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Cost of upgrading companions

faeriestormfaeriestorm Member Posts: 460 Bounty Hunter
So I looked at the companion upgrading cost on the preview shard, it appears to have gone up from when I upgraded my whites to greens there. I know I did not spend 300k AD initially, some of the characters didn't even have that much but even if they did I would not have bothered upgrading for that price. 500k to go from green to blue? I dread to think what the cost of going from blue to purple is. Why was this so dramatically increased?
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Post edited by faeriestorm on

Comments

  • sekhmetscorpiosekhmetscorpio Member Posts: 29 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    Its overpriced plain and simple. Not as bad as mounts, but still bad. The mount training needs to be addressed and fixed ASAP
  • arcmoon99arcmoon99 Member Posts: 499 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    This has been discussed before. The total cost for getting a white companion to purple is a whopping 1.6 mill AD.

    Just want to say:
    Cryptic if I wanted a purple companion that bad, I could just get a Phoera for roughly 90k.
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  • axer128axer128 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    The cost has not changed. It has always been the same:
    green - 300k
    blue - 500k
    purple - 750k

    And yea it's completely not worth it except for Augment companions. (and well other companions just plain aren't worth it at endgame anyways)
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  • powereddjinnpowereddjinn Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    Even if it does drop by 10% that discount is 33% more the some purple companions - something is not quite right there!
  • satansnemesissatansnemesis Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 67
    edited August 2013
    axer128 wrote: »
    And yea it's completely not worth it except for Augment companions. (and well other companions just plain aren't worth it at endgame anyways)

    It's not even worth it for the augment companions. For 750k you get a total of 105 extra stat points from a stone at lvl 30. A rank 5 enchant will give you more stats for about 745k less. You can get over twice as many stats from a rank 8 enchant for less money. A rank 8 dark enchant sells for about 600k and a rank 9 silvery is about 750k. You will get more bang for your buck by investing in higher level enchants.

    On top of all of that, if you are already at the soft cap for stats upgrading your stone will be purely aesthetic and provide you almost no increase due to diminishing returns. You will just gain 35 power. The cat is even worse if you are at the soft cap. You will gain almost nothing by upgrading it.
  • faeriestormfaeriestorm Member Posts: 460 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2013
    axer128 wrote: »
    The cost has not changed. It has always been the same:
    green - 300k
    blue - 500k
    purple - 750k

    And yea it's completely not worth it except for Augment companions. (and well other companions just plain aren't worth it at endgame anyways)

    Well then how was I able to upgrade to green quality on preview? my chars never had 300k AD to spare on preview mostly because I didn't care to bother trying to get it.
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  • digesthisicknessdigesthisickness Member Posts: 169 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2013
    Well then how was I able to upgrade to green quality on preview? my chars never had 300k AD to spare on preview mostly because I didn't care to bother trying to get it.


    What are you saying? That you clicked the upgrade button under your common companion's pic and it upgraded without charging you?
  • faeriestormfaeriestorm Member Posts: 460 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2013
    What are you saying? That you clicked the upgrade button under your common companion's pic and it upgraded without charging you?

    no it charged my like 50K AD not 300k AD when I did it the first time. then I go back much later and it's 300k AD
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  • axer128axer128 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    Well then how was I able to upgrade to green quality on preview? my chars never had 300k AD to spare on preview mostly because I didn't care to bother trying to get it.

    i logged in day 1 it was implemented to check.

    see a couple posts down for explanation, seems it was bugged, tho always displayed the cost.
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  • axer128axer128 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    It's not even worth it for the augment companions. For 750k you get a total of 105 extra stat points from a stone at lvl 30. A rank 5 enchant will give you more stats for about 745k less. You can get over twice as many stats from a rank 8 enchant for less money. A rank 8 dark enchant sells for about 600k and a rank 9 silvery is about 750k. You will get more bang for your buck by investing in higher level enchants.

