay to expand the amount of transmutes that I can store in my library. I would like to be able to pay for more transmute space. I don't mind grinding or buying completion tokens for old campaigns, but would love to see some of those group-dependent drops removed from the items necessary to progress.

    Existing and New Reward Categories- I like boons, and I enjoy earning them through campaigns. I love interesting items that can work as transmutes, but feel some of the obsolete equipment takes too much grinding for the result. (Collecting motes for the Elemental Evil campaign stuff, for example.)
    I feel pretty marginal about the lockboxes lately, as they have RP (which is useful) but not much else. One minor tweak that would make them feel better is to make RP account bound, as folks have suggested earlier. I run a lot of alts, and that would be a big bonus.

    Rewards Through Progress Leveling- I sort of felt a major dropoff in fun as my characters failed to move their class and race story arcs forward. Dropped equipment starts out fun and relevant, but then ends up feeling weirdly trivial over time. I do appreciate equipment that has small flavor text, and items that mark encounters (as long as those piece of equipment have something distinct about them). I love all the rewards related to having finished story arcs, and crave those the most.

    Endgame Crafting- I want my workshops to mean something, beyond a potential economic boost. I like that a story is being told with the current workshops, but it costs way too much to level them and see all the story. I like that the crafters have bios and personalities. I'd love for the way that I run the workshops to matter, but that would probably be a coding nightmare. I'd love to be able to achieve Master Crafting with less of a resource sink at the very end, as throwing tons of high end leather away only to be asked to do it all again and then more (for example) is tedious. Most of the folks you ask about crafting will give a two word answer, "Don't bother." The way the quests are written also feel a bit misleading. I think that I'll be getting the next Masterwork level, but instead I'm just roped into more senseless and expensive grinding for no more story and no new items that are engaging. I'd seriously love it if crafting could involve improving and modifying old pieces of equipment of a related type, and the amount of modification possible was related to the level of the character, workshop, and craftsperson.

    Summation:
    Expandable transmute libraries
    Drop group-dependent drops as necessary elements in legacy campaigns
    Drop repetition required to achieve upgradable equipment
    Make RP account bound
    Expand class and race story arcs into later game play
    Lower cost to upgrade workshops.
    Make professions linked to upgrading old equipment

    Risks and Concerns:
    Obviously, this is just based on my personal experience which is far from universal.
    I imagine it would take some massive work to create more class and race storyline.
    It would probably be tricky sorting out the right way to have professions upgrade old equipment, and most likely no matter how you managed it someone would feel you did it wrong.

    Additional note: I found the ideas mentioned earlier by the developer who talked about being able to display collections and such super exciting! I'd have so much fun doing that, and have chatted with guildies about how great it would be to do it.

  • franklin223franklin223 Member Posts: 42 Arc User

    FEEDBACK OVERVIEW

    Streamline everything

    FEEDBACK GOAL

    The steps leading to character progression is in disarray.

    FUNCTIONALITY

    Everything is a mess right now; to be expected after so many years, but we demand that you clean it up.

    1) There are FAR too many currencies in this game. This all needs to be collapsed into 3-5 currencies, preferably the model at the exchange vendor in the Bazaar. However, I would personally prefer the old 5 coin (Unicorn, Lion etc) model that the game started with. Break everything down into those currencies and STOP CREATING new ones... they are unnecessary.

    As an example, what do you plan for us to do with Rat Lunar coins after the event? Do we wait 12 years for year of the rat to come around again so that we can spend the remainder? Did your team think about that at all? No? Not a surprise... and now we will live with Rat coin currencies for over a decade.

    2) I am going to combine gear progression with campaign progression here. With the exception of 2 or 3 campaigns (AI being one of them) most of your current campaigns are for the 70-80 level players. Big changes need to be made to your campaign structure and how new players (or alts) gear themselves through your content.

    I suggest that we break the campaigns into three categories. The first is the ones you can access while leveling say campaign levels 20-60. Next is the Level 70 campaigns plus room for some of the level 80 campaigns. Finally the highest tier should always be the last two or three campaigns that you released. All the tiers get adjusted as you release more content, but the Top level campaigns will always be the last two or three campaigns that were released. The Middle layer of campaigns gets expand as you release more content. The Lower tier is where you can place low character level things like AI.

    The middle tier of campaigns needs to be sped up dramatically. Combined, they take an insane amount of time to get through compared to a new players leveling process. I would say that this middle tier needs to have all daily/weekly caps removed AND rewards for the tasks (quests, HEs, dungeon etc) need to be tripled. Again this is for the Middle tier and NOT for the Top tier (last three campaigns that you released). Let players progress through this stuff and remove the hurdles.

