I wont take you seriously in this discussion either because you are not correct and are not being reasonable.
I can attest that the foundry quests I have done were nerfed. There is a campaign with 3 quests with a demonic setting. The Shocktroop devils are giving half the XP, the Hellfire Warlocks are giving ZERO xp, the imps are about the same in XP, the Legion Devils are giving half the XP and same with the drow assassins...the most I saw out of the quests were about 4 money drops and 3 items and none of those quests are farm quests, the one with the most single mob is one with I think 40 IMPs spread throughout the quest which cant be helped since they are in groups of 5.
How about loot? I haven't really looked at XP gain, so I can't really comment on that. This thread seemed to be mostly about loot nerfs as far as I can tell, though XP is a valid discussion too. From my two tests tonight, at least loot has remained the same.
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ellindar1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I figured they went in and just killed the whole system. This is horrible. I'm torn about this game now as the big sticker is the foundry system for me. If I can't level my alts via foundry grinding I might seek a charge back. This game loses a huge replay value for me if I can't alt it up. I really only do the quests sparingly on them till the neverdeath graveyard for the last bag then just grind it out. I'm regretting getting the 60 founders and the extra zen now as the chargeback process is another chore.
Please change it back. If it doesn't change then I guess I have to move on .
Can I have your stuff?
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ellindar1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
You are right. I don't care in the slightest if exploiters get less enjoyment out of the game. They are neither the type of player I want to play with, nor the type of player I want to make Foundry quests for. They have nothing to do with me and their way of playing the game is obviously (based on Cryptic's own statements) against the developers' intent.
I don't see how that makes me wrong.
Amen brother.
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ellindar1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Cryptic's actual target audience is anyone with a disposable income who is willing to pay real money for fake money to use to obtain virtual items they really do not need to experience any of the gameplay content Neverwinter has.
Maybe you should read cryptics own statements on the matter. Might clear up the fact you're wrong lol
How about loot? I haven't really looked at XP gain, so I can't really comment on that. This thread seemed to be mostly about loot nerfs as far as I can tell, though XP is a valid discussion too. From my two tests tonight, at least loot has remained the same.
Who cares about loot? What do you get from loot? Were epics dropping? I cannot recall ever even getting a BLUE item outside of once in a while finding a blue profession resource. Every single white or green item dropped was vendor trash and that means money, which is worth what in a game with an economy based on AD and ZEN? more gold in game does nothing since its just for healing potions and injury kits.
This isn't like another MMO where gold actually hurts the economy, and if an item WAS dropping that was unbalancing the game, you NERF THAT...not everything!
Uhm, the person who created this thread, for instance? May I remind you that the name of the thread is "Foundry Nerf and Items". If you don't want to discuss the hypothetical Foundry nerf for items, maybe you should take that up elsewhere?
The people who argue that the foundry doesn't need drops and exp and who also argue that the foundry should be used purely for story telling are either in advance denial or are just don't know any better. If you want to write a story, write a book. If you want to create an interactive experience go role play somewhere. The Foundry doesn't allow for much dialogue interaction at the moment as everything in dialogue is binary. You either advance the story or you end the story 1 or 0. There isn't any real way to create choices(or good stories), there isn't any real way to create branching story lines, and there isn't a single way to make the player feel like they really belong to the quest. One of the highest rated 'lore filled' foundry quests right now made me realize just how limited the foundry really was for story telling. I didn't like the story I was being told, I didn't enjoy the way it was being told (really, running from point a to point b and from point b to point c over and over isn't real story telling) and I could hardly even bring myself to believe that anyone made or played this thinking it was revolutionary in design. The foundry is meant to create GAME CONTENT so that when we get to level 60 we have something to do because as it stands right now the game lacks meaningful endgame content. Every dungeon, raid, encounter is far too easy and for a game that prides itself on its action combat neverwinter falls back way too hard on the way other mmos do things, you can't create a real action game if stats still mean everything and player reaction rarely matters. But this is a whole other subject... Really all I want to get across to people is that the foundry needs to be worth while for people to play because as it stands right now, that's all the foundry is good for, playing- not story telling, not deep quests filled with branching stories- just playing a linear dungeon made by joe shmoe who was trying his hardest to make a neat dungeon while pushing his budget.
