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The big mistake

melechestmelechest Member Posts: 106 Arc User
edited December 2020 in General Discussion (PC)
The big mount changes a few weeks ago, which drained many players' banks, and now the massive changes to combat, stats and companions (here is the link for anyone who hasnt saw them yet https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/11481603-combat-rework ), bring us to the same big mistake that was mod16, which saw a lot of players leaving the game. Im not talking about the changes themselves, though. To be honest, back in mod16 and in the upcoming changes, some of them i like. Their biggest mistake ever, which is a repeat now, and the bane of everyone and everything that makes it, is actually pretty simple.

Bringing big changes all at once.

This is a mistake in multiple levels and in many ways, this is the mistake they made with mod16, and we've practically been playing on its aftermath since then, this is the mistake being repeated now.

For some who might not remember, here are some things that happened with the dawn of mod16.
1) Dungeons and Trials were impossible for the vast majority of players.
2) Since then, and even now, 1,5 years after its release, many people, especially newer players, have no idea where their stats come from, what to build and what they need most (bondings...)
3) Trying to run random queues alone is a big gamble. For 1,5 years, many people can easily get their 20k item level, especially after the mount changes, but they dont really have the stats to do it.
4) Mod 16 came with numerous bugs and many things didnt even worked or worked poorly. And still to this day not everything works as intended.
And many other things. Though this is enough. Lets get to said mistake.

Im going to explain some of the reasons this is a big mistake. Before that though, i want to make something very clear.
Im not a "dev-hater". I dont hold any of the developers responsible for bugs, for poor quality content and for whatever you can think of, they do what they are told. The ones im holding responsible for everything are the people who make the decisions, whoever they may be. And reading below should make clear why im saying this.

Lets go the reasons.

1) Developers are human beings, some time we tend to forget about that. They have a specific amount of time to work, both daily and due to dead-lines. They also need to have time to rest, chill, spend with their family or whatever they want to do. You cant really say or make them work past the hours they are supposed to work, you are an ******* if you do that.
And they are a small team. You cant have them work on the quantity of the work that these big changes require and still expect them to produce quality work and meet the deadlines. Its impossible. Even more because such big changes require work on many aspects that are not immediately obvious, which increases even more the workload. And they also have to work on bugs and issues already in the game, make new content etc.

2) People dont adapt well to big changes. You may be preparing the best changes ever, the highest quality possible and all. You bring them all at the same time, prepare for huge backlash. The vast majority of people just cant adapt to big changes. This also leads to people being dissatisfied and angry. And this can make people leave. Especially if you add this dissatisfaction with the accumulated dissatisfaction that already many people have and what can be some very good changes will potentially lead to disaster. And you are bound to have big backlash.

3) Bringing so many changes all at once is like trying to build a skyscraper all at once, like you dont go for the foundation as slowly build up, you try to build every floor at the same time. Its bound to have many issues. Especially true in an mmo where every single thing can link with many more things, links that are not always obvious or easy to see and their interactions can be unpredictable. Its just the way things work.

4) Generally its way better bringing in changes slowly. You know, working on one specific change means that you can spend more time to make it a quality change and that it will have less issues. You make a small change, see how it affects things and fix them. When you have fixed it to at least an acceptable point you make another small change. And you also give people time to adapt to those. Its just generally better in many ways. And a lot safer/fool-proof. Really, all those changes, no one can know yet how they will affect the game, and that makes them even more dangerous. With smaller changes you can fix issues before they balloon out of control.

Now, i'd like to talk a bit more specifically about Neverwinter. Though this can stray away from the big mistake described above and it can also express some personal opinions and some things that seem to be going in a specific way.

Let me start with two bonus points.
1) Cryptic fix your preview. The last real content update was that of mod16. You cant buy and test new gear. You cant test almost anything, unless you already have it on the character you copy.

2) The "combat changes" you made on preview are a joke and are really disrespectful to all players who go in preview. (explanations below)

Now to the actual points.
1) If anyone has logged in preview, which i assume many people have, you will see many changes and the more time you spent testing the new changes the more you will realize that things are broken. Like, not some bugs here and there and a couple issues. Things dont work as intended. I was with some friends on preview, talking on discord. Me, a pally tank with 910k HP on live, had 770k HP on preview. A wizard with 450k HP on live, had 600k HP on preview. Our stats were a mess, not different, a mess. I couldnt find anything that gave deflect severity. Wrong tooltips. Wrong numbers. And many things just dont make sense.

All in all, this is very disrespectful to the players. Preview is the place you are supposed to release content that has already been tested and for the most part is complete. And you release it there for the final testing on a large scale. The content that got released yesterday was far from that. It seems that it hasnt had any testing at all.

2) And i quote from the post in combat rework (linked at the start of this post)

You should be able to jump into any of the content you previously could play and play it without issue.

And so i wanted to try my luck on IC and i went in privately. I was getting melted by a Succubus and one of those infernal wolves, dont remember the name. Like i didnt stand a chance. Keep in mind that im a pretty strong tank, tanking 2-3 groups of mobs on live is not even close to being a challenge and i have soloed the first and second boss without any consumables and with relative ease.
And i didnt even stand a chance against a Succubus and a wolf.
Like, really?

3) All the talk about "companion changes" and reworks and whatnot. Companions are still broken in many ways.
This is a post i made a couple of weeks ago, when i did some testing on the companions if someone wants to check it out https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1258716/some-things-about-companions

For all the changes they make, issues on fighting companions still persist.
Also, a question, if someone from Cryptic can answer it i would be happy. Why do some striker companion, existing to deal damage, have higher HP than "tank" companions, meant to take damage. It doesnt make sense.