    Keep your Daily/Weekly haul caps for the Top tier of campaigns. And you can decide what to do with the Low level tier. AI was a bit of a mess. If you started at level 20, you will be level 80 well before you finish the campaign... that's just poor design, I think.

    3) Gearing up through this process. All gear rewarded as drops in the Middle tier of campaigns, should be pulled from a pool of drops (level specific non-dungeon drops) from the Top tier of campaigns. The reason is, two fold.

    I) it makes playing through legacy campaigns worth it for max level players.

    II) this eases the gearing process for new to 80 level characters. They can consume campaigns at their leisure (whichever they wish)... because they will die in something like Avernous. But will be able to pick up some random loot drops for completing quests and RNG drops that will greatly aid them in joining the rest of the players in the most recent campaign.

    All current campaign specific loot gets moved to the campaign store (after you clean up the currency mess...) and collectors can shop as the want.

    4) Stop making new gimmick campaign mechanics like Black Ice. It is cumbersome and dumb and you never return to it so stuff like this is just an annoyance. We end up siting on a couple of thousand Black Ice that is used for nothing but overload enchants, if we run out of better options.

    5) Stop over creating excess junk campaign/dungeon drops. Seriously, Take a look at all the HAMSTER that your design team created and mathed out in terms of loot drops for Undermountain. It is a ridiculous number of items. So much wasted time and money on your end. Most of that HAMSTER gets refined or sold and you just clocked a whole bunch of hours in order to waste players time.

    Some of those items could have been moved to the masterwork profession system instead, btw. That would have been a better model.

    In short, we do not need all of your junk purples, there are plenty of greens and blues to junk up our bags. Clean up your item design team.


    6) Professions/Masterworking - IMO this mechanic fails in every MMO because content creators have no desire to keep up with it and they do not commit to what it is supposed to be.

    Professions, should be an avenue of gearing up or playtime easement. But it doesn't work out in MMO's for this reason: High level players don't want new players to receive gear without completing a specific dungeon. I don't agree with this sentiment. it is a game, and players should be able to play however they wish. My gear doesn't affect anyone else so who cares?

    Your profession system is complex enough and very time consuming. There is no reason why masterwork professions should not be able to create gear from a campaign a few releases ago. Current Masterwork could be crafting Undermountain gear right now (or perhaps the campaign prior to UM). KEEP THE DUNGEON LOOT out of this model so players don't cry about TOMM (because players cry a lot about junk like e-acheivments and e-peens).

    But make your profession system something that players want/need to do in case something never drops for them and they still want it a campaign or two down the road.

    Whatever you do, do not make the materials needed be dungeon drops. My design is to have professions be an avenue for progression (and not alternative gear progression) to get real loot - everything outside of dungeons.


    IN CONCLUSION
    Clean up all of this mess. Some of my suggestions would make a lot more sense for new players, looking over their currency tab and wondering how they can use all of the junk they collected.


  • xselli#2074 xselli Member Posts: 4 Arc User

    Feedback Overview

    My suggestion consists of two points, which should be connected for better functionality. The first point is to introduce a auction house for guilds. Guilds can sell and buy guild ressources (like influence) there. The second point is a guild trader where guilds (in this regard guild leaders) can buy items with the astral diamant chests (from the guild ressources) to help player at their progression (e.g. companion upgrade tokens, mounts (even legendary)).

    Feedback Goal

    The suggestion aims to help small guilds as they can buy ressources cheaper at the auction house for guilds (first point). It aims to help big, old guilds as they have a option to get rid of ressources (which they do not need nowadays anyway if they are at level 20) and get currency that way. It aims as well (second point) to let guilds help new, unexperienced players as well and it gives the possibility to finance guild events with good rewards.
    Feedback Functionality
    For the first point a guild auction house NPC would have to be introduced with the suggested guild auction house where resources can be traded (sold and bought). It works with supply and demand, similiar to the normal auction house.
    50 astral diamant chests for 2000 influence

    For the second point a guild trader NPC would have to be introduced with items to be bought with guild ressources (astral diamant chests) depending on the level of the guild.
    30 000 astral diamant chests for a legendary mount (2 or 3 available, perhaps one with stat bonus of hit points)
    500 astral diamant chests for 50 preservation wards
    1000 astral diamant chests for 1 coalescent ward
    1000 astral diamant chests for 120 companion upgrade tokens

    Risks & Concerns

    There is the risk that guilds will not donate to other guilds of their alliance after implementation of the first point. There is the risk that the guild leaders leave guilds after buying items with the guild ressources (second point). This could be prevented that everything bought with guild ressources gets transfered to the guild bank and is account bound after taking it to personal storage (bags, ...).
  • the1truehunterthe1truehunter Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 211 Arc User
    Overview:
    Weapon / Armor enchantments - A reward that does not deserve its investment as time and money/AD.
    A problem facing the game in the acutal stage and which we had always faced in the past has been
    the imbalance created by these items that require a huge effort to raise them to the maximum rank.

