Really spending $80 for a "Normal Enchantment"

everwindgale · June 2013

Ok just made it it level 60.

Got some almost reasonably priced gear of the market. (I would not have been able to get it without my hero of north AD). T1 stuff, I can live with. Oh cool I can finally get a weapon and armor enchant. Oh I am a CW that likes the weather, let me get some lightning enchants. Sounds fun and cool. Get 4. Go to fuse. 1% Chance to fuse. What 1%??? Friend says: " you need the blue ward." Ok...where do I...only get on Zen market...ok...wait they cost how much? $10 for 1. Are you kidding me? This is the only place you can get them? So to get a higher level ward the next one in the normal range you need to spend $80. Really, Cryptic want me to spend $80 just to get the "normal level weapon enhancement...So if I want 1 armor and 1 weapon its going to cost me over a $160. This is just over the top greed.

All of these folks that exploited the fusing bug and AD that had the money that can pay millions of AD just screwed everyone else. Just doesn't seem right. I don't mind throwing some money a game's way if it increases my enjoyment and improves my game play. But I am sorry, this is just crazy greedy. And to think if I wanted to obtain T2 gear I would have to do this again?

I am going to have to rethink this game. Because I know what is going to happen. Because of an elite few that can gear up to a high level they will be able to run content and it will be trivial for them because of their gear and the game developers will begin the arms race, and up the difficulty to the point if you don't have the elite gear or spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars you will no be able to do the content. You will be excluded from doing the content and that is not what games are supposed to be about.

Very disappointed in this game and its total greed mechanics. I thought collectible card games had the monopoly of exploitation greed. A more reasonable price would be $1 for blue wards. I would easily by 10$ at that price point. I would be willing to experiment with different things at that price point..

yyrkoonstyphoon · June 2013

wow... If this is true, i may very well have spent 200 to play a beta...

jigles · June 2013

If u mean the coalescent ward, u can get it from AH, town sellers, or even invokate for 7 days and u get the chance to get i from the box u get with 7 celestial coins. i got like 3/4 already and havent spent a nikel yet. try that

terrorshard · June 2013

jigles wrote: »

If u mean the coalescent ward, u can get it from AH, town sellers, or even invokate for 7 days and u get the chance to get i from the box u get with 7 celestial coins. i got like 3/4 already and havent spent a nikel yet. try that

What box is this? I may have missed this?

everwindgale · June 2013

jigles wrote: »

If u mean the coalescent ward, u can get it from AH, town sellers, or even invocation for 7 days and u get the chance to get i from the box u get with 7 celestial coins. i got like 3/4 already and haven't spent a nickel yet. try that

The price on the AH for a coalescent ward is around 100k AD. This is currently well beyond my means. I have not gotten a drop from a T1 or T2 dungeon that has sold for more than 2500 AD.

I religiously (pun intended) accumulate my celestial coins. I have never gotten a blue ward, only the green ones which are of absolutely no value for weapon enchants. Of course the tool tip for the treasure box says it only grants green wards. I have never seen a blue ward drop. So once every 7 days I can have a chance at a blue ward. So in a year's time I may have 3-5 blue wards?

I am sorry but that doesn't work for me. Currently the markets are way out of whack for the casual player. Giving the 2 million ADs and + all of the caturday exploits have generated so much wealth for some folks that the casual player can't pay the asking prices because it literally would take a week of nonstop delves to generate 100k of AD for 1 ward.

jigles · June 2013

terrorshard wrote: »

What box is this? I may have missed this?

you can invokate every hour right? once a day when u invikate u get 2 types of coins. with the celetial ones, once u get 7 u can go to your bag and press "spend". u get the change to get a green or blue ward. green ward makes u not lose the rune/enchantment when u upgrade, blue givesw u a 100% change to upgrade. if u invokate and u never used celestial coins u should have a ton xD Good luck opening the boxes

xunxan · June 2013

jigles wrote: »

if u invokate and u never used celestial coins u should have a ton xD Good luck opening the boxes

Ardent coins from invoke continue to stack, you can trade them for stuff, but not wards.
Celestial coins will not stack over 7. After you have 7 Celestial Coins, you won't get anymore when you invoke until you spend them. These are the coins that get the random enchantment box that can have wards in them.

ttnuge · June 2013

Right now you can get a Lesser Lightning Enchantment on Mindlfayer for 175k AD from the AH. Zen is netting about 320 AD each. Go buy yourself just over 500 zen for less than $10 and go to the AH and buy your enchantment.