4) Mount changes were an AD sink. You had the AD you were good, you didnt, well, good luck.
Now all those changes are an even bigger AD sink than the mount changes.
Companions now can reach mythic, probably to get online with mount changes. The cost to upgrade a comp to mythic is 1.5 million AD. Currently, on preview, the bonuses from mythic mounts seem to offer less value than the legendary on live, at least on the companions that give HP. So those changes will have me sink my AD to have less value than what i had before.
I dont know about other players, but i do have some companions at legendary and i swap their bonuses around depending on the content. So that means that i will have to sink even more AD on upgrading multiple companions to mythic, for the bonuses and some as active companions, depending on the content.
Speaking about companions, many companions that used to very good and people had invested in them are becoming nearly useless and some companions are becoming good, which means we need to sink in even more AD.
Now, with how stats seem to work and power having a cap, we will also have to buy new enchantments and runestones.
Also, with even less companion drops than before from dungeons, their prices will start skyrocketing.
From what i can gather, even though this is a speculation, you will need many millions of AD to get close to the point you were before the changes. And for the vast majority of players, this sucks.

One more thing, almost there.
Before the mount changes, the highest item level, what would be considered "end-game", was around 27-28k. With the mount changes it went up to 36-37k. With the new changes on preview its going up to 47-48k, i think.
So the "max" item level goes up by 20k. This will also increase the item level for everyone across the board by some thousands.

But, for what reason? Does cryptic think that increasing the item level to that extend will somehow help solve the resident problems of the game? Is there any reason behind this? Is it because Cryptic love to see big numbers? Or do they just want to add more stuff and they are just going with the flow.
Even if the "combat rework" comes on mod 20, increasing the "maximum" item level by 20k, even more with the new gear that will come in mod20 which will most probably have higher item level, in just one mod is crazy and doesnt make sense.


One last thing.
This actually goes to some people who post or reply on the forums.
The "no one asked for it", "no one wanted this", "we want this", "do this" kind of comments, demands or whatever, are plainly stupid.
First, everyone is free to want and ask whatever they want, Cryptic is in no obligation to comply. Second, the fact that you didnt want something doesnt mean that all the other players didnt want them either, so speak for yourself and not for everyone. Third, even if no one asked for something, it doesnt mean that Cryptic cant put it in their game. Fourth, its impossible to have everyone like every single change, people want different things, its impossible.
And fifth, IF Cryptic made everything each player asked for and only those changes, the game would be an even worse mess. You wouldnt create a "new character", you would create an "end-game" character with everything you want maxed, you would be able solo clear a dungeon within a minute and you would be able to one-shot Zariel in master Zariel trial. On the same time, every dungeon would be a challenge for even the strongest group, it would take 1-1.5 hour to complete, but it would drop your choice of an account-bound mount already upgraded to mythic, your choice of a companion already upgraded to mythic and your choice of a gear piece with the stats and the bonus you want. And many more, because these dont cover even half of what people ask for.

P.S. Cryptic please remove Awareness. Any tank who knew what he/she was doing wouldnt build it and wont build it. Its useless.
Post edited by melechest on
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Comments

  • corazonxdxcorazonxdx Member Posts: 40 Arc User
    well you did point out some necessary points but the player base is not that open to changes but let's hope these changes are for the better
  • drago#3250 drago Member Posts: 190 Arc User
    Nice. Your thread is back from censorship. I agree with everything except your opinion that it is a bad move
    that they introduce all at once. In this case I want to know where the journey is going and not tricked by a company trick like a vampire.
    If the game is going to be waste of my time. I want to know now and not part by part. I have no time to waste and would in this case move on to other, newer, more progressive projects.
  • melechestmelechest Member Posts: 106 Arc User
    @drago#3250

    Yeah, thankfully. From what i was told, it got auto-modded by a bot by an accident.
  • mentinmindmakermentinmindmaker Member Posts: 1,489 Arc User
    Since they are doing very fundamental changes to the combat system, there really is no option to do it piecewise. That just would not work.

    They could have had a longer time between mount changes and the combat system changes though.. or just wrapped everything into one update.
  • reg1981reg1981 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,435 Arc User

    Since they are doing very fundamental changes to the combat system, there really is no option to do it piecewise. That just would not work.

    They could have had a longer time between mount changes and the combat system changes though.. or just wrapped everything into one update.

    I do agree with this but there are 2 important aspects that would have taken so much anxiety out of the community. #1 an unbound exchange vendor. and #2 the rewards system rework at the same time. The way it currently sits is we'll spend double the time for the same rewards.
  • alanea#4230 alanea Member Posts: 48 Arc User
    edited December 2020
    reg1981 said:



    I do agree with this but there are 2 important aspects that would have taken so much anxiety out of the community. #1 an unbound exchange vendor. and #2 the rewards system rework at the same time. The way it currently sits is we'll spend double the time for the same rewards.

    1) veeeeeeery unlikely to happen ... since some enchantments have extremely low value + drop compared to others
    unbound exchange would therefore have devastating and long term impact on economy by making them equally priced extremely reducing prices (since market would be flooded by all those cheap unwanted enchantments exchanged for anything you want)

    they didnt made bound exchange in past just for fun but to prevent people from abusing it

    2) they reworked reward system recently and seem proud of it .. lets call it OKish


    + those dont affect main disadvantages of change
    1) making gear progression alot less rewarding
    2) nerfing players
    3) sucking ad from players to partially reduce stat loss
  • rockster#6227 rockster Member Posts: 1,860 Arc User
    mrbogus said:

    This is because there are many ways to gain more AD that isn't from other players. 10k a day from favors, some from dungeons chests, here and there is all adds up fast.

