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    greywyndgreywynd Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 7,093 Arc User
    zyronax said:


    Ever the one to skirt the issue, and try to avoid answering legitimate observations and questions directly that make for uncomfortable reading if one is on or for Team Cryptic. Feel free to try another glib reply in an effort to redirect and avoid the line of query which you clearly understand the point of. It is somewhat amusing to watch, even if it is as vapid as it is predictable. 😊

    Not at all. It is very simple.

    I might also suggest you try a bit of Wheaton's Law.
    I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
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    zyronaxzyronax Member Posts: 153 Arc User
    > @greywynd said:
    > Not at all. It is very simple.
    >
    > I might also suggest you try a bit of Wheaton's Law.

    Thank you for proving my point. Always a pleasure. 😄
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    araneaxaraneax Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 639 Arc User
    greywynd said:

    Did you have fun playing? Did you get use out of what you paid for?

    I am playing this game from beta.

    Yes i had fun playing.

    Is it going to be " fun " overhauling my whole character once again so i can go do Avernus and Path of the Fallen again , even though my campaigns are on 100 % ?

    No it will not be fun at all.
    d7d81448-df6b-48cf-94a0-cf1ba87d861a_zpsish6zr2v.jpg

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    mentinmindmakermentinmindmaker Member Posts: 1,490 Arc User
    edited December 2020
    While I can't find the reference, I saw somewhere that the average lifetime of a character in an mmorpg is 3-4 months.

    This is substantiated by my own experience in my guild, where we have a small stable core but lots of people are ever rotating in and out.

    This means Cryptic roughly got two types customers:
    * Those that just run the game for a short term wanting to experience what the game is, but quit once they have consumed all the content
    * Those that are in it for a longer haul and want to build up their characters towards BiS

    It is my impression that the short-time players far outweigh the long-term players.

    I would also assume that most of Cryptic's incomes come from the short-term players, since the long-term players might buy a few things, but they quickly have everything they need from Zen store. The short-term players are ever new and need stuff.

    This obviously has consequences for game design. It means more weight must be put on making the game easy accessible and to support and encourage a steady flow of new players into game.

    It also means that the loss of a few veterans does not matter too much to Cryptic. Veterans likely are no big source of income and actually are a net loss.

    So to all those veterans threatening to leave: It is very likely Cryptic will say 'yes please' to that ;)
    It also means big changes that scare off a lot of veterans is no problem for Cryptic as long as it improves the experience for the 3-4 months duration short time players. Having the value of gear built up over a long time reset is not a big problem for the short-time players as their investment into it is limited anyways.
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    rockster#6227 rockster Member Posts: 1,860 Arc User
    greywynd said:

    But in the end it is still only entertainment. You own nothing except maybe the device you're playing on.

    Someone invests real-world money into their character with the expectation that it is going to have some return value to them and it's going to last long enough to justify that investment. Otherwise why pay anything in the first place. In this case they are paying money to get a certain result the game promised but which is now worthless and worse, now if they wish to return to where they were prior to the update which they had already invested money in, they will have to pay it all over again to get back to the same position they paid for in the first place.

    To address your comment specifically, people pay money with an expectation for some kind of return on it which doesn't involve material goods that they will ever own all the time. You certainly don't have to own something you pay for to get a value return on it. When you go to see a movie in a cinema you aren't paying to own the movie and while the experience is not permanent, you still expect a certain experience and payoff for that ticket price. But what if you see 3/4 of the movie and it stops, and then they tell you sorry we have changed the projector for a new one and if you want to see the movie you have to pay again. Similarly, those who have invested in their characters by using hard cash feel that their investment has now been rendered worthless and they are being now told that if they wish to have the same experience they paid for the first time (the benefit of upgrading their characters in faster time so they can enjoy a better game experience without waiting years to do it) they will have to pay for it all over again.

    To be honest Greywynd you can argue about this til you're blue in the face but it doesn't change what the expectation was in the minds of those who paid for upgrades to their characters and why they paid. And seeing you are not inside their heads and it wasn't your money spent, while you can offer your opinion on what they are and aren't paying for, it will not change the reasoning and decisions and expectations those people had which convinced them to part with their money and give it to Cryptic, and the frustration and disappointment of those people now they have wasted their money.

    And at this point I believe you are just being vexatious for the sake of it when you know full-well what is being explained.

    I am speaking on behalf of those who had a certain expectation that their investment would provide a set benefit but that benefit is now being taken away and I think this person quoted below is a good example of this. And there are many many more in the same position.

    ........................................................................................................................................................................................


    "I can't make my own thread yet I'm so new but I'll leave my feedback here, I'm a new player, just got to 80, did a lot of research and invested a lot of money in gear so I could get started in content with my Elf Hunter "EricacirE".