Or if you prefer, keep playing the game and eventually you will get a drop that you can probably sell to buy this enchantment and more. The problem is you want it now, they gave you an option to get it now but you got to pay. If you want to earn it you can get the same thing without spending any money.

ayroux · June 2013

People are SO over dramatic... I have gotten the "blue" wards for around 70k AD before, you have to find a good deal but they generally fluctuate between 80-100k. Also, the T1 drops are not worth much anymore NOT because of the exploits but because onf dungeon delves event. EVERYONE is guaranteed a drop and if you REALLY want to farm AD, go run T1 dragon for the helm, that sells for over 500k for most classes. YOu cant just expect to hit 60 and get BiS gear in a few weeks of casual play. Logging and running 1-2 dungeons during delves is considered casual...

Enchants ARE the best items in the game, you can get your full T1/T2 pretty easily (minus the helm typically) for not that much AD... it them comes down to enchants of which (tene enchants/rank 7 + enchants/Weapon/Armor enchants) are the hardest to get...

You can get a lesser plague fire for around 50k AD (thats 1 pyro ring drop from karr off the 1 or 2nd boss) You can get a soulforged for 4 shards (around 20k each?) and a blue ward (80-100k) Honestly MOST people only have a lesser soulforged cause its costs so much, but guess what THAT IS THE END GAME GEAR! The actual "pieces" of gear are not where the true "wealth" of the gear lies.. its the enchants... A greater tene enchant costs around 1mil... talk about getting 6 of those? your north of 5 mil easy... Is it the best pvp enchant? YES! But it also costs a truck load of AD....

Also it doesnt cost you $80 for all that stuff... you can spend $20 in game and get aroun what 500k AD? Take that and spend 1/5th of it on a blue ward or heck buy TWO and then spend another 150k on shards and fuse your own lesser enchants... BAM 350k AD spent for your weapon and armor encahnts and you STILL have 150k to buy a piece of BiS gear or other rank 6 enchants... You just decked your dude out for what? $20... Thats 1 month of WoW...

OR, you can get lucky and get a helm drop which sells, OR you can run delves and get those shards from the chest and turn around and sell them for EASILY over 10k.. Another way to get AD is play the AH... Is it easy to get best gear? not really... but is it ULTRA HARD? no way...

everwindgale · June 2013

Yes, I am sure you can farm things, and run it a hundred times and eventually you will get something. I would not really call that fun, it is farming. The prices are unsustainable. People will not be able to afford 500k for a hat. That is exploit money in the market that will eventually get sinked out. There isn't that much AD coming into the system. At some point people will max at 24k per day, plus what they can sell. To run the dungeons that drop nice gear, you have to have good gear. So I suppose I could buy 20 worth of zen and then sell it for around 250-300 per 1000. Somebody still has to be willing to buy the blue wards for $10 each for them to get into circulation to buy them for 80-100k AD. They just don't drop in enough quantities if they even do drop from celestial boxes. As more and more people reach 60 and the demand for them increases their prices will only go up and up. Why would anyone sell a blue ward for 80k? That is 275 zen roughly. They cost 1000 in the store. At some point people are gong to figure that out and even if they move to 50% of zen store that is still a good deal. I still maintain that the 1000 zen price tag is greedy and too much. It is the only reliable source of blue wards, and the demand for them will only go up. Making more and more difficult for the people that can't farm the same dragon dungeon 5 times a day to get the leet drop disenfranchised and feel like a 2nd class citizen in the game.