    Before I got fed up and stopped playing every day after I heard of this new change I was making well above my 100k per day refine amount. I'd do all the randoms (plus the class bonus) first thing each day, then go and quickly do any campaign stuff I wanted to for guild donations, then relax and grind-out CN for a few hours over and over because I love it, and I was making about 150k a day or more, after not all that long I had 3.5 million rough sitting there and just refined my 100k each day when I logged in and watched refined AD build steadily as weeks passed and it was fairly easy too, so I agree. Unfortunately what I've been reading about the (sometimes massively) extended time to do content, that will now be impossible for me though, there just won't be physically enough time available to get the same things done so I probably wouldn't be earning nearly the same amount. So blergh. Not caring atm and not logging in because even though it's not happened yet, just the thought of the massive headache (yet again) which is coming to rebuild everything for my character has taken all the joy out of it for me and the thought of playing makes me feel ill so not bothering right now.

    Apparently pointing-out the bleeding obvious is a 'personal attack'.
  • mentinmindmakermentinmindmaker Member Posts: 1,489 Arc User
    mrbogus said:


    The AD to Zen value is already at an all time low. This is because there are many ways to gain more AD that isn't from other players. 10k a day from favors, some from dungeons chests, here and there is all adds up fast.

    Indeed. The way it used to be was there was at least some balance with the AD sinks in game. There still was some excess production of AD so we had a small net AD influx and a steadily growing ZAX, but at least it was not too bad. The AD influx in game was strictly controlled by the daily 100k refining limit.

    Then they started giving out refined AD - which joins the game on top of the fragile AD refining - AD sinks balance.

    Since there are no new measures in game to drain the added AD away, the net daily AD production has increased dramatically.

    On PC the ZAX backlog just crossed 43M and is still increasing.
  • gradiigradii Member Posts: 280 Arc User
    I miss pre mod 16 cleric. Back when being a healer was fun and didn't mean doing very little if any damage.
  • aslan3775aslan3775 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 295 Arc User
    mrbogus said:

    I agree with most of what you said, but you got 1 part wrong. Mounts are not an AD sink. While it costs a lot of AD to upgrade, that AD is sent to other players in the AH. Very little of that AD is taken by the sink (AH fees).
    . . .
    What they need is a good AD sink: something worth buying with AD from NPC vendors. There already is far too much RNG reliance on everything in the game, so why not include some items like mount collars in the Bazaar, at a reasonable rate? I'm sure Cryptic could find some way to add a worth while sink into the game.
    . . .

    I'm not an economist, but your post, like many others who are also economists discussing the AD/Zax issue is one that I agree with entirely. That said, could you comment a bit more on what would happen to the AD/Zax game economy if we saw mount equipment go into the Wondrous Bazaar? I suppose keep the insignias in the Trade Bar store, but collars and mount upgrade tokens or refinement stuff or even upgrading mounts with AD directly. Would these be an effective AD sink?
  • mentinmindmakermentinmindmaker Member Posts: 1,489 Arc User
    aslan3775 said:

    mrbogus said:

    I agree with most of what you said, but you got 1 part wrong. Mounts are not an AD sink. While it costs a lot of AD to upgrade, that AD is sent to other players in the AH. Very little of that AD is taken by the sink (AH fees).
    . . .
    What they need is a good AD sink: something worth buying with AD from NPC vendors. There already is far too much RNG reliance on everything in the game, so why not include some items like mount collars in the Bazaar, at a reasonable rate? I'm sure Cryptic could find some way to add a worth while sink into the game.
    . . .

    I'm not an economist, but your post, like many others who are also economists discussing the AD/Zax issue is one that I agree with entirely. That said, could you comment a bit more on what would happen to the AD/Zax game economy if we saw mount equipment go into the Wondrous Bazaar? I suppose keep the insignias in the Trade Bar store, but collars and mount upgrade tokens or refinement stuff or even upgrading mounts with AD directly. Would these be an effective AD sink?
    The immediate and obvious consequence of taking any Zen item and making it available for AD is less income for Cryptic. Very unlikely that will ever happen.

    And also any item that is introduced that could sell well as an AD item could sell well as a Zen item too.

    Why would Cryptic worry about a long ZAX queue as long as it just gives them more income?
  • vastano#2343 vastano Member Posts: 169 Arc User

    aslan3775 said:

    mrbogus said:

    I agree with most of what you said, but you got 1 part wrong. Mounts are not an AD sink. While it costs a lot of AD to upgrade, that AD is sent to other players in the AH. Very little of that AD is taken by the sink (AH fees).
    . . .
    What they need is a good AD sink: something worth buying with AD from NPC vendors. There already is far too much RNG reliance on everything in the game, so why not include some items like mount collars in the Bazaar, at a reasonable rate? I'm sure Cryptic could find some way to add a worth while sink into the game.
    . . .

    I'm not an economist, but your post, like many others who are also economists discussing the AD/Zax issue is one that I agree with entirely. That said, could you comment a bit more on what would happen to the AD/Zax game economy if we saw mount equipment go into the Wondrous Bazaar? I suppose keep the insignias in the Trade Bar store, but collars and mount upgrade tokens or refinement stuff or even upgrading mounts with AD directly. Would these be an effective AD sink?
    The immediate and obvious consequence of taking any Zen item and making it available for AD is less income for Cryptic. Very unlikely that will ever happen.

    And also any item that is introduced that could sell well as an AD item could sell well as a Zen item too.

    Why would Cryptic worry about a long ZAX queue as long as it just gives them more income?
    because as mentin said if new players who do buy zen just spend hours standing in pe waiting for dungeon queues to pop they will probably go to new pastures
    if the old school leave because they hate the changes and are sick of the grind there will be 0 income for cryptic

  • tatersalad77tatersalad77 Member Posts: 16 Arc User
    So if they persist on this scaleing bs quit grinding their content.. let it scale you up. once everyone has to be scaled up because noone wants to regrind everything all over prehaps they will rethink this scaling path. I quit the rat race to be on top several mods ago when scaling went into effect the 1st time. why would you grind new gear and work super hard on your toon when they are only going to smack you with the nerf bat. why bother? stay low and collect your buffs. they only punish heros here
  • mrbogusmrbogus Member Posts: 12 Arc User
    edited December 2020
    aslan3775 said:

    mrbogus said:

    I agree with most of what you said, but you got 1 part wrong. Mounts are not an AD sink. While it costs a lot of AD to upgrade, that AD is sent to other players in the AH. Very little of that AD is taken by the sink (AH fees).
    . . .
    What they need is a good AD sink: something worth buying with AD from NPC vendors. There already is far too much RNG reliance on everything in the game, so why not include some items like mount collars in the Bazaar, at a reasonable rate? I'm sure Cryptic could find some way to add a worth while sink into the game.
    . . .