Foundry is a powerful tool for roleplayers, players who want to tell a story, and those who want to experience them. It is like reading an awesome book, do you actually get anything out of it besides a good read? I don't think it was ever intended for farming and XP farming. There are other ways of doing this, Foundry just is no longer one of them.
If you think mindlessly grinding is fun, then you're playing the wrong game! D&D has always been about story telling.
This is what is wrong with RPGs today. Everybody is obsessed with a false sense of achievement. I bet only a small minority of players actually even read the dialogue in quests!
If you want to grind non-stop. Go play one of the countless asian RPGs that do exactly that.
And I've seen it in numerous other threads as well, in a much more basic form. When these exp grinding quests first started appearing many community members were outright saying that the foundry was for lore and story telling and that these types of quests should be removed and that exp gain should be outright removed from the foundry entirely.
I think people who care the least about this game are the happiest for the nerf, its almost as if they WANT the game to fail and love the idea of something driving players away, giving players fewer reasons to play or lessening their ability to play.
1. power lvling may be a reason to nerf XP, but when it comes down to it its going to happen no matter what, the foundry just kept it out of the live playing world and away from other players to keep distruption down.
2. nerfing loot drops other than blue/purple makes no sense at all since they have such a low value and only brings gold into the market which has no effect on the economy since it isn't a gold based economy.
3. the only thing this nerf with accomplish is this, it takes the foundry away from the farmers and pushes them into the live playing world to interfere with players questing and also now places a much higher focus of farming onto the dungeons which will flood the market with dungeon drops THAT WILL EFFECT THE ECONOMY. It also takes away reasons for non farmers to do any foundry content because now the cost of pots will far outweigh any gains from the foundry quest itself.
4. Non-farm foundry quests are affected, I ran severl during the foundry XP bonus this past hour, saw far less XP from even short quests with a small amount of mobs(bandits) and one with 7 different mobs(in groups of 3 and 5). Only looted 2 items, a green and a white with 4 money drops. Sickening, I already have guild members talking about quitting once they run through the story unless Cryptic has some magical amount of content they are hiding.
5. What point is there in taking the foundry which is going to make up the bulk of your content and making it a loss or near loss every time someone takes part in it? Is that a reverse carrot on a stick?!?
Okay, completed another module that I had never played before and I received a normal amount of greens, potions and scrolls. I'm inclined to believe that nothing changed and the previous couple runs were just bad luck paired with the expectation that drops had been reduced. There's a lesson to learn here, I think.
I think just the opposite! The Foundry is a place to let your imagination flow into a story, it's not about XP or loot. People who are too lazy to go out and grind real world zones made it that way. I think if these easy XP mode maps disappear, the creators of quality content will come out to play even more. I hope they nerf the Foundry XP to the point that it's not productive to farm Foundry quests.
and many other examples of people claiming it would be better off if only the best of the best maps give exp and loot. But that leads to just an endless cycle of only these "best maps" being played. Just look at how Starcraft II's featured map system worked.
While that's a very thoughtful series of speculations and theories, I don't agree with them at all, and arguing it is a bit silly since we don't have facts to base our opinions on. Cryptic has obviously decided in favor of my point of view, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see how that turns out, won't we?
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rragleMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
From a business point (which they are) they did the right thing.
Am i personally happy they did it? No, because I only care about myself when playing solo and it was just removing the tedious killing and move from a-b without any real immersive story that really interested me.
The reson from a business point it was the right thing to do, is the more who are max level much quicker than they have content ready for release the more who leave the game because they are bored.
Fewer people playing means micro tractions taking less money=less profit.
Lower profit means new content gets hit, because they can't keep the staff to make it quick enough
and many other examples of people claiming it would be better off if only the best of the best maps give exp and loot.