    Goal

    The goal is to adjust and improve these objects to provide the player the satisfaction of
    progress and make relevant the investment/effort he puts into obtaining and improving the equipment.
    For an investment of 8M AD worth in reagents/ coalescent wards for rank 14, I expect the bonus to be one that
    meet the player's needs and give him an advantage in the fight. There should be no discrepancies between items
    bonuses, because the investment would not be relevant and would be treated as a loss, not as a reward for the effort made.

    Functionality

    Improving/balancing the bonuses of certain enchantments, no longer dependent on cooldowns, keeping
    the idea of providing diversity in choosing the type of enchantment for the type of situation in which it is used, the type of
    the class.

    Risks & Concerns

    If it is not properly implemented, imbalances will occur between stones that will make certain unusable enchants as we encounter now. (I am personally affected by this situation right now where I put my effort to raise a Prominence enchantment from scratch and now it is completely useless)
  • wilbur626wilbur626 Member Posts: 1,019 Arc User
    @micky1p00 What about the players that don’t craft and are unable to finish TOMM?
    Elite Whaleboy
  • the1truehunterthe1truehunter Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 211 Arc User

    Feedback Overview

    Gold is a common yet underused quest reward. Give us non-crafters something other than med-death-kits to spend it on (new reward category).

    Feedback Goal

    Let gold purchase more things (have more gold sinks) with these new rewards. I have a few ideas:

    Feedback Functionality

    1 - Hirelings: temporary companions and / or mounts (24 hrs). You can use any/all of the available stable at any level with prices varying in ranges based on quality (rares are cheaper to hire than legendaries). They perform exactly as their non-temporary counterparts but gain no exp and vanish (along with their boons) once the timer expires.

    2 - Stonghold Kitchen food: Not everyone has a level 20 stronghold to buy food from, so why not put it here? Any speed-boost consumable will probably also be a big hit.

    3 - Stronghold supplies: When you have too much gold but not enough stronghold currency to build stuff.

    4 - Grenades. Quickslot item. Like Avernus holywater I suppose?

    5 - Temporary Costumes (24 hrs or whatever, similar to temporary halloween masks). I'm guessing the Moonstone Mask RP crowd might like this. Buy any apparel (just for looks). Would be cool to include class based things in the appearance tab - so a wizard could "wear" things like "Great weapon fighter - Heroic Duelist (pants)" with the "Ranger - Alliance Assault Armor (top)". For whatever reason.

    As mentioned in one of my earlier posts in this thread, those same items can probably fill out some of the Vault of Piety too.

    Risks & Concerns

    While I tried to stick to systems already available, this obviously comes down to what the dev team is willing/able to do. Even if none of the above are used, I hope I at least gave you an idea of how vast your additional reward options can be - with stuff mostly already in game.

    We actually have appearence items that requests you gold and some AD to change your outfits/colors. The gold is also used in removing weapon enchantments. You actually need gold to donate in Stronghold Coffers to progress. Food can be eighter optained from events or bought with guild marks from your stronghold. Personally I spend over 100 to 200 gold a day just by switching enchantments, switching colors on my outfit and crafting. I don't think this structure should be changed. But is just my point of view.

  • darthpotaterdarthpotater Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,259 Arc User
    edited February 2020
    dolrey said:


    What about hard version it should 100% have really tasty rewards. Because difficulty of this type of dungeons will be not about "you have to complete it 100 times wasting many hours to have chance to get something" (it will be about to complete it at least once). As good rewards I can suggest 100-150k AD (exactly astral diamonds, not just astral brilliants because they have daily cap wich can be reached on usual content) plus some random unique for each dungeon expensive loot.

    This will never happen. Refined AD wont be obtainable in the game. Ever. The cap is there for a good reason, to control the game economy. If you allow players to "print" AD with no control, the economy will collapse. More.
    Lescar PvE Wizard - Sir Garlic PvE Paladin
    Caturday Survivor
    Elemental Evil Survivor
    Undermontain Survivor
    Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
    Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
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