    I'm not an economist, but your post, like many others who are also economists discussing the AD/Zax issue is one that I agree with entirely. That said, could you comment a bit more on what would happen to the AD/Zax game economy if we saw mount equipment go into the Wondrous Bazaar? I suppose keep the insignias in the Trade Bar store, but collars and mount upgrade tokens or refinement stuff or even upgrading mounts with AD directly. Would these be an effective AD sink?
    The ZAX is just a regulatory feature as it stands now, which keeps the auction house prices on Zen related items at bay. With the growing wait times it isn't doing it's job as well as it should. The price of many items, such as preservation wards, cost more than 3x the amount of AD vs Zen. By adding items like those preservation wards to the Wondrous Bazaar at a reasonable price, it's further keep inflation in check. By reasonable I mean takes the Zen price of said item, and multiply it by 750 (the cost of 1 Zen). This makes it still cheaper to buy Zen with AD, after using a coupon to buy the item of choice, except when there's a WB sale. As far as mount collars, they would do best to include the white collars vs the epic versions. This would make an upgrade path more feasible for F2P players while leaving the Zen versions untouched, yet somewhat regulated.

    Long story short: it'd regulate trade values in AH, while making it easier for newer players to have an upgrade path, and add in a coin sink for AD. A coin sink then would help stabilize the fall of AD value.


    The immediate and obvious consequence of taking any Zen item and making it available for AD is less income for Cryptic. Very unlikely that will ever happen.

    And also any item that is introduced that could sell well as an AD item could sell well as a Zen item too.

    Why would Cryptic worry about a long ZAX queue as long as it just gives them more income?

    That train of thought is a common misconception of how economics actually works in any given setting. It's not so cut and dry as you state.

    First go back and read my entire post. Without a balance between free players and paying, the game would be on a path to failure. There are still many paying players, so it's the F2P population that needs tending to. They did a good job by adding Legacy Weekly quests in to help alleviate upgrade costs to those whom prefer to play free. Even still, that won't fix the economy which we're on a path towards now.

    A F2P player won't spend any money on the game, but it doesn't mean it's a static situation. The longer a player is in the game, the more likely they will get that twitch to spend a little here and there. Even if the player doesn't spend a dime, they will help keep the game population up, and the economy flowing. Given that much information, how would adding Zen items into the Bazaar reduce their income at all? They wouldn't need to add everything. Just enough of the important items for upgrading. The more upgrades added to the system, the more overwhelmed a new player will feel. Overwhelm them too much and they might not even consider taking out their wallet. That's a failed policy.

    The best way to look at how Cryptic makes money is by looking at it like a dual economic system. In system A you have the supplier as Cryptic, the consumer is the player, and the game is recycle of the currency. In system B the player becomes the supplier, the F2P player is the consumer, the game is still the currency recycle. You need both sets of consumers for it all to work.

    Sorry once again for being long winded. I'm a bit tired, but hope this helps understand a few elements.
  • gromovnipljesak#8234 gromovnipljesak Member Posts: 1,053 Arc User
    The actual issue is that everything is gravitating towards pissing people off and making things more boring. And it is boring, mainly because I can't comprehend why would you apply MOBA style meta changes to things that are decidedly not match based.

    It's also boring because the true endgame goal for Cryptic seems to be that if you're 45k, and you do a dungeon that requires say 25k, you get scaled down perfectly to 25k. Or, in other words, there is no feel of "progress".

    So tell me, what's the point of running content? Here you fall into the WoW pitfall - the main reason to raid is to get better items to raid harder content. The gameplay loop is self contained and that makes a damn boring game. Except in WoW it feels like you're achieving *something* rather than nothing in a blatantly P2W experience NW has become.

    Bondings made things feel somewhat dynamic. Upgrades are rewarding, content that was once hard gets easier the better you are. Skill was completely removed from the game after the buff/debuff nerf, so that's not a factor.

    So what is left?

    A job. A boring, mind-numbing job that should probably place you on the list of sacrifices for when the alien overlords invade.
  • melechestmelechest Member Posts: 106 Arc User
    @mrbogus

    You seem to ignore that a game's economy, especially Neverwinter's economy, works way differently from a real life economy. One thing to note is that, in a game, a currency sink is something that players have to heavily invest on in order to improve, not necessarily "destroyed" though. And to get value from mounts you have to sink millions of AD on them.

    Now, there are 3 huge differences between game and real life economy.
    1) A game has a "controlled" economy. Cryptic can heavily affect the prices and values of anything in the game, be it bought with zen, AD, trade bars or anything. While in real life there are entities that can affect prices, no entity can control the prices at an extent even remotely close to how Cryptic can control the prices in the game.
    2) In real life "investing" on something means that this something will earn you profit. In a game "investing" on something most of the time wont earn you profit, it will just make you stronger.
    3) Currency in a game is created and destroyed all the time, in real life that doesnt happen. But currency being created doesnt mean that it will enter the "market" to affect the prices, it might as well be destroyed. But none of these is bound to affect the prices. You said that the AD that will be brought in the game will create an influx, how much of it though will go in AH, how much will be "destroyed" by being used to upgrade companions and how much will remain in people's pockets? Are you so certain that all this AD will go straight to AH?

