The other thing to note here is the massive difference between the speed of leveling and the rate of AD income. I've upgraded my companion on the test server from max level 15 to 20. Having played for a few hours over the last two days he's about 2k XP short of reaching level 20. In that time under normal circumstances I would have earned between 2k and 14k AD (min 1 invoke, max 3 invokes + 3 x leadership @ 1600).
I don't expect these two things to be in sync but the disparity is enormous.
I guess I'm just not the sort of player the Neverwinter economic model was designed for.
Agree, i guess you missed the main part of ranking up a companion, getting your wallet out, lol
Also that actual stat increase your companion actualy gains for a 5 level increase, even if your using a Cat or Stone is very very small for the amount of AD cost, it would be alot more cost effective, to just upgrade a few enchants on your character and gain alot more overall stat increase and more than likely save a large amount of AD too.
At the end of the day the cost for the upgrades is just way out of balance and totaly not worth the cost, exactly same as the mount upgrades, thats why no body uses the mount upgrades and anybody with any sence will be the same with the companion upgrades. its just more cost effective to just buy a new mount or companion a rank higher or go straight for a epic one, there all available in the Zen store for way under 1 mil AD
I was looking forward to this upgrade system until I saw the prices. They should cut the cost in half, and then it might be worth it. Maybe throw in a better AI with each upgrade? at level 20 they stand in red circles only 50% of the time. 25 only 25% of the time, and at 30 only 5% of the time.
Yes, companions are mostly broke, recent patch notes state as much. I have bought a companion and am still waiting for him to work right. I feel the need for my other companions to be purple but I know it won't make a difference in their effectiveness. Hell, it might even make them worse lol. No buy till fixed.
Well i guess that no one will ever buy such upgrades except if they really want a given purple pet. Buying a Phoera or any cheap purple pet from the next lockboxes will always be more interesting.
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bpskibbenheimsMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 210Bounty Hunter
edited July 2013
It's all too funny when you think about it. The number of hours I would have to play to get 1.5mil ad to upgrade white to purple ... vs the number of hours could go cut grass to get the money to get 1.5mil AD ... I have bad allergies though so I'll just play.
This really grates on my nerves. on top of all the things in game that suck your AD resources dry....and they had the gall to say that they wanted the cost reasonable for a casual player? hahahahaha.......
I decided to stop giving them any real money. ill play the game when im bored, but zero funds from this point on. this is just stupid.
Pretty much all I have done on the preview server is upgrade my companions to see if it is useful. It is definitely not. Not even for the stone. I upgraded my stone to 30 and got a whopping +28 to Power, Critical, and Recovery. It should be +32 because that is how much the pet's stats go up, but I only got +28. I can't complain because the stone is already amazing. I just will not be paying 750k for the upgrade because it would be a waste.
I also upgraded a cleric to 30. It does not heal for more because Healing Word always heals for the same amount of YOUR HP. The sacred flame spell did increase a bit but it is not even noticeable. And, last but not least, it still dies just as fast. My cleric is already green and will be staying green forever.
If you look at all the abilities that were added to the companions after they are upgraded you will see that none of them are useful. They are just generic expansions of the abilities they already have. Heal at a greater distance, reduce CD of "insert ability name", increase duration of slow. This is what they are selling for 1.55 million. It is insulting.
At these prices I HIGHLY recommend everyone just passes on companion upgrading. We waited a long time for it and it seems like a slap in the face. It's time to slap back and just say no to this outrageous price. If it only cost 100k total to upgrade from white to purple I would probably do it occasionally just for the heck of it (even though it is not worth that much to upgrade a stone). I definitely will not be paying 300, 500, or 750k to upgrade anything. PWE needs to drop a zero off each price and then it is in a acceptable price range.
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rapticorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,078Arc User
I also upgraded a cleric to 30. It does not heal for more because Healing Word always heals for the same amount of YOUR HP. The sacred flame spell did increase a bit but it is not even noticeable. And, last but not least, it still dies just as fast. My cleric is already green and will be staying green forever.
Pretty much what I experienced during beta weekends. Not sure if I had a Rank 30 cleric companion, think I made it to there but it could have been something like 25, but it wasn't very hardy and died a lot. Basically why I wasn't holding my breath waiting for the upgrade books. The white one is good enough at basically saving me from buying as many potions all the time and for taking aggro and distracting enemies if at least for 5 seconds which is usually more than enough. Which even when playing a GF and using my aggro abilities I can't keep enemies on me for long. Luckily the get up on their own once combat is over because it would be annoying to have to manually revive them after every fight.