noroblad · June 2013

everwindgale wrote: »

Yes, I am sure you can farm things, and run it a hundred times and eventually you will get something. I would not really call that fun, it is farming. The prices are unsustainable. People will not be able to afford 500k for a hat. That is exploit money in the market that will eventually get sinked out. There isn't that much AD coming into the system. At some point people will max at 24k per day, plus what they can sell. To run the dungeons that drop nice gear, you have to have good gear. So I suppose I could buy 20 worth of zen and then sell it for around 250-300 per 1000. Somebody still has to be willing to buy the blue wards for $10 each for them to get into circulation to buy them for 80-100k AD. They just don't drop in enough quantities if they even do drop from celestial boxes. As more and more people reach 60 and the demand for them increases their prices will only go up and up. Why would anyone sell a blue ward for 80k? That is 275 zen roughly. They cost 1000 in the store. At some point people are gong to figure that out and even if they move to 50% of zen store that is still a good deal. I still maintain that the 1000 zen price tag is greedy and too much. It is the only reliable source of blue wards, and the demand for them will only go up. Making more and more difficult for the people that can't farm the same dragon dungeon 5 times a day to get the leet drop disenfranchised and feel like a 2nd class citizen in the game.

I think you overstate the blue ward issue. You should not need that many of the things; once your gear is done, its done until they issue a new tier of gear (possibly with a new level cap?...) which is not even thought of yet. 4 lesser to regular, 1 ward, 4 times makes a greater. So one greater a week is pretty easy to do if you have a bunch of characters that can pray to feed one main toon. Also, people open boxes all day long, and about 3/4 of the boxes contain runes or enchants, and about 1/4 of those have a blue ward. Pretty good supply for the AH from boxes alone.

If it is a problem for you, take 3 or 4 hours to get a bunch of alts to level 11. I have this down to a science, its right at 45 min from 0 to level 10 so call it an hour per character to be able to pray.

ceryndrion · June 2013

the problem initially, was giving the founders such a large 'headstart' in terms of AD, in fact, up to 84 days worth of full refining. This led to artificially high prices early on, and now prices are starting to drop. In a few months time, I am sure that things will balance to a reasonable level for most people..

At nearly 100k for a coalescent ward, that's only really 4 days refining.. not that much in the grand scheme of things.. but too many people are only in it for what they can get now, this minute, don't want to wait, give it to me now.

veleriawhitewolf · June 2013

Your Math is a bit off. If you chose not to use any of the free ways to get Coalescent wards, you only need 5 to make a normal level enchantment. I have personally gotten 4 or 5 of them for free since open beta launched and I have not been trying very hard. It may be better to just buy the enchantment and skip the wards.

everwindgale · June 2013

You need 4 shards to make a lesser enchantment, and then you need to have 4 lesser enchantments to make a normal correct? so you need a minimal 5 wards to make a normal. Assuming you can get the 20 shards. And you want to make a normal for armor too.. so that is roughly 100 dollar if you go through the zen market without considering the costs for obtaining the 40 shards you need.

When I have looked at costs for enchantments on the AH they routinely cost 500k+ AD. Lessers depending upon popularity around 150k for the lesser popular ones, and Plaguefires and Vorpols cost significantly more. Hell the vorpal shards are selling for 100k.

etherealj · June 2013

everwindgale wrote: »