    While more AD is being created into the game by the refined AD from chests and the AD from Zariel, this doesnt make the market "move" nearly as it moved before the reward changes. The reason is that before the changes there were many more tradeable items entering the game, companions and mounts, which made it easier for players to get AD by selling in AH and then buying other items they needed. With the uncertainty of the "combat rework" most people opt to hold onto their AD rather than spend it. Also keep in mind that most of the AD being spent on mount upgrades is mostly going to people who have already invested real money in the game, the majority of whom are players who have millions sitting in their banks that they have nothing to spend on. The "market" wont crash because of the "sudden influx of massive amounts of AD", normally that would be a reason for the market to move at a much higher pace. People have more AD, thus they spend more and the economy keeps moving. The economy is crashing around the mount changes people "invested" mostly on the mount upgrade tokens, which was mostly AD that never entered the market again, second because the amount of items people can sell is decreasing (mount and companion drops from dungeons is much small) and because, like it happens with every big change, people refuse to spend before they know what is worth and what is not. You dont need to be a "macro-economist" to understand that the market is crashing. A 9yo that was around when mod16 was announced and when it came live would know that the market is bound to crash and we had none of the "influx of AD" you are mentioning.

    And the "influx of AD" is not what's responsible for the ZAX immense backlog. That backlog started being created long before the reward rework. The players who would buy Zen with real money, the same people who would exchange said Zen for AD, are mostly veteran players, very few new people would pay real money in a game they dont even know they will be playing in a month. The vast majority of said players are the same who made many million AD when TOMM came out. If yo uhave everything you want and more you have no reason to spend. Before TOMM the ZAX exchange took around 2-3 weeks, which was keeping up with the supply/demand of Zen. It was around when tomm got introduced that the ZAX started becoming slower and slower. The demand started being slowly higher and higher than the supply. Thus, in time, this massive backlog was created. And it was around the Redeemed Citadel introduction that the backlog became very clear since it was the time that most people started wanting more and more the Zen they wanted to buy with their AD.

    And really, i dont know where you come from with all the economy and market and stuff. This thread was talking about the mistakes Cryptic is making and how they are messing up the game. Its not about learning economy. You can give them as many advice as you want, unless they fix the game so people want to actually spend money on it, your economy lessons wont make the game economy move and the ZAX backlog will only keep getting bigger.
    If you are an economist you should know that unless you have something that people want to invest on, it doesnt matter whatever you say, believe or do. You aint getting any money.
  • mrbogusmrbogus Member Posts: 12 Arc User
    edited December 2020
    melechest said:

    @mrbogus

    You seem to ignore that a game's economy, especially Neverwinter's economy, works way differently from a real life economy. One thing to note is that, in a game, a currency sink is something that players have to heavily invest on in order to improve, not necessarily "destroyed" though. And to get value from mounts you have to sink millions of AD on them.

    Now, there are 3 huge differences between game and real life economy.
    1) A game has a "controlled" economy. Cryptic can heavily affect the prices and values of anything in the game, be it bought with zen, AD, trade bars or anything. While in real life there are entities that can affect prices, no entity can control the prices at an extent even remotely close to how Cryptic can control the prices in the game.
    2) In real life "investing" on something means that this something will earn you profit. In a game "investing" on something most of the time wont earn you profit, it will just make you stronger.
    3) Currency in a game is created and destroyed all the time, in real life that doesnt happen. But currency being created doesnt mean that it will enter the "market" to affect the prices, it might as well be destroyed. But none of these is bound to affect the prices. You said that the AD that will be brought in the game will create an influx, how much of it though will go in AH, how much will be "destroyed" by being used to upgrade companions and how much will remain in people's pockets? Are you so certain that all this AD will go straight to AH?

    While more AD is being created into the game by the refined AD from chests and the AD from Zariel, this doesnt make the market "move" nearly as it moved before the reward changes. The reason is that before the changes there were many more tradeable items entering the game, companions and mounts, which made it easier for players to get AD by selling in AH and then buying other items they needed. With the uncertainty of the "combat rework" most people opt to hold onto their AD rather than spend it. Also keep in mind that most of the AD being spent on mount upgrades is mostly going to people who have already invested real money in the game, the majority of whom are players who have millions sitting in their banks that they have nothing to spend on. The "market" wont crash because of the "sudden influx of massive amounts of AD", normally that would be a reason for the market to move at a much higher pace. People have more AD, thus they spend more and the economy keeps moving. The economy is crashing around the mount changes people "invested" mostly on the mount upgrade tokens, which was mostly AD that never entered the market again, second because the amount of items people can sell is decreasing (mount and companion drops from dungeons is much small) and because, like it happens with every big change, people refuse to spend before they know what is worth and what is not. You dont need to be a "macro-economist" to understand that the market is crashing. A 9yo that was around when mod16 was announced and when it came live would know that the market is bound to crash and we had none of the "influx of AD" you are mentioning.

    And the "influx of AD" is not what's responsible for the ZAX immense backlog. That backlog started being created long before the reward rework. The players who would buy Zen with real money, the same people who would exchange said Zen for AD, are mostly veteran players, very few new people would pay real money in a game they dont even know they will be playing in a month. The vast majority of said players are the same who made many million AD when TOMM came out. If yo uhave everything you want and more you have no reason to spend. Before TOMM the ZAX exchange took around 2-3 weeks, which was keeping up with the supply/demand of Zen. It was around when tomm got introduced that the ZAX started becoming slower and slower. The demand started being slowly higher and higher than the supply. Thus, in time, this massive backlog was created. And it was around the Redeemed Citadel introduction that the backlog became very clear since it was the time that most people started wanting more and more the Zen they wanted to buy with their AD.