Even as the author of the (currently, as of today) highest rated quest in the Foundry, I think that would be quite silly, and I strongly doubt that's where Cryptic wants to take things. It's a bit off-topic too to be honest, since it doesn't seem like today's "nerf" has had much, if any, of an effect on loot in non-exploit quests. There's still conflicting reports about the XP, so I have no idea what's going on there.
While that's a very thoughtful series of speculations and theories, I don't agree with them at all, and arguing it is a bit silly since we don't have facts to base our opinions on. Cryptic has obviously decided in favor of my point of view, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see how that turns out, won't we?
You don't know much about Cryptic do you, a very long storied history of taking a decent game, making a (decision) and royally fubar'ing it up and driving people away.
This fix solves nothing, its just going to push the farmers into the open game world and into dungeons which is going to flood the market with blue/epics and actually damage the economy. Hey wait, the way you have been arguing it makes me wonder if that is exactly what you wanted.
Must be, because you sure haven't been making any sense at all.
You don't know much about Cryptic do you, a very long storied history of taking a decent game, making a (decision) and royally fubar'ing it up and driving people away.
*shrug* Might be. I'm not in the habit of judging people on past (alleged) mistakes.
This fix solves nothing, its just going to push the farmers into the open game world and into dungeons which is going to flood the market with blue/epics and actually damage the economy.
So you're saying that people playing this game as if it was an MMO will hurt it? That most certainly does not make sense to me. Farmers farming dungeons and selling their loot on the AH is exactly what people do in every other MMO out there, including the most successful one of them all: World of Warcraft.
I really don't think you thought that argument through before you posted it.
The Foundry nerf was enough for me to drop the game until more content comes out, and has more variety. Ideally I enjoy PVP the most but two arena's, and one being awful is a dagger (the excessively large one). Foundry's were a fun way to level up, but removing "blood and sand" doesn't make sense. Once PW figures it out, I'll hopefully be back.
The Foundry nerf was enough for me to drop the game until more content comes out, and has more variety. Ideally I enjoy PVP the most but two arena's, and one being awful is a dagger (the excessively large one). Foundry's were a fun way to level up, but removing "blood and sand" doesn't make sense. Once PW figures it out, I'll hopefully be back.
Off to GW2 but will keep in touch.
We'll be waiting for you, hopefully with tons more content both inside and outside of the Foundry.
Even as the author of the (currently, as of today) highest rated quest in the Foundry, I think that would be quite silly, and I strongly doubt that's where Cryptic wants to take things. It's a bit off-topic too to be honest, since it doesn't seem like today's "nerf" has had much, if any, of an effect on loot in non-exploit quests. There's still conflicting reports about the XP, so I have no idea what's going on there.
I never desired to come off in a fashion that attacked cryptic or their conceptions of how to recondition the current foundry(I haven't even touched the foundry today, so I cannot really say anything as far as changes go) I wanted to express my belief that IF the foundry's numbers for exp and loot were tweaked, for better or for worse, it would still remain the same place it was before. Changing exp gains and loot drops won't suddenly make the foundry have better lore content and will not drive more people to make lore based quests like a decent number of people in the foundry threads believe, that is all I wanted to get across.
*shrug* Might be. I'm not in the habit of judging people on past (alleged) mistakes.
Yep, that should be more than enough to make anyone stop taking you seriously. I had no idea there were still blind Cryptic fanboys remaining willing to pretend they have made no mistakes in the past to drive players away.
Anyway, I agree with most here. This was a foolish nerf that doesn't really solve any actual problems at all.
The farming and power leveling will continue just either in the player zones or in the dungeons. So now instead of it being away from other players, it will interfere with them and instead of not damaging the economy with an influx of gold, the farmers will now be bring in a ton of dungeon drops and taking AD out of everyone else hands from the quantities they will be able to place on the AH.
I sure know that I personally ENJOYED being able to play this game the last week without having to deal with any farmers while questing...guess all good things come to an end.