And, last but not least, it still dies just as fast.
The Man at Arms companion got ~3500 extra HP going from level 15 to 20, which might have been about a 45% increase. I haven't played enough to be able to tell whether that would be a useful increase in survivability though. Survivability being my number one annoyance with companions.
The Man at Arms companion got ~3500 extra HP going from level 15 to 20, which might have been about a 45% increase. I haven't played enough to be able to tell whether that would be a useful increase in survivability though. Survivability being my number one annoyance with companions.
I never even actually checked the stat increase on the companion until I saw your post. My cleric gained 6159 HP and 89 points in the 3 stats. It was a green cleric to begin with so I do not know the total stat gain from a white one. Ending HP is 15035 so I guess it gained "some" survivability. They really need to buff the defense for all companions except for the stone or give them some type of internal damage mitigation so we can't transfer the added defense to our character with Eldrich stones.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too overpriced. Seriously, enough with the price gouging. Mount upgrade cost needs to be wayyyyyyyyyyyyy less too. COME ON PLEASE! No one can ever pay that insane pricing. When you can buy a purple horse for cheaper than the cost to upgrade your white one there is something wrong. The purple should just be exotic, special, and unique, not the only effective thing to use...
Ha, wow, so the Ioun Stone of Might is very not worthwhile... you had to open ~100 lockboxes ($125) to get enough bars to buy this thing and it comes as a GREEN pet with only two item slots, so you have to spend another 550k AD to make it as viable as other augment pets? And on top of that, it can die*.
* Twice at the spiders leading up to CN's first boss
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ranncoreMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 2,508
Ha, wow, so the Ioun Stone of Might is very not worthwhile... you had to open ~100 lockboxes ($125) to get enough bars to buy this thing and it comes as a GREEN pet with only two item slots, so you have to spend another 550k AD to make it as viable as other augment pets? And on top of that, it can die*.
* Twice at the spiders leading up to CN's first boss
I get that you're angry but this entire post is just wrong.
10 bars is the least amount of bars you can get from a lockbox - $125 would be the maximum amount spent assuming no zen sales or bulk zen buys and the absolute lowest amount of tarm bars from every pull. Twelve tarm bars per pull would be a much more reasonable albeit still low estimation. You're also assuming you're spending money for every box - when in reality many people are converting AD earned in game into Zen and buying boxes. By then selling the assets besides tarm bars that drop out of them, then buying boxes again, you can easily double your bars pull.
The ioun stone of might cannot die. Just like every other augment pet it is passive. I have from time to time seen a passive companion such as my cat die, but this is a bug that happens very seldom.
Furthermore, since the last equipment slot is much more important than 5 more levels for a passive pet, 550k isn't really that bad of a deal to upgrade this pet. I doubt I'll ever go past a blue companion, since henchman companions will always be useless no matter what level they are and passive companions get all their slots at blue levels.
Try not to be misleading when attempting to foster hysteria. Given 2 ring slots and 3 offense rune slots, the Ioun Stone of Might upgraded to blue is looking to be best in slot companion after the X-Pack.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
edited July 2013
Maybe I'm in a small minority, but I find the cost quite reasonable, compared to, say...what it costs to get a perfect vorpal enhancement or something like that.
Upgrade costs are too high, IMHO. Yes, you can run dungeons in DD and sell the stuff, but ppl doing that don't use those active pets, because they die far too often. Passive pets don't seem to gain enough during the upgrade process, so I am not really motivated to upgrade my cat.
Those pets are mostly used by casual players and the costs to upgrade them should reflect that fact.
Try not to be misleading when attempting to foster hysteria. Given 2 ring slots and 3 offense rune slots, the Ioun Stone of Might upgraded to blue is looking to be best in slot companion after the X-Pack.
Aww HAMSTER. I don't want to buy another friggen companion. Lol
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kelletonMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited July 2013
Try not to be misleading when attempting to foster hysteria. Given 2 ring slots and 3 offense rune slots, the Ioun Stone of Might upgraded to blue is looking to be best in slot companion after the X-Pack.
The stats from neck to ring at ancient level is not much at all (12 total stats)
going from icon to belt however blows.
The defense to offense slot is also almost negligible as eldritch runes are pretty cheap for the defense slot and will match the stats of another high level offensive rune.
The Man at Arms companion got ~3500 extra HP going from level 15 to 20, which might have been about a 45% increase. I haven't played enough to be able to tell whether that would be a useful increase in survivability though. Survivability being my number one annoyance with companions.