    And really, i dont know where you come from with all the economy and market and stuff. This thread was talking about the mistakes Cryptic is making and how they are messing up the game. Its not about learning economy. You can give them as many advice as you want, unless they fix the game so people want to actually spend money on it, your economy lessons wont make the game economy move and the ZAX backlog will only keep getting bigger.
    If you are an economist you should know that unless you have something that people want to invest on, it doesnt matter whatever you say, believe or do. You aint getting any money.

    Everything in the game's economy can translate into the same patterns and problems in real life economics within itself. Your thought on real life economics seems to be limited to a free market. There is such thing as a communist economy as well. While not exactly the same, it is comparable.

    I'm not going to repeat everything I just said earlier just for you to understand better. Yes this thread is about mistakes Cryptic is making, hence why I posted here about the game's economy and what's about to happen if they don't think carefully about how players are compensated. Did you know many games fail due to bad in game economic structure? People aren't going to play a game forever, so new players to replace old players leaving is a must. A failing economy causes hyper inflation. This is just as true in a game as it is in real life.

    You could compare the new players in an older game to kids who are just entering adulthood. If they enter during a massively failing economy they're in for a rough ride. The difference here is they can just leave.

    Giving away free AD is like a government saying "let's print more money to fix this". The backlog in the ZAX directly relates to the value of AD. Don't you understand that the value of AD is based on the ZAX? The larger the backlog and long wait is a reflection of the value of AD vs Zen.

    As for currency being created and being destroyed all the time: there are direct comparisons to this in real life as well. The currency we're talking about right now (AD) isn't being destroyed fast enough to balance the amount being thrown into the game's economy, and that's the problem. In real life the money you spend changes hands. That doesn't mean actual paper (or whatever material used) bills are never destroyed: they are usually. Even a type of currency itself can become obsolete. Even still, this has no bearing at all on how economics works in game vs real life. It's unimportant to say the least. What's important is keeping an economic balance within the game, along with most other problems stated by others.

    edit: I only used the term "invest" to describe my job.
  • melechestmelechest Member Posts: 106 Arc User
    edited December 2020
    @mrbogus

    Free Market is how things work around the globe and, in a way, in the game. Why would anyone go into a specific type of economy talking with a different economy's laws? It doesnt make sense. But the economy of the game cant be compared to any of them. You are the one who brings real life economy into the game and the economic system you are working with is what you call "free market". You are also the one who started talking with economic terms "AD to Zen value", "demonetized", "market", "hyper inflation", these are all economic terms and they are only used in "free market".
    I brought you reasons why real life economy and game economy dont relate to each other, in-game economy has different laws compared to real life economy, thus "real-life solutions" cant be applied in the game. And the biggest difference, one that cant be bridged by anything, is that real-life economy is based on production and the whole economy revolves around production. A game has no production, thus its laws are completely different.

    "Giving away free AD is like a government saying "let's print more money to fix this". Until some years ago the amount of currency a country could print was based on the amount of gold a country had in its coffers. While this isnt entirely true right now (it still plays some role), its not easy for a government to say "lets print more money", they still have to abide by laws. But here are 2 things to keep in mind. First, the game has a controlled economy, "printing more money" can be done and is being done since the beginning of the game, and is being done at-will. Thus the comparison falls flat on the ground.
    Second, there have been instances where a government printed more money. It worked every time.

    The "value" of AD is based on how much AD enters the game, not on the ZAX. Years back, when each player could "create" hundreds of thousands AD every day, the prices on everything in the AH were way higher. Not because the ZAX was better. But because an immense amount of AD was being created every day. And this didnt inhibit or crash the market in any way possible.


    "That doesn't mean actual paper (or whatever material used) bills are never destroyed: they are usually." Elaborate?

    "Even a type of currency itself can become obsolete." Its true that in real life currencies can become obsolete. But they are not destroyed, they are replaced. Thats a huge difference. It happened throughout the European Union with Euro. Every country's original currency didnt just disappear into thin area or got completely destroyed and then, just like a miracle, moneyz popped into existence. The currency of its country got replaced by another currency.

    "Did you know many games fail due to bad in game economic structure?"
    Please tell me. How many? With at least some names as examples.
  • urlord283urlord283 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,084 Arc User
    I would rather leave things as they are.

    That said, I am hopeful.

  • mrbogusmrbogus Member Posts: 12 Arc User
    edited December 2020
    @melechest

    Rather than picking apart your replies to me, I'll just try to show you what I mean. What I'm stating isn't based my opinions. It's all fact.

    1: an in game economy is still an economy. If an economy exists so must economics. Regardless of the economy's type, fictional or real, certain economical laws (not speaking governmental) will still apply. This game has a mixed economic system. The ZAX is comparable to Communist, while the Auction House is the free market. We could further go on to talk about the barter system, but that's as important as the type of economic system in place: has nothing to do with the point I'm making.

    2: the laws of currency value apply to what I've stated earlier. Every time a player gains AD that is "printed" currency. An economic system can't have an unlimited supply of currency, or it becomes devalued. This is true for ANY type of economic system.

    3: the only way to apply a value to a currency is to compare it to another. This is why the ZAX is used as a base value for AD. I've worked 62 hours so far this week, and the week isn't over yet. I'm not going into detail for you about how to figure the exact value of AD. The backlog reflects the AD value vs Zen. The more AD on the server, the higher the backlog will be. The backlog started a long time ago when exploits were used by players to gain a lot of AD. That problem was never addressed properly. Why didn't the problem impact the AH as drastically then? Simply because it wasn't already in an inflated state. The same thing is happening now at a slower rate due to the free AD hand outs (well you do need to grind a bit). So with the state of the AH prices now, and the backlog at an all time high, you seriously think a massive influx of AD into the server will resolve to the same outcome?

    4: devalued AD causes inflation in the AH. Why wouldn't players ask more of something worth less for any item of value?