Yep, that should be more than enough to make anyone stop taking you seriously. I had no idea there were still blind Cryptic fanboys remaining willing to pretend they have made no mistakes in the past to drive players away.
Blind Cryptic fanboys? Do you get off on making up unfounded derogatives for other people? The only other Cryptic game I've played was Champions Online, and I never played that for long enough to notice anything blatantly wrong about it. Does that make me a fanboy? No. Maybe we should turn this around and ask what your accusation of fanboyism says about you? Yes, I believe that would be an excellent idea.
I don't judge Cryptic on past mistakes for many reasons, none of which you are privy to.
The farming and power leveling will continue just either in the player zones or in the dungeons. So now instead of it being away from other players, it will interfere with them and instead of not damaging the economy with an influx of gold, the farmers will now be bring in a ton of dungeon drops and taking AD out of everyone else hands from the quantities they will be able to place on the AH.
I was about to write an answer to this, but then I realized that I answered this exact point on the previous page. Here's the post I wrote then, which is equally true now:
So you're saying that people playing this game as if it was an MMO will hurt it? That most certainly does not make sense to me. Farmers farming dungeons and selling their loot on the AH is exactly what people do in every other MMO out there, including the most successful one of them all: World of Warcraft.
I really don't think you thought that argument through before you posted it.
People seem to be getting upset over the *farming* foundry missions. I think they are making invalid assumptions about what we mean by farming mission and what they think is a farming mission. So to be clear here,
When *I* say farming mission I mean specifically missions with a high mob density that I can grind for consumables (Potions / kits / scrolls) and gold to buy said consumables. I dont mean the *ogres in a barrel* missions. I fully expect to actually FIGHT said mobs and earn the drops. I do these farming missions specifically for the consumables, they have no impact on the missions I run for storys or simple pleasure. Totally different reason for going into them.
The reason I run *farming* missions like this is because the game is designed with those consumables in mind. You WILL DIE in a T2 Epic run. You WONT want to stand by a campfire for 5mins to get rid of the injury. You WILL use pots in T2 epic runs. These consumables are pretty much required for dungeons until you over gear them enough that they are trivial. Its part of the game design.
Now the potions cost 7.5 silver, Injury kits 20 silver. You have to get that money somewhere. Hence farming missions. For the people who maby run 1 dungeon a week this wont be an issue as they will come across these items naturally. I tend to run 3-4 dungeons (at least) a DAY. I cant sustain that without farming, hence farming missions.
Nerfing the drops in these missions wont stop me farming, it'll just mean I look for somewhere else to farm .. ie the zones your questing in. Then it becomes *our* problem since I and the other dungeon running players will be ganking any mob we see move in your quest zones. Not an ideal situation.
Stop reading *farming* and seeing *Ogres in a barrel*
I dont want more drops, I dont want better drops, I just want the same drops as I'd get killing mobs in over-land zones.
PS- From what I've seen its the Missions that have you kill 1 mob type over and over that are suffering from the nerf. Maby some of the people better versed in the Foundry can make some farming missions (again dont read - ogres in a barrel !!!) with a better variety of Mob and we can see how that plays out. A farming missions basically has a simple *go kill this* quest chain, no muss no fuss.
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isakongmingMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 2Arc User
People seem to be getting upset over the *farming* foundry missions. I think they are making invalid assumptions about what we mean by farming mission and what they think is a farming mission. So to be clear here.
So to be clear here, I am seeing more people upset that all foundry missions have been effected by lower XP, loot and money drops to fix a farming issue that is only going to push people from the foundry into the questing zones and dungeons.
And yes, all foundry missions have been hit by it. I did 4 different missions providing a nice variety of mobs, some only have a few battles in the entire mission and the XP was far lower than before the nerf. All 4 missions provided a grand total of 2 green drops, 3 white drops and 5 money drops. Way down from before. If I hadn't kept taking out my Cleric companion between battles I would have used up more pots than I would have been able to buy from the drops I got from it.