Yes, I am sure you can farm things, and run it a hundred times and eventually you will get something. I would not really call that fun, it is farming. The prices are unsustainable. People will not be able to afford 500k for a hat. That is exploit money in the market that will eventually get sinked out. There isn't that much AD coming into the system. At some point people will max at 24k per day, plus what they can sell. To run the dungeons that drop nice gear, you have to have good gear. So I suppose I could buy 20 worth of zen and then sell it for around 250-300 per 1000. Somebody still has to be willing to buy the blue wards for $10 each for them to get into circulation to buy them for 80-100k AD. They just don't drop in enough quantities if they even do drop from celestial boxes. As more and more people reach 60 and the demand for them increases their prices will only go up and up. Why would anyone sell a blue ward for 80k? That is 275 zen roughly. They cost 1000 in the store. At some point people are gong to figure that out and even if they move to 50% of zen store that is still a good deal. I still maintain that the 1000 zen price tag is greedy and too much. It is the only reliable source of blue wards, and the demand for them will only go up. Making more and more difficult for the people that can't farm the same dragon dungeon 5 times a day to get the leet drop disenfranchised and feel like a 2nd class citizen in the game.

You'd have to be pretty **** dumb to buy wards for 1000 Zen and then auction house them.

everwindgale · June 2013

etherealj wrote: »

You'd have to be pretty **** dumb to buy wards for 1000 Zen and then auction house them.

That would be true as long as the price on the AH is less than the equivalent of 1000 Zen. If they start selling for more AD than that it would be a money making deal. For that to happen the non-zen source of blue wards would have to dry up or become uber rare drops.

veleriawhitewolf · June 2013

Considering the wards enter the world frequently and for free they are unlikely to rise in value. the unlimited nature of the wards will drive prices down.

dethcord · June 2013

everwindgale wrote: »

Ok just made it it level 60.

Got some almost reasonably priced gear of the market. (I would not have been able to get it without my hero of north AD). T1 stuff, I can live with. Oh cool I can finally get a weapon and armor enchant. Oh I am a CW that likes the weather, let me get some lightning enchants. Sounds fun and cool. Get 4. Go to fuse. 1% Chance to fuse. What 1%??? Friend says: " you need the blue ward." Ok...where do I...only get on Zen market...ok...wait they cost how much? $10 for 1. Are you kidding me? This is the only place you can get them? So to get a higher level ward the next one in the normal range you need to spend $80. Really, Cryptic want me to spend $80 just to get the "normal level weapon enhancement...So if I want 1 armor and 1 weapon its going to cost me over a $160. This is just over the top greed.

All of these folks that exploited the fusing bug and AD that had the money that can pay millions of AD just screwed everyone else. Just doesn't seem right. I don't mind throwing some money a game's way if it increases my enjoyment and improves my game play. But I am sorry, this is just crazy greedy. And to think if I wanted to obtain T2 gear I would have to do this again?

I am going to have to rethink this game. Because I know what is going to happen. Because of an elite few that can gear up to a high level they will be able to run content and it will be trivial for them because of their gear and the game developers will begin the arms race, and up the difficulty to the point if you don't have the elite gear or spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars you will no be able to do the content. You will be excluded from doing the content and that is not what games are supposed to be about.

Very disappointed in this game and its total greed mechanics. I thought collectible card games had the monopoly of exploitation greed. A more reasonable price would be $1 for blue wards. I would easily by 10$ at that price point. I would be willing to experiment with different things at that price point..

I'm currently in the process of making my greater vorpal. Not much left. Never used any fusing or AD exploits. Idk who buys those wards, but they cost ~130k on AH, which is not alot to say the leaset.

naughtypussycat · June 2013

PAY TO WIN.
Same thing with Professions: you will find that you will need to buy some of the Assets/Tools which are not available anywhere else but from the ZEN shop, or the Auction House (from players who got it from the ZEN shop).

ganjaman1 · June 2013

You need like 20 blue wards to create the best weapon enchantment atm , just saying .

tcarnce · June 2013

just buy from AH, they`re way cheaper then this, i have those things laying around unused spread over some chars from the celestial coin chest.

price is like between 90k-120k on beholder ;p for the wards.
didn`t check for a while.

