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You just shot yourself in the foot with crafting costs
aorks
Member Posts: 5 Arc User
There are backorders on the Zen Exchange for 46 million Zen at 750 AD each. With 34.5 billion AD tied up on the Zen exchange, developers should have realized long, long time ago, that it is too easy to buy VIP with in-game currency.
I don't know if the player base is 2,000 or 6,000, but no matter if the average player has 17,250,000 or 'only' 5,750,000 AD tied up on the Zen Exchange, it shows an enormous wealth disparity between new players and old players.
Instead of addressing the problem with existing multi-millionaires, who already have a maximum of characters dedicated solely to farming AD and buying thousands of Zen on the Zen exchange at the time, the 'solution' is that new players have to spend a large part of their morale on bone necklaces, so they can afford leveling up gathering and crafting skills with other, less sellable, items. In Most MMOs, you gather materials and kill a few mobs to craft an item, but not in Neverwinter. Here it is all about bone necklaces.
Making the economy harder for new players is a simpleminded and lazy approach to fixing the wrong problem, especially when the income/wealth disparity between new players and old ones has been allowed to reach Neverwinter proportions.
The ridiculous backlog on the Zen Exchange may make a few new players start buying VIP with RL money, but it discourages and turn away even more, who could have bought one or two VIP passes.
Designing bigger AD sinks for end-game players, setting a limit on the amount of Zen you can trade, or making morale shared on an account could address the back-log on the Zen exchange. Making leveling up gathering and crafting a lot more punishing for new players is the proverbial shot in the foot.
Instead of addressing the runaway wealth accumulation of old players, the developers have nerfed the customer group they should look at to put food on their table - the players that are likely to buy VIP with RL money for the first couple of months they are playing.
I am a gather/crafter/tycoon kind of player and normally start out as a F2P player. I only stay long-term with a game if I can see that I have a chance to build a business and pay my way with in-game currency - even if it means I have to buy a subscription once or twice at the beginning.
It should be a challenge to start buying VIP passes with in-game currency, but with the Zen Exchange so backed up, it seems that the main challenge is patience. It seems, that even when I have accumulated enough AD to buy my first VIP pass with in-game currency (with or without paying RL money to get there), then I will still have to wait months before I can acquire the Zen to actually pay for it.
How long it takes a new player to reach 'break even' is not the big issue, as long as it is reasonably attainable, but the Zen Exchange backlog makes the stick the carrot (that should entice us to pay and play) is dangling from so long that the carrot looks small and uninteresting.
Unless you take measures to shorten the stick, then I suppose I will play until I have enough AD positions on the Zen exchange to pay for VIP, then I will cancel the buy orders, and move on to another game. So far, I am enjoying Neverwinter, but it is not the only circus in town!
I don't know if the player base is 2,000 or 6,000, but no matter if the average player has 17,250,000 or 'only' 5,750,000 AD tied up on the Zen Exchange, it shows an enormous wealth disparity between new players and old players.
Instead of addressing the problem with existing multi-millionaires, who already have a maximum of characters dedicated solely to farming AD and buying thousands of Zen on the Zen exchange at the time, the 'solution' is that new players have to spend a large part of their morale on bone necklaces, so they can afford leveling up gathering and crafting skills with other, less sellable, items. In Most MMOs, you gather materials and kill a few mobs to craft an item, but not in Neverwinter. Here it is all about bone necklaces.
Making the economy harder for new players is a simpleminded and lazy approach to fixing the wrong problem, especially when the income/wealth disparity between new players and old ones has been allowed to reach Neverwinter proportions.
The ridiculous backlog on the Zen Exchange may make a few new players start buying VIP with RL money, but it discourages and turn away even more, who could have bought one or two VIP passes.
Designing bigger AD sinks for end-game players, setting a limit on the amount of Zen you can trade, or making morale shared on an account could address the back-log on the Zen exchange. Making leveling up gathering and crafting a lot more punishing for new players is the proverbial shot in the foot.
Instead of addressing the runaway wealth accumulation of old players, the developers have nerfed the customer group they should look at to put food on their table - the players that are likely to buy VIP with RL money for the first couple of months they are playing.