Foundry quests now cost more than they reward, its a money sink now. While that may be fine for some, most people want a freaking reward and not just story. WTF were they thinking?!?
They could have stopped it by adding on a simple god **** fix, one they had in the HotN beta...you can only do a foundry quest ONCE per day...or...or...just make it so Mob X will only drop loot up to so many times. Say, 5 drops per mob type.
if I recall, this exploit only worked for 2 mobs because the rest upper level mobs had ranged type attacks. This was a poor kneejerk reaction fix that is only going to push farming into areas that will actually effect the economy anyway.
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spiderbrigadeMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 14Arc User
...From what I've seen its the Missions that have you kill 1 mob type over and over that are suffering from the nerf. Maby some of the people better versed in the Foundry can make some farming missions (again dont read - ogres in a barrel !!!) with a better variety of Mob and we can see how that plays out. A farming missions basically has a simple *go kill this* quest chain, no muss no fuss.
Doing it that way would make sense to me. Sort of a diminishing returns thing for killing identical mobs again and again.
Now, if a linear dungeon of encounters with a solo/elite at the end isn't giving reasonable drops/xp, that is terrible since that is basically what most of the in-game content is from what I've seen so far...
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anzhaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited May 2013
Surely, surely this was considered when implementing the foundry in the first place? The potential for exploitive player content?
Instead of making the foundry a complete waste of time cleared only for dailies, with minimal xp and loot available, surely there were alternatives!
1. Why not just remove the ability to stack 100 mobs all on top of each other on a spike trap in a barrel?
2. Some sort of pathing code as seen in other games that if the monster can't reach you, it auto heals/resets/gives no reward?
Either of these would solve the "fish in barrel" 3-minute completion, gain 5 lvls maps without having to adjust the loot/xp for people who actually desire to play. I feel these are the main issue, no? Now, if people are objecting to the single-mob-at-a-time type quests with little plot designed only to offer xp/gold gain, well, what did you expect when offering a tool like the foundry?
Clearly SOME thought went into what the player community would create, as evidenced by the inability to spawn specific loot and/or chests throughout the dungeon, or nodes for thievery, nature etc, because it was assumed someone would make a map full of the things for ++$$profit.
There was already a limit put on the entire system by the fact that aside from consumables, "gold" is pretty much useless - everything's about astral diamonds so does it really matter in the grand scheme of things if people have hundreds of gold? If anything this is a deterrent to the 'gold farmer' market if you can just load up foundry and go restock your monies. It also adds another facet to the economy.
Before the patch, the foundry quests dropped unidentified green and/or white gear, identify scrolls, coins, and potions, and the rare occasional green crafting material. Even if all of the above were able to be farmed to infinity it wouldn't have a very significant impact on the grand scheme of things.
While I am not disputing that some of the maps were a little over the top on the silliness scale surely there were better ways to handle this, i.e. a moderating system rather than blanket nerf? I'm sure some of the community members who are shouting the loudest would be happy to volunteer their time for such a thing, to weed out and deny submissions that were exploitative.
How could the devs at the launch of NW not anticipate the very exploit that plagued STO, ever since the introduction of Foundry rewards? I will try to be optimistic and say that maybe they expected the MMO players of one game to act completely different than the MMO players of a different game.
Maybe I don't understand how this thing is that different from what STO folks were doing, as far as stacking up battleships in one spot.
2. Some sort of pathing code as seen in other games that if the monster can't reach you, it auto heals/resets/gives no reward?
^This
A good portion of players have always farmed the quickest way for exp, they want to get to max level fast for pvp or endgame. I found Cryptic's quests boring, unoriginal and tedious, sure farm maps had the same problems but at least I was getting exp to reach my level goal at 5x the pace, and getting just enough gear drops to keep me in decent level greens.