Unknown · June 2013

This content has been removed.

griz024 · June 2013

Speaking of professions... i understand in a game like this money = time saved; however, the balance seems very off here. My tr is lvl 60 in mostly t1 gear, so i have been playing for a bit, and i always keep my professions working while playing. But my professions are no way near max lvl. I just learned how to make the detailed leather shirt for christs sake (a lvl 20 item) at lvl 60! It would be nice if you could at least keep your profession at a useful lvl (where you are creating items near your lvl) without tossing money at them.

At this rate ill have leatherworking maxed by x-mas, at best- unless i toss money at them for a chest that may, MAY have the asset i am looking for in it. I would like it if i could keep my profession at least within 10-15 lvls of my lvl without doing that.

armenua · June 2013

PW has made the Zen Market a method of extortion. I have really never seen such an outward display of this in any game. Every time you turn around in order to get anything of consequence you have to dump dollars into the Zen market. To be able to get something in game you should have to work a bit for it, and if you are flush and a bit impatient, you should be able to spend ready cash to hurry up the process. That is normal. The way this company works it makes it extortion and gouging of players.

bunzaga · June 2013

Getting to level 60 is just the start of the game my friend. Farm the HAMSTER out of dailies, and sell stuff on the AH. I haven't spent a dime yet, and I have around 8-9k AR. Just put in some effort.

thewolfisloose · August 2013

The ability to spend cash for in-game currency to get the best stuff...devalues the best stuff. I don't look at top gear, enchantments/enhancements, mounts and pets and say "Wow you're a beast with that stuff" I say "how much did ya spend?" The ability to pay makes everything less cool overall. So there's less motivation for me to pursue top stuff just to what? Have an advantage in the same 5 decent dungeons? When timing and skill is enough? I think I'll keep my 5g horse and Orc Wolf. That'll do just fine for now.

degraafination · August 2013

I've given up trying to get C Wards from boxes earned through invoking. I think it's about a 1/20 chance. I buy them off the AH if they're around 100k or lower. Making a normal enchantment shouldn't be tough at all. A week of T2 DD farming should get you close. Greater takes a bit more time. I'm working on greater Vorpal now. I need 10 more C wards and 23 more Vorpal shards. I say 2-3 weeks I should have it.

Good luck.

mytgroo · August 2013

Hmm... It is a matter of playing obsessively-- every day for a week to get a ward for example, or spending money. They asked for my cell number so I decided not to use my card. This left me with limited ways to purchase zen. I have managed to get some solid gear for level 60, but it has taken time. I found selling enchants, selling items from special events, and buying things from the auction house helps.

durandurahan · August 2013

Just grind T1 dungeon, sell it and you will get around 50-70k AD each DD.

lwedar · August 2013

so your saying you just made it to 60 and even with spending 200 dollars you don't have top end gear because of exploiters. How about you run dungeons like 99% of people playing this game do to get gear. You will get shards and can turn them into enchants using wards you get by praying. If not you can buy them for 100k off AH. You get diamonds by doing dailys (like most people) or you can buy zen and exchange. Honestly t1 gear is way cheap so I dunno how you blew 2 million diamonds buying that but hey it sounds like you haven't done your homework regardless. Play more, buy less. You will be happier.

yasha00 · August 2013

The way I see it OP, is that casual gamers like playing games. MMO folk like to farm.

Just take a couple of quotes from this page: "Getting to level 60 is just the start of the game my friend. Farm the HAMSTER out of dailies, and sell stuff on the AH. I haven't spent a dime yet, and I have around 8-9k AR. Just put in some effort. "

"Just grind T1 dungeon, sell it and you will get around 50-70k AD each DD."

I would put it slightly differently, to paraphrase: Getting to level 60 is the end of the game my friend. What lies ahead is farming the HAMSTER out of dailies, and selling stuff on the AH.

MMO's have this special term called "end-game". For MMO folk, that is where you differentiate yourself from the herd. What that means is grinding the same dungeons over and over to get the best gear. For the casual player it really is the end of the game though.

Really spending $80 for a "Normal Enchantment"

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