    5: above is why we need the ZAX cap, at least until they figure out how to bring value back to AD. The AD sink I proposed would help. The cap however only helps to regulate inflation to a degree. Removing or increasing the cap would be a secondary cause of even more inflation. It already happened before when the cap was raised from 500 to 750, even though a few people argued with me about it previously.

    6: the more AD becomes devalued, the less the cap even matters. When we get to a certain point the wait time on ZAX becomes too extreme to even make buying ZEN with AD feasible. The as the wait time increases, so does inflation in the AH. The ZAX is how F2P players buy their services they can't buy on AH, such as VIP, bank slots, etc. It is also how most players make more AD: but Zen with AD, use a coupon to purchase the good of choice, sell said good in AH for profit.

    7: I do this for a living, so why do expect me to keep talking about it at home?! It's better to learn by asking good solid questions about what you don't understand rather than inserting opinion into the topic, thus resulting in a false conclusion. example: "Second, there have been instances where a government printed more money. It worked every time."* I really did lol when I read that, so thanks for that.

    Compare:

    real life free market has a limited supply of currency *
    best results for a free market economy has a perfect balance between production, services, and consumer spending **
    real life free market still has governmental oversight for regulations ***

    game has unlimited supply of currency*
    game has production (any chest you open/etc), services, and consumer spending**
    zax cap***

    * google "Venezuela hyperinflation" if you want to see what happens: why we need a good AD sink
    ** more important in a real environment
    *** the USA housing market crash was an example of what happens with deregulation (not saying this applies to the game, but the reason for regulation in general)

    In the end, I don't really care if you believe me or not. It doesn't even matter if you compare real life economical structure to in game. The economical laws are what's important. Your opinion on the matter won't change the reality of the situation. In fact, if you even piece your own replies together using what you stated about AD value, you might also notice you confirmed my point, but didn't see it. "
    The "value" of AD is based on how much AD enters the game, not on the ZAX", you got the first part right. "But they are not destroyed", as for your point on this, try applying it to you're AD value statement, rather than using it for a topic that has no bearing on this discussion.

    I wasn't even intending to reply at all until some of my friends enticed me to do so (this is more for others reading). Right now I'd rather be sleeping, so I have more time later to actually play the game.
  • ultramath#3953 ultramath Member Posts: 143 Arc User
    The setting: a random dungeon
    The players: 5 in all, some newbs and a level 80 or two
    What happens: The 80 runs ahead of the group, the rest of whom do all that they can to try to keep up with the veteran player, all the while the 80 is wrecking everything with one hit, leaving a trail of monster death animations and twinkling loot in their wake. Upon reaching the end boss, the hapless goon survives about 1.5 seconds before being summarily annihilated with a dismissive wave of the 80's hand. Loot the chest --> vanish into a magic portal never to be seen again. No one said anything to each other. There was no plan. There was no challenge. It was tedium.

    Seen this before? Maybe only a couple hundred times? We've all been there, first as the feckless newb and then as the 80 doing our duty by plowing through the content with grim determination while carrying the rest of the group on our backs whether they liked it or not. Keep up or get left behind, it makes no difference. You won't be in any danger, regardless.... everything is already dead before you saw it.

    Now if we take the 80 out of the equation, suddenly things change. Maybe as you were leveling one time you managed to get a dungeon where there wasn't a glowing demigod wrecking the place up, and it actually took the whole group staying together to get through. I remember one time long ago that it took us five whole minutes to kill the end boss of Grey Wolf Den! Some characters even got killed and had to get picked up! It was actually fun!

    So in the interest of summing things up, we have problems with how things are right now. If you are top-tier 80 and have grinded out your gear and paid top dollar for rank 15s and what-have-you, then congrats. You have unwittingly paid good money so that you could effectively ruin the game for other players. I know that's not what you intended, but that's what has happened. The devs clearly don't want their game to be like this anymore, so you're probably going to have to accept some kind of scaling system for certain content -- or maybe ALL of it. My humble suggestion: if you want to have some say in the way this shakes out, get busy on preview and help the devs work on the new system.
  • melechestmelechest Member Posts: 106 Arc User
    @mrbogus

    I dont claim to be anything and whatever you are in real life matters not to me. As far as anyone is concerned, everyone in here can be lying through their teeth about what they are in real life. So please dont use that as a means of proof. You say its "based on facts" and not opinions, but i dont see any real points.

    1) Its true that there is an in-game economic system and its also true that it has specific laws. But, lets take a better look. Communism abolishes currencies, its a system that doesnt make use of anything even related to currencies, even Socialism, an economic system that evolves into Communism, make very limited use of a currency inside the country and it mostly uses it for trade with other countries. I dont know how you compare that to ZAX. You are talking about "free market", but its not an economic system, Capitalism is the economic system you are looking for. "Free market" is a system of how trading works, its not an economic system on itself. Capitalism, as an economic system, is based on production, and even more, the backbone is the production of "production means". Anything thats not industry is of lower importance, along with the market. Its true that the AH can resemble free market, but free market is based on the laws of supply and demand, but this is also limited by the law that defines the "value" of an item, the prices in AH are not based entirely on these laws, but i will compromise and say that the AH is the in-game iteration of free market.
    These do have some relevance on what you are saying. You were applying ways that capitalism problems can be solved in the way things in game should be solved. In that way you are comparing in-game economy with capitalism. Now you are saying that the in-game system is a combination of communism and capitalism. In your first post there was nothing even hinting at communism. Making clear if the in-game economy is the same or resembles a real economic system is relevant if you want to make points. Only if you prove that your points can be made and not be in the air.

    2) Thats true and i never said anything against that. In fact, i explained pretty well that there used to be way more "new AD" being introduced every day, but it inhibited neither the market nor ZAX.