Cryptic, you don't ruin the foundry's image of "something for everyone" and turn it into a place that costs much more than it gives (in both timeVreward and potionsVloot) because you cannot program AI properly like most other games. Don't hurt the playerbase or one of the few good selling points about Neverwinter because of your programming incompetence. Fix the dumb as a lamppost mob pathing, and return the foundry to it's former glory.
Comments
How about loot? I haven't really looked at XP gain, so I can't really comment on that. This thread seemed to be mostly about loot nerfs as far as I can tell, though XP is a valid discussion too. From my two tests tonight, at least loot has remained the same.
Can I have your stuff?
Amen brother.
Maybe you should read cryptics own statements on the matter. Might clear up the fact you're wrong lol
Who cares about loot? What do you get from loot? Were epics dropping? I cannot recall ever even getting a BLUE item outside of once in a while finding a blue profession resource. Every single white or green item dropped was vendor trash and that means money, which is worth what in a game with an economy based on AD and ZEN? more gold in game does nothing since its just for healing potions and injury kits.
This isn't like another MMO where gold actually hurts the economy, and if an item WAS dropping that was unbalancing the game, you NERF THAT...not everything!
Uhm, the person who created this thread, for instance? May I remind you that the name of the thread is "Foundry Nerf and Items". If you don't want to discuss the hypothetical Foundry nerf for items, maybe you should take that up elsewhere?
Who is that, exactly? If you're going to build a straw man to argue against, feel free. I'm not going to help him argue though.
And I've seen it in numerous other threads as well, in a much more basic form. When these exp grinding quests first started appearing many community members were outright saying that the foundry was for lore and story telling and that these types of quests should be removed and that exp gain should be outright removed from the foundry entirely.
1. power lvling may be a reason to nerf XP, but when it comes down to it its going to happen no matter what, the foundry just kept it out of the live playing world and away from other players to keep distruption down.
2. nerfing loot drops other than blue/purple makes no sense at all since they have such a low value and only brings gold into the market which has no effect on the economy since it isn't a gold based economy.
3. the only thing this nerf with accomplish is this, it takes the foundry away from the farmers and pushes them into the live playing world to interfere with players questing and also now places a much higher focus of farming onto the dungeons which will flood the market with dungeon drops THAT WILL EFFECT THE ECONOMY. It also takes away reasons for non farmers to do any foundry content because now the cost of pots will far outweigh any gains from the foundry quest itself.
4. Non-farm foundry quests are affected, I ran severl during the foundry XP bonus this past hour, saw far less XP from even short quests with a small amount of mobs(bandits) and one with 7 different mobs(in groups of 3 and 5). Only looted 2 items, a green and a white with 4 money drops. Sickening, I already have guild members talking about quitting once they run through the story unless Cryptic has some magical amount of content they are hiding.
5. What point is there in taking the foundry which is going to make up the bulk of your content and making it a loss or near loss every time someone takes part in it? Is that a reverse carrot on a stick?!?
and many other examples of people claiming it would be better off if only the best of the best maps give exp and loot. But that leads to just an endless cycle of only these "best maps" being played. Just look at how Starcraft II's featured map system worked.
While that's a very thoughtful series of speculations and theories, I don't agree with them at all, and arguing it is a bit silly since we don't have facts to base our opinions on. Cryptic has obviously decided in favor of my point of view, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see how that turns out, won't we?
Am i personally happy they did it? No, because I only care about myself when playing solo and it was just removing the tedious killing and move from a-b without any real immersive story that really interested me.
The reson from a business point it was the right thing to do, is the more who are max level much quicker than they have content ready for release the more who leave the game because they are bored.
Fewer people playing means micro tractions taking less money=less profit.
Lower profit means new content gets hit, because they can't keep the staff to make it quick enough
Even as the author of the (currently, as of today) highest rated quest in the Foundry, I think that would be quite silly, and I strongly doubt that's where Cryptic wants to take things. It's a bit off-topic too to be honest, since it doesn't seem like today's "nerf" has had much, if any, of an effect on loot in non-exploit quests. There's still conflicting reports about the XP, so I have no idea what's going on there.