I leveled a Man at Arms to 30 so I could test it out. It ends up with the same exact stats as the Galub and is actually a better tank. I left both companions solo the same lvl 60 mob a couple of times to see how they did. The galub died a few times and lost agro quite often even though I was just standing there. The man at arms always won the fight and he tanked the mob the whole time. I guess it's still kind of a toss up though because the fights were close and the Galub is technically cheaper than upgrading a man at arms.
Just an FYI, it is NOT fun leveling these companions when you are already lvl 60 and the only quests you have are the few daily quests in the new area. I spend about 10mil in AD (test server) to speed it up with leadership tasks and it still took forever. This will be another huge drawback for anyone who is lvl 60 and wants to level a white companion from scratch. Honestly, for 1.55 million Ad the **** thing should auto level to match your level when you upgrade it. Grinding on mobs with no quests would take forever.
Man at Arms stats at lvl 30 (no gear or enchants)
HP - 19457
Defense & Regen - 225
I get that you're angry but this entire post is just wrong.
10 bars is the least amount of bars you can get from a lockbox - $125 would be the maximum amount spent assuming no zen sales or bulk zen buys and the absolute lowest amount of tarm bars from every pull. Twelve tarm bars per pull would be a much more reasonable albeit still low estimation. You're also assuming you're spending money for every box - when in reality many people are converting AD earned in game into Zen and buying boxes. By then selling the assets besides tarm bars that drop out of them, then buying boxes again, you can easily double your bars pull.
Okay, I give that I don't actually know how many trade bars you get out of these boxes beyond what I read in the forums, where someone said it "averages out to 10". About spending the money, the thing is, some amount of people had to collectively spend $83 (if you say it's actually ~12 per box) on these keys
The ioun stone of might cannot die. Just like every other augment pet it is passive. I have from time to time seen a passive companion such as my cat die, but this is a bug that happens very seldom.
Ha okay, are you telling me that something that happened to me is impossible and didn't actually happen? Five times in five CN runs now (either multiple times or not at all in a run). Considering that I have to bring up my companions page and push the "Summon" button to resummon it (as opposed to "Dismiss", to get rid of it), and the button is disabled when I'm in combat so I have to wait and then try again, it feels very real when it happens. There's even big yellow text telling me my companion died.
Yeah, I'll make a bug report. If this is a bug, it's hardly seldom at all.
Furthermore, since the last equipment slot is much more important than 5 more levels for a passive pet, 550k isn't really that bad of a deal to upgrade this pet. I doubt I'll ever go past a blue companion, since henchman companions will always be useless no matter what level they are and passive companions get all their slots at blue levels.
Just take into account that the pet's cost is now an additional 550k on top of whatever you paid for it.
Try not to be misleading when attempting to foster hysteria. Given 2 ring slots and 3 offense rune slots, the Ioun Stone of Might upgraded to blue is looking to be best in slot companion after the X-Pack.
Try not to be so condescending. Rank 7 Eldritch in defense slot gives you more stats total if your augment pet is giving you at least ~2200 stats without it, compared to Rank 7 for one stat (2189 * 1.085 > 185; for Rank 8, 2456). Cat, Allure stone, Might stone, each of those could be best in slot depending on your needs.
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rapticorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,078Arc User
Just an FYI, it is NOT fun leveling these companions when you are already lvl 60 and the only quests you have are the few daily quests in the new area. I spend about 10mil in AD (test server) to speed it up with leadership tasks and it still took forever.
Invoking and Foundry quests are about it. Foundry ones are especially good to run with the event active so you get 150% xp. My XP is maxxed but it does seem to help for leveling companions. Also I give them training runestones. Still, it's not fun or quick, but overall not too bad.
greeniewolf0Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 83
edited August 2013
I seriously wonder if the devs that set these prices ever actually play the game (without using dev powers to give themselves free currency) to realize how drastically overpriced they make things. Almost everything that costs AD or tradebars is too expensive by a factor of ten for the common player. These pet increases are a perfect example. The average casual gamer is gonna be able to afford 50k for an upgrade, not 500k. And without some major changes to the power of the healing pets that entire class is not worth it.
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xzdvkrMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited August 2013
not worth the effort at the moment, this needs a recut or combine the cost with gold if you want but 500k AD to upgrade a rank 20 companion is just plain HAMSTER
I leveled a Man at Arms to 30 so I could test it out. It ends up with the same exact stats as the Galub and is actually a better tank. I left both companions solo the same lvl 60 mob a couple of times to see how they did. The galub died a few times and lost agro quite often even though I was just standing there. The man at arms always won the fight and he tanked the mob the whole time. I guess it's still kind of a toss up though because the fights were close and the Galub is technically cheaper than upgrading a man at arms.