    On the live server in RedQ I had gotten 19 million damage at the end of the match, the undermountain was easy, I barely take damage and I evaporate everything, as I should, I spent so much effort into getting my stats the way I wanted them with a ton of critical severity and armor pen and power and everything a Ranger would want after playing 1000's of hours of other games like POE or Diablo 3 and then reading for days about the meta in Neverwinter, even specifically getting critically severity 5% from my race, and after getting everything as perfect as I could I was doing really well for a fresh 80, my aimed shot could crit for over 100k, my thorns were doing great damage and giving me CDR, my daily and this one shot combine to give me +20% damage for 5 seconds so I have this rotation I do on bosses worked out to take advantage of that 20% window...

    I just went to a level 60 enemy in PTR in the Undermountain and the pack freaking killed me.... I would have probably have gone to 95% hp after fighting them before, and killed them with just my roots skill, and they killed me in PTR. I can't believe it I'm going to have to quit the game, I've never taken a harder grind wise or more expensive L in a game in my life. I really hope this isn't the final product, it's cutting my legs off so bad (and I have rank 15 enchants, I filled out my stuff as much as I could) that I would have no idea where to begin to even start to make up for the power loss on my Hunter - Ranger. I was really blown away when the level 60 gnome mob killed me. I wish I could get my money and time back, that was so much to mentally absorb in these last few weeks to get my character fine tuned enough to start rolling through the campaigns, now I'm level 80 with full gear and enchants, a legendary 980il artifact bow, and I can't kill a tiny level 60 gnome.

    I love change, and I was at first really excited to hear "combat rework" but I would have liked to have been BUFFED, not nerfed down to 20% of what I was. Extremely Large "F"

    Based on how I'm performing now on live at like iL 23k, you would have to boost me to iL 70k to output the same amount of damage. Its unreal how broken my character is on PTR, I won't even play the live game now, whats the point. I'm just going to keep my eye on the updates and hope this april fools joke gets reworked for not only myself but everyone, I honest to god spent over 200 dollars, so I can't imagine how a new person could play this for free now, I can't even play it with 200 dollars worth of gear just to get myself started. I only wanted to spend 100 but the game got really fun so I wanted to make sure I was setup to get through the campaigns and get the gear I wanted, now I'm suited to combat Level 30 mobs."
    Apparently pointing-out the bleeding obvious is a 'personal attack'.
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    greywyndgreywynd Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 7,093 Arc User


    Someone invests real-world money into their character with the expectation that it is going to have some return value to them and it's going to last long enough to justify that investment. Otherwise why pay anything in the first place. In this case they are paying money to get a certain result the game promised but which is now worthless and worse, now if they wish to return to where they were prior to the update which they had already invested money in, they will have to pay it all over again to get back to the same position they paid for in the first place.

    To address your comment specifically, people pay money with an expectation for some kind of return on it which doesn't involve material goods that they will ever own all the time. You certainly don't have to own something you pay for to get a value return on it. When you go to see a movie in a cinema you aren't paying to own the movie and while the experience is not permanent, you still expect a certain experience and payoff for that ticket price. But what if you see 3/4 of the movie and it stops, and then they tell you sorry we have changed the projector for a new one and if you want to see the movie you have to pay again. Similarly, those who have invested in their characters by using hard cash feel that their investment has now been rendered worthless and they are being now told that if they wish to have the same experience they paid for the first time (the benefit of upgrading their characters in faster time so they can enjoy a better game experience without waiting years to do it) they will have to pay for it all over again.

    To be honest Greywynd you can argue about this til you're blue in the face but it doesn't change what the expectation was in the minds of those who paid for upgrades to their characters and why they paid. And seeing you are not inside their heads and it wasn't your money spent, while you can offer your opinion on what they are and aren't paying for, it will not change the reasoning and decisions and expectations those people had which convinced them to part with their money and give it to Cryptic, and the frustration and disappointment of those people now they have wasted their money.

    And at this point I believe you are just being vexatious for the sake of it when you know full-well what is being explained.

    I am speaking on behalf of those who had a certain expectation that their investment would provide a set benefit but that benefit is now being taken away and I think this person quoted below is a good example of this. And there are many many more in the same position.

    Which, again, goes back to the Terms of Service everyone who installs the game agrees to. They can change it however they want whenever they want. They are also not obligated to inform us beforehand.

    Is it unethical? No. Everything is spelled out in the ToS. They gave us sufficient warning as the proposed changes won't hit Live until next year.

    Is it immoral? Not at all.

    Now, is it in bad taste? That all depends upon how butthurt an individual decides to be over the changes.

    You can wait and see how it will play out on Live. Preview is going to change over the intervening time. It always does.

    You can continue to play without investing more. This is where most players fall. Since it is a F2P game most don't invest anything except time. If they are enjoying the game, they will stick around until they no longer enjoy it.

    Or you can just up and quit now.
    I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
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    rockster#6227 rockster Member Posts: 1,860 Arc User
    You are being totally disingenuous but I've said to you pretty-much all I can be bothered to.
    Apparently pointing-out the bleeding obvious is a 'personal attack'.
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    greywyndgreywynd Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 7,093 Arc User
    I'm being honest.
    I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
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