I am a gather/crafter/tycoon kind of player and normally start out as a F2P player. I only stay long-term with a game if I can see that I have a chance to build a business and pay my way with in-game currency - even if it means I have to buy a subscription once or twice at the beginning.
It should be a challenge to start buying VIP passes with in-game currency, but with the Zen Exchange so backed up, it seems that the main challenge is patience. It seems, that even when I have accumulated enough AD to buy my first VIP pass with in-game currency (with or without paying RL money to get there), then I will still have to wait months before I can acquire the Zen to actually pay for it.
How long it takes a new player to reach 'break even' is not the big issue, as long as it is reasonably attainable, but the Zen Exchange backlog makes the stick the carrot (that should entice us to pay and play) is dangling from so long that the carrot looks small and uninteresting.
Unless you take measures to shorten the stick, then I suppose I will play until I have enough AD positions on the Zen exchange to pay for VIP, then I will cancel the buy orders, and move on to another game. So far, I am enjoying Neverwinter, but it is not the only circus in town!
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I am one of those new players who would potentially pay real money for VIP for a month or two, but with that backlog I don't see why I should bother. I will just get the fun out of the game I can get and then move on!
Over the last few new Modules there was always a time window for getting any lower IL character into new content right from the start, then it's just about following the train and doing at least something for your very own shiny new items with high IL - if that's too much "work" for you, just wait a while for any surplus ending up in the Auction House for laughable low amounts of AD.
Anyway, 645 days left on the ViP clock, 21k ZEN banked with another 5k ZEN rolling in around 2-3 weeks, playing the game very casually, and i think the last time i spend money for NWO/STO was when they had the 10$ bundle on Groupees...
It was mod 3. At that time, the AD surplus was a lot worse than now. Anything was millions in AH. Whatever high price you see today cannot compare with what happened back then. The Zax was not moving at all. There was no VIP back then. However, the only Epic mount available was in Zen store. It took more than one year (if not 1.5 year) to get my Zen. Hence, the current waiting time does not bother me a bit at all. It is 'short'.
I just want to point out when I started as a new player, the situation was not better than now. I considered it was a lot worse than now. My first Zen purchase was a Stormraider Clydesdale by the way. i.e. after a year or more, the most "urgent" thing I needed to get was a mount.
So, for my 'challenge', I set up a plan (after 3 months studying the game mechanic and economy mechanic) so that I could play the game competitively and free sustainable without unsustainable effort. Did I get any help from anyone? No. I was a loner. I did not join any guild at that time or having any 'friend'.
I expected I would be competitive in a year. I did. My plan also worked to get AD and Zen sustainable without unsustainable effort. I have adjusted my plan might be 10 times (because the game changed) since. Yes, I needed to be 'creative' in each change.
So, I have VIP since the introduction of VIP. At this moment, I have 187 days of VIP, 48K Zen.
And I did not spend a cent.
Can new player do that? I think so. Will they do that? Probably not. People were very patient back then. They could wait for a year or more to be mediocre and many did. Not so much these days. Cryptic really loves the "probably not" decision. Zax can be moving because of the "probably not" decision. Cryptic already made the life of new player a lot easier than the new player back then.
Plus the stuff you can get from events these days, like mythic account-wide companions/mounts and even 72 slots bags, i really wish we had these kind of high quality rewards in the past too...
The thing is that you are not more patient than new players, but today there are so many variants of MMOs that most players have a lot lower tolerance for mindless stupidities. You always have the choice whether you want to invest time, RL money, or both to progress. If you want to spend less time, you spend more RL money; if you want to spend less RL money, you have to spend more time. Grind is grind as it has always been, but if it is not entertaining or giving a sense of accomplishment then I am out.
I bought one month of premium in Albion Online and when I left, I had built my own guild island with top tier buildings and workers and enough gold to buy 4 months premium for each of my three characters, so I do know grind, and I do know how to work with game mechanics. The difference between AO and NW is that AO grind cannot be done by a monkey sitting and pressing buttons and it tickles my OCPD.
Most MMOs have 'dailies' that are relatively simple routines you can do to boost your progression a little bit. In AO, the daily routine is dealing with your farm plots and workers, which will give you resources. Though a relatively simple routine, you can maximize your profits if you read the market and grow/gather the right things and then decide what to sell straight as resources or as crafted food/items. You sell your stuff to other players, so it is a game of competitive crafting. In addition to having some sort of purpose, you can choose to skip the daily routine if you do not feel like it. You miss out on some income and progression, but you can continue where you left off.