Just an FYI, it is NOT fun leveling these companions when you are already lvl 60 and the only quests you have are the few daily quests in the new area. I spend about 10mil in AD (test server) to speed it up with leadership tasks and it still took forever. This will be another huge drawback for anyone who is lvl 60 and wants to level a white companion from scratch. Honestly, for 1.55 million Ad the **** thing should auto level to match your level when you upgrade it. Grinding on mobs with no quests would take forever.
Man at Arms stats at lvl 30 (no gear or enchants)
HP - 19457
Defense & Regen - 225
Galeb just stands around sometimes for an entire fight when theres lots of mobs and characters, i think he is deciding who to go after lol. IMO, Galeb needs an AOE taunt and more HP and should just attack whomever I have done the most damage to, or something like that, or just keep attacking something till it is dead, that might work to. I hate how Galeb will attack one mob and then switch to another mob.
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hawkreturnsMember, Silverstars, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Or you can just do a couple of t2 runs during DD and sell the loot to get enough AD to upgrade your companion..
Well, salvage can only earn you Rough Astral Diamonds, and rough AD into normal caps at 24,000 per day, so I don't see how you are getting 300K in only a "couple of t2 runs during DD". More to the point, earning rough at a rate capped at 24K a day means 12.5 days to turn a white into a green, 22 days to turn a green into a blue and 31.25 days to turn a blue into a purple. Yes, you can get random non-bind drops and sell them but there is no clear path for that. You could do two "greed run" Castle Never and come back with just enough to cover your potion costs.
Pretty much the last straw for me. I have played alot of free-to-play games and this is the most expensive by far, the lock boxes and now companion upgrade costs are just money grabbing tactics by cryptic, this mmo is doomed.
Comments
Agree, i guess you missed the main part of ranking up a companion, getting your wallet out, lol
Also that actual stat increase your companion actualy gains for a 5 level increase, even if your using a Cat or Stone is very very small for the amount of AD cost, it would be alot more cost effective, to just upgrade a few enchants on your character and gain alot more overall stat increase and more than likely save a large amount of AD too.
At the end of the day the cost for the upgrades is just way out of balance and totaly not worth the cost, exactly same as the mount upgrades, thats why no body uses the mount upgrades and anybody with any sence will be the same with the companion upgrades. its just more cost effective to just buy a new mount or companion a rank higher or go straight for a epic one, there all available in the Zen store for way under 1 mil AD
Money dont grow on tree's cryptic, neither does Ad
To who??
Everyone will be doing the same or will be saving own ad to upgrade own companions...
I decided to stop giving them any real money. ill play the game when im bored, but zero funds from this point on. this is just stupid.
I also upgraded a cleric to 30. It does not heal for more because Healing Word always heals for the same amount of YOUR HP. The sacred flame spell did increase a bit but it is not even noticeable. And, last but not least, it still dies just as fast. My cleric is already green and will be staying green forever.
If you look at all the abilities that were added to the companions after they are upgraded you will see that none of them are useful. They are just generic expansions of the abilities they already have. Heal at a greater distance, reduce CD of "insert ability name", increase duration of slow. This is what they are selling for 1.55 million. It is insulting.
At these prices I HIGHLY recommend everyone just passes on companion upgrading. We waited a long time for it and it seems like a slap in the face. It's time to slap back and just say no to this outrageous price. If it only cost 100k total to upgrade from white to purple I would probably do it occasionally just for the heck of it (even though it is not worth that much to upgrade a stone). I definitely will not be paying 300, 500, or 750k to upgrade anything. PWE needs to drop a zero off each price and then it is in a acceptable price range.
Pretty much what I experienced during beta weekends. Not sure if I had a Rank 30 cleric companion, think I made it to there but it could have been something like 25, but it wasn't very hardy and died a lot. Basically why I wasn't holding my breath waiting for the upgrade books. The white one is good enough at basically saving me from buying as many potions all the time and for taking aggro and distracting enemies if at least for 5 seconds which is usually more than enough. Which even when playing a GF and using my aggro abilities I can't keep enemies on me for long. Luckily the get up on their own once combat is over because it would be annoying to have to manually revive them after every fight.
I never even actually checked the stat increase on the companion until I saw your post. My cleric gained 6159 HP and 89 points in the 3 stats. It was a green cleric to begin with so I do not know the total stat gain from a white one. Ending HP is 15035 so I guess it gained "some" survivability. They really need to buff the defense for all companions except for the stone or give them some type of internal damage mitigation so we can't transfer the added defense to our character with Eldrich stones.