You don't know much about Cryptic do you, a very long storied history of taking a decent game, making a (decision) and royally fubar'ing it up and driving people away.
This fix solves nothing, its just going to push the farmers into the open game world and into dungeons which is going to flood the market with blue/epics and actually damage the economy. Hey wait, the way you have been arguing it makes me wonder if that is exactly what you wanted.
Must be, because you sure haven't been making any sense at all.
*shrug* Might be. I'm not in the habit of judging people on past (alleged) mistakes.
So you're saying that people playing this game as if it was an MMO will hurt it? That most certainly does not make sense to me. Farmers farming dungeons and selling their loot on the AH is exactly what people do in every other MMO out there, including the most successful one of them all: World of Warcraft.
I really don't think you thought that argument through before you posted it.
Off to GW2 but will keep in touch.
We'll be waiting for you, hopefully with tons more content both inside and outside of the Foundry.
Yep, that should be more than enough to make anyone stop taking you seriously. I had no idea there were still blind Cryptic fanboys remaining willing to pretend they have made no mistakes in the past to drive players away.
Anyway, I agree with most here. This was a foolish nerf that doesn't really solve any actual problems at all.
The farming and power leveling will continue just either in the player zones or in the dungeons. So now instead of it being away from other players, it will interfere with them and instead of not damaging the economy with an influx of gold, the farmers will now be bring in a ton of dungeon drops and taking AD out of everyone else hands from the quantities they will be able to place on the AH.
I sure know that I personally ENJOYED being able to play this game the last week without having to deal with any farmers while questing...guess all good things come to an end.
Blind Cryptic fanboys? Do you get off on making up unfounded derogatives for other people? The only other Cryptic game I've played was Champions Online, and I never played that for long enough to notice anything blatantly wrong about it. Does that make me a fanboy? No. Maybe we should turn this around and ask what your accusation of fanboyism says about you? Yes, I believe that would be an excellent idea.
I don't judge Cryptic on past mistakes for many reasons, none of which you are privy to.
I was about to write an answer to this, but then I realized that I answered this exact point on the previous page. Here's the post I wrote then, which is equally true now:
So you're saying that people playing this game as if it was an MMO will hurt it? That most certainly does not make sense to me. Farmers farming dungeons and selling their loot on the AH is exactly what people do in every other MMO out there, including the most successful one of them all: World of Warcraft.
I really don't think you thought that argument through before you posted it.
When *I* say farming mission I mean specifically missions with a high mob density that I can grind for consumables (Potions / kits / scrolls) and gold to buy said consumables. I dont mean the *ogres in a barrel* missions. I fully expect to actually FIGHT said mobs and earn the drops. I do these farming missions specifically for the consumables, they have no impact on the missions I run for storys or simple pleasure. Totally different reason for going into them.
The reason I run *farming* missions like this is because the game is designed with those consumables in mind. You WILL DIE in a T2 Epic run. You WONT want to stand by a campfire for 5mins to get rid of the injury. You WILL use pots in T2 epic runs. These consumables are pretty much required for dungeons until you over gear them enough that they are trivial. Its part of the game design.
Now the potions cost 7.5 silver, Injury kits 20 silver. You have to get that money somewhere. Hence farming missions. For the people who maby run 1 dungeon a week this wont be an issue as they will come across these items naturally. I tend to run 3-4 dungeons (at least) a DAY. I cant sustain that without farming, hence farming missions.
Nerfing the drops in these missions wont stop me farming, it'll just mean I look for somewhere else to farm .. ie the zones your questing in. Then it becomes *our* problem since I and the other dungeon running players will be ganking any mob we see move in your quest zones. Not an ideal situation.
Stop reading *farming* and seeing *Ogres in a barrel*
I dont want more drops, I dont want better drops, I just want the same drops as I'd get killing mobs in over-land zones.