The crafting system in Neverwinter is what initially had me hooked on the game, but the recent changes are why I will probably move on. Tbh, I found it a bit odd that you could choose to spend 25 minutes on crafting bone necklaces to sell to an NPC, just to gain in-game currency, but that was the reward from that tedious feature. Whether or not you made the maximum amount of bone necklaces, you could still craft your own tools and materials from resources purchased on the AH or gathered by your workers.
But, then the developers got the hare brained idea to multiply the cost and morale by 2.5 for everything, so now you need to (no can or could) spend 15 minutes on making bone necklaces, just to be able to play the game as a crafter. You can still buy resources on the AH for tools and materials, but you cannot afford to craft with them unless you do bone necklaces.
I don't mind slow progress and I don't mind hard, but I must admit that it irritates me when I logon to a depleted balance, because I did not waste my time to turn all my morale into bone necklaces the day before. It is still the same mindless pushing of two buttons, but now there is no choice and very little wealth left to show for it after that. If you do not push the two buttons, there will be no crafting. There is no challenge, no fun, and absolutely no sense of purpose or progression. Just a waste of time in order to be able to craft.
You want to insta-craft a new tier of tools for your gatherers? Fine, do that and you have too little morale left to make enough bone necklaces. If you choose not to do all your bone necklaces now, then you will be forced to do your bone necklaces tomorrow. WTF?
If I need to develop some sort of mental disorder similar to sitting and banging my head against the wall for 20 minutes every morning just to get through the day, then NW is the least appealing MMO option.
If doing crafting as a new player is what you have in mind to 'finance' this game, it will not work.
It is an unsustainable financial method with unsustainable effort.
Neverwinter craft is far from the best crafting system i have ever seen in MMORPG though the fact that even disconnected your artisans are still working makes it very alt friendly and allows you to passively produce for tiny profits.
Craft isn't really driving the economy in Neverwinter (unfortunately and it has worsen since mod18-19) as most of the powerful craftable stuff are tied to looting something in dungeons (VoS whiskers being the current exemple) while the contrary isn't true (the large majority of the interesting stuff is directly lootable or Zen buyable without any craft involvement) and crafted consummables are mainly either useless or too costly to produce (with some rare exceptions for a quite tiny market).
To make an income on craft, to be able to make a nice consistent daily AD or huge ponctual spike AD from craft on auction house, you either have to industrialize the production running multiple workshops(/toons) on consummables-like items (whose prices are continuously driven down slowly since mod19) and willing to spend 20-30 minutes per day on that, or to focus at the right time (x2 events to collect ingredients and produce intermediate ingredients, and between two x2 events for selling your intermediate/end products) spending a good chunk of your playtime at that moment on high end mastercrafts (extremely costly to get up there for 1 workshop) that are considered desirable by the players (mainly the weapons) or become a provider of intermediate crafted ingredients involved in those desirable mastercrafts.
In the first case, you must find a way to fund your gold, and to be honest, from my 33 workshops perspective that had run without interruption between 2018 and 2022, low rank crafts you can turn for a tiny gold profit to NPC aren't the most efficient way at all.
In the second case, if you invest in buying the ingredients (because for those you must loot, you won't be very productive if you rely only on what you personnally get) you must find a business way to always turn profit on AD, be very ready during x2 workshop events (for collecting mastercraft ingredients in the chult/sharadar nodes), and get the right artisans/tools to minimize the inevitable failures and the not so great +1 chances.
I am mainly the first type, industrialization, though i time to time mastercraft a weapon or two when what I have looted have accumulated enough. Nowdays, if I was still logging every day, I would probably earn around 200k-300k AD per day on average from crafting (compared to around 600-800k during mod16/17), so something like 6-8k AD per workshop per day.
Side note : would be nice if we could get some craftable mechanical/constructs mounts/comp (machines, golems, etc) with interesting powers.
Thank you for taking the time to reply guys. I will be on my way to another game.
Good luck and happy hunting no matter if you stay or go.