* Twice at the spiders leading up to CN's first boss
I get that you're angry but this entire post is just wrong.
10 bars is the least amount of bars you can get from a lockbox - $125 would be the maximum amount spent assuming no zen sales or bulk zen buys and the absolute lowest amount of tarm bars from every pull. Twelve tarm bars per pull would be a much more reasonable albeit still low estimation. You're also assuming you're spending money for every box - when in reality many people are converting AD earned in game into Zen and buying boxes. By then selling the assets besides tarm bars that drop out of them, then buying boxes again, you can easily double your bars pull.
The ioun stone of might cannot die. Just like every other augment pet it is passive. I have from time to time seen a passive companion such as my cat die, but this is a bug that happens very seldom.
Furthermore, since the last equipment slot is much more important than 5 more levels for a passive pet, 550k isn't really that bad of a deal to upgrade this pet. I doubt I'll ever go past a blue companion, since henchman companions will always be useless no matter what level they are and passive companions get all their slots at blue levels.
Try not to be misleading when attempting to foster hysteria. Given 2 ring slots and 3 offense rune slots, the Ioun Stone of Might upgraded to blue is looking to be best in slot companion after the X-Pack.
Those pets are mostly used by casual players and the costs to upgrade them should reflect that fact.
Aww HAMSTER. I don't want to buy another friggen companion. Lol
The stats from neck to ring at ancient level is not much at all (12 total stats)
going from icon to belt however blows.
The defense to offense slot is also almost negligible as eldritch runes are pretty cheap for the defense slot and will match the stats of another high level offensive rune.
The current stone pretty much still wins
I leveled a Man at Arms to 30 so I could test it out. It ends up with the same exact stats as the Galub and is actually a better tank. I left both companions solo the same lvl 60 mob a couple of times to see how they did. The galub died a few times and lost agro quite often even though I was just standing there. The man at arms always won the fight and he tanked the mob the whole time. I guess it's still kind of a toss up though because the fights were close and the Galub is technically cheaper than upgrading a man at arms.
Just an FYI, it is NOT fun leveling these companions when you are already lvl 60 and the only quests you have are the few daily quests in the new area. I spend about 10mil in AD (test server) to speed it up with leadership tasks and it still took forever. This will be another huge drawback for anyone who is lvl 60 and wants to level a white companion from scratch. Honestly, for 1.55 million Ad the **** thing should auto level to match your level when you upgrade it. Grinding on mobs with no quests would take forever.
Man at Arms stats at lvl 30 (no gear or enchants)
HP - 19457
Defense & Regen - 225
Ha okay, are you telling me that something that happened to me is impossible and didn't actually happen? Five times in five CN runs now (either multiple times or not at all in a run). Considering that I have to bring up my companions page and push the "Summon" button to resummon it (as opposed to "Dismiss", to get rid of it), and the button is disabled when I'm in combat so I have to wait and then try again, it feels very real when it happens. There's even big yellow text telling me my companion died.
Yeah, I'll make a bug report. If this is a bug, it's hardly seldom at all.
Just take into account that the pet's cost is now an additional 550k on top of whatever you paid for it.
Try not to be so condescending. Rank 7 Eldritch in defense slot gives you more stats total if your augment pet is giving you at least ~2200 stats without it, compared to Rank 7 for one stat (2189 * 1.085 > 185; for Rank 8, 2456). Cat, Allure stone, Might stone, each of those could be best in slot depending on your needs.
Invoking and Foundry quests are about it. Foundry ones are especially good to run with the event active so you get 150% xp. My XP is maxxed but it does seem to help for leveling companions. Also I give them training runestones. Still, it's not fun or quick, but overall not too bad.
See guys? Working EXACTLY as intended.:rolleyes:
I believe you are right!
Galeb just stands around sometimes for an entire fight when theres lots of mobs and characters, i think he is deciding who to go after lol. IMO, Galeb needs an AOE taunt and more HP and should just attack whomever I have done the most damage to, or something like that, or just keep attacking something till it is dead, that might work to. I hate how Galeb will attack one mob and then switch to another mob.
Well, salvage can only earn you Rough Astral Diamonds, and rough AD into normal caps at 24,000 per day, so I don't see how you are getting 300K in only a "couple of t2 runs during DD". More to the point, earning rough at a rate capped at 24K a day means 12.5 days to turn a white into a green, 22 days to turn a green into a blue and 31.25 days to turn a blue into a purple. Yes, you can get random non-bind drops and sell them but there is no clear path for that. You could do two "greed run" Castle Never and come back with just enough to cover your potion costs.