PS- From what I've seen its the Missions that have you kill 1 mob type over and over that are suffering from the nerf. Maby some of the people better versed in the Foundry can make some farming missions (again dont read - ogres in a barrel !!!) with a better variety of Mob and we can see how that plays out. A farming missions basically has a simple *go kill this* quest chain, no muss no fuss.
So to be clear here, I am seeing more people upset that all foundry missions have been effected by lower XP, loot and money drops to fix a farming issue that is only going to push people from the foundry into the questing zones and dungeons.
And yes, all foundry missions have been hit by it. I did 4 different missions providing a nice variety of mobs, some only have a few battles in the entire mission and the XP was far lower than before the nerf. All 4 missions provided a grand total of 2 green drops, 3 white drops and 5 money drops. Way down from before. If I hadn't kept taking out my Cleric companion between battles I would have used up more pots than I would have been able to buy from the drops I got from it.
Foundry quests now cost more than they reward, its a money sink now. While that may be fine for some, most people want a freaking reward and not just story. WTF were they thinking?!?
They could have stopped it by adding on a simple god **** fix, one they had in the HotN beta...you can only do a foundry quest ONCE per day...or...or...just make it so Mob X will only drop loot up to so many times. Say, 5 drops per mob type.
if I recall, this exploit only worked for 2 mobs because the rest upper level mobs had ranged type attacks. This was a poor kneejerk reaction fix that is only going to push farming into areas that will actually effect the economy anyway.
Now, if a linear dungeon of encounters with a solo/elite at the end isn't giving reasonable drops/xp, that is terrible since that is basically what most of the in-game content is from what I've seen so far...
Instead of making the foundry a complete waste of time cleared only for dailies, with minimal xp and loot available, surely there were alternatives!
1. Why not just remove the ability to stack 100 mobs all on top of each other on a spike trap in a barrel?
2. Some sort of pathing code as seen in other games that if the monster can't reach you, it auto heals/resets/gives no reward?
Either of these would solve the "fish in barrel" 3-minute completion, gain 5 lvls maps without having to adjust the loot/xp for people who actually desire to play. I feel these are the main issue, no? Now, if people are objecting to the single-mob-at-a-time type quests with little plot designed only to offer xp/gold gain, well, what did you expect when offering a tool like the foundry?
Clearly SOME thought went into what the player community would create, as evidenced by the inability to spawn specific loot and/or chests throughout the dungeon, or nodes for thievery, nature etc, because it was assumed someone would make a map full of the things for ++$$profit.
There was already a limit put on the entire system by the fact that aside from consumables, "gold" is pretty much useless - everything's about astral diamonds so does it really matter in the grand scheme of things if people have hundreds of gold? If anything this is a deterrent to the 'gold farmer' market if you can just load up foundry and go restock your monies. It also adds another facet to the economy.
Before the patch, the foundry quests dropped unidentified green and/or white gear, identify scrolls, coins, and potions, and the rare occasional green crafting material. Even if all of the above were able to be farmed to infinity it wouldn't have a very significant impact on the grand scheme of things.
While I am not disputing that some of the maps were a little over the top on the silliness scale surely there were better ways to handle this, i.e. a moderating system rather than blanket nerf? I'm sure some of the community members who are shouting the loudest would be happy to volunteer their time for such a thing, to weed out and deny submissions that were exploitative.
Maybe I don't understand how this thing is that different from what STO folks were doing, as far as stacking up battleships in one spot.
^This
A good portion of players have always farmed the quickest way for exp, they want to get to max level fast for pvp or endgame. I found Cryptic's quests boring, unoriginal and tedious, sure farm maps had the same problems but at least I was getting exp to reach my level goal at 5x the pace, and getting just enough gear drops to keep me in decent level greens.
Cryptic, you don't ruin the foundry's image of "something for everyone" and turn it into a place that costs much more than it gives (in both timeVreward and potionsVloot) because you cannot program AI properly like most other games. Don't hurt the playerbase or one of the few good selling points about Neverwinter because of your programming incompetence. Fix the dumb as a lamppost mob pathing, and return the foundry to it's former glory.