    3) "the only way to apply a value to a currency is to compare it to another" that is only true in real life, not with in-game economies. This is what happens in almost every game thats not Neverwinter. They have one in-game currency and a currency thats bought with real life money. In almost every game thats not Neverwinter, the things that you can buy with the real-money currency are bound, aka not trade-able or sell-able, and you also cant exchange that currency with the in-game currency (like ZAX), so there is absolutely no correlation between the 2 currencies. While the currency you buy with real money is compared to real money and thus has its relative value set, the in-game currency cant be compared by any means with another currency. On the contrary, its value is set by the game it-self through set prices on traders. So on this part, this statement is not absolute. And it comes to show the big difference between a totally controlled "in-game economy" to the regulated real-life economy.
    The in-game market crashing was also a thing from when mod16 was announced until some time after it came live. Back then we didnt have any ZAX backlog and we didnt have a "massive influx of AD". The crash happened back then and in a similar way its happening now, with some very crucial differences. As it happens with massive changes being announced in a game, players are becoming unwilling to spend anything, because they dont know what will be useful and what will be useless, until content reaches the live server, is due to massive changes. This is enough to crash the market and this is what crashed the market back in mod16. As for the ZAX backlog, there are very specific reasons behind it. As i already mentioned, the people who would under normal circumstances buy Zen, which is mostly veteran players, have no reason to buy Zen, they have everything they need and millions of AD sitting in their banks, most of them already have thousands of Zen, why would they even go and spend real money to buy Zen. A lot of people are also unwilling to spend real money in the game because they dont like the direction it has been going for a long time. And a lot of people who were actually spending money on the game have already left.
    I never said that the influx of AD on the server will solve the market problem. But i also dont believe that introducing an AD sink will solve the economic problem. But lets wait a bit. The new changes dont only bring an influx of AD, they are also bring an AD sink through the companions.
    Plus, the vast majority of players dont have the resources to cope with a big AD sink. If the players start sinking what little AD they make on a regular basis on an AD sink, the only people that will have the ability to buy anything on the AH will be the people that already have everything or almost everything they need.
    In real life, finding a "sink" to put money in on a large scale, aka finding markets to invest in, is the way to solve economic crashes and crises. Thats not always the case in a game.

    4) I dont see how AD is being devalued. The increase in "AD production" is not enough to do that. And the 1% whales are not the ones who make the market move, as to cause a decrease in AD value.

    5) Totally agree that there must be an AD-Zen cap. Never said anything against it.

    6) I want to know how you cam to the conclusion that most players make AD by the means you describe. As far as i can tell and the way im also making AD, is running dungeons and selling anything of value i get and i dont need/want. As far as i can say, most people exchange AD with Zen either for VIP or any service they want for themselves. In order to do what you describe you need to have a large amount of AD to be able to cycle through it with Zen, in order to slowly increase your "capital" and still being able to use any meaningful amount of AD in order to improve your character. Otherwise the net gain, especially when you count the 10% AH fee, is too low to even be worth going to all that trouble. Its just that the few people who buy Zen with real money find buying with Zen and selling with AD is slightly more profitable that ZAX. The prices in the AH for Zen items are barely higher than their price in the Zen store, after the coupon discount, plus the 10% AH fee. Unless you have vast amounts of AD to keep that cycle on, you are not making any meaningful profit, you are just wasting your time.

    7) Ooooh. Sorry for not being "one of the top economists in Canada". Let me make something clear. I am inserting "opinions", but im explaining and making point on them. You are "stating facts" but you dont provide any points not explaining those facts.
    For example, you are saying "This game has a mixed economic system. The ZAX is comparable to Communist, while the Auction House is the free market.". You dont explain why is that and where do you base that "fact" on.
    Whatever i may be or not be, whatever i may know or not know, whatever i may or may not understand, one thing is very much certain.
    "Facts" are backed up by evidence/points/explanations. Otherwise, anything you may state is an opinion.
    You seriously dont expect to go anywhere, say "im an economist" and everyone will start taking your word for granted. Especially on the Internet when anyone can claim to be anything.

    As for your lol, im soooo happy that i made you laugh, but let me tell you a story. Back around 1820, Greece was under Ottoman rule. Despite that, Greece was using its own currency, not what the Ottomans were using. When the Greeks revolted against the Ottomans they almost immediately faced an economic crisis, the money the "government" of the time had was not nearly enough to support the war efforts. Do you know what they did? They printed more money. It worked like a charm. the additional money helped support the war efforts until other countries started supporting the revolting Greeks.

    * I dont disagree with those statements.
    ** Money in real life gets "recycled", it never really leaves the market, it only changes hands. In a game, currency is not bound to get recycled. In fact, a lot of the currency being spent never sees the market again. Those 2 are fundamentally different.
    Now i wouldnt even dare to compare real-life industry with dungeons runs. There are just so many things wrongs with that. How would you even begin to compare investment in industry, production, net-income, net-incoming increase, more investment etc. to "run a dungeon and hopefully i will get something that i can sell in an environment governed by RNG". This is so fundamentally wrong i cant even find the words to describe the differences.
    *** A market thats being completely controlled its not the same as a market thats being regulated. Control and regulation have completely different meanings. Control means that you can shape something however and whenever you want. Applying regulations means only setting boundaries.

    I wont even say anything about the next two paragraphs. You are only stating "facts", not making any points.

    But please, pass a message to your friend for me.
    As offensive and insulting her comments were, i really thank her.
    Her inconsistent and incomprehensible comments gave me and my friends some laughs and really made my day. Especially as she actually managed to degrade you. It was as much fun as someone stating "facts" without making any points to prove them.
  • melechestmelechest Member Posts: 106 Arc User
    @mrbogus

    By the way, im not the one forcing you to talk about it at home. You are the one who came into this thread talking about economics.
    When you make thread or reply to a thread you should always expect someone to reply or comment. You are the one who brought your job in the game, not me.
This discussion has been closed.