    On top of all of that, if you are already at the soft cap for stats upgrading your stone will be purely aesthetic and provide you almost no increase due to diminishing returns. You will just gain 35 power. The cat is even worse if you are at the soft cap. You will gain almost nothing by upgrading it.

    Perhaps if the only augment that existed was the ioun stone of allure, and for some reason your was completely un-slotted/ungeared. (rather unlikely, it's required to be 25 to upgrade it, and by that time most any competent person will have filled its rune and equip slots with at least rank5s.)

    You get quite a bit more out of it for the Ioun stone of might. Namely a ring slot.

    Plus a ton of players have pretty near maxxed ioun stones with rank7/8s, so actually the better bang for buck is indeed the purple upgrade, rather then a very pricy rank8/9 rune.

    For us/them, course it's worth it. I mean it's a route to upgrade your character, if you want to be the best - theres no other way to do it.

    I'd be upgrading my might stone and cat to purple, should the mod 1 drops be lucrative enough to get me enough diamonds to afford it. Though I should have enough banked to get the stone done right anyways, so only need 750k more.

    The prices are high, but I don't envision any amount of whining is gonna change that fact this late in the process. It's live next week. Just hope we can gain diamonds at a good better rate with the better dailies and mod 1 stuff.
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  • cheesegromitcheesegromit Member Posts: 540 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    no it charged my like 50K AD not 300k AD when I did it the first time. then I go back much later and it's 300k AD

    I did the same, upgraded from white to green without having 300k AD. The price has always been displayed as 300K AD though. I wondered if it was either a bug or reduced cost for testing purposes, the game does want to charge 500k for the next level though, which I don't have, maybe a bug.
  • axer128axer128 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    I did the same, upgraded from white to green without having 300k AD. The price has always been displayed as 300K AD though. I wondered if it was either a bug or reduced cost for testing purposes, the game does want to charge 500k for the next level though, which I don't have, maybe a bug.

    mm yea sounds like it just wasn't finished initially so it displayed the cost but never actually took any diamonds.
    Working fine now tho, just tried. 300k, doesn't allow if you don't have it.
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  • satansnemesissatansnemesis Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 67
    edited August 2013
    axer128 wrote: »
    Perhaps if the only augment that existed was the ioun stone of allure, and for some reason your was completely un-slotted/ungeared. (rather unlikely, it's required to be 25 to upgrade it, and by that time most any competent person will have filled its rune and equip slots with at least rank5s.)

    You get quite a bit more out of it for the Ioun stone of might. Namely a ring slot.

    Plus a ton of players have pretty near maxxed ioun stones with rank7/8s, so actually the better bang for buck is indeed the purple upgrade, rather then a very pricy rank8/9 rune.

    For us/them, course it's worth it. I mean it's a route to upgrade your character, if you want to be the best - theres no other way to do it.

    I'd be upgrading my might stone and cat to purple, should the mod 1 drops be lucrative enough to get me enough diamonds to afford it. Though I should have enough banked to get the stone done right anyways, so only need 750k more.

    The prices are high, but I don't envision any amount of whining is gonna change that fact this late in the process. It's live next week. Just hope we can gain diamonds at a good better rate with the better dailies and mod 1 stuff.

    I would upgrade the Stone of Might if I used one because then you get the extra slot. No matter what you do with the Stone of Allure you still only get +35 to 3 stats, there is no additional slot to open. You can slot whatever level Eldrich runestone you can afford and gain an additional % above the +35 but it will be such a small improvement that you are just throwing your money away. If you are running around in all rank 7 & 8 enchants already you are most likely at the soft cap so that +35 (and added % from Eldrich) will make such a small change that it will be impossible to measure.

    Just an FYI - Feywild drops are BOP. You will get a lot of rank 4 enchants though, which is nice, but so will everyone else. This should drop the price of enchants even lower. All DD chest gear is switching to BOP as well, so that source of income will be gone. AND....It will cost you over 300K to progress through the Feywild areas because you have to pay 10 - 50k AD to complete almost all Campaign Tracker Tasks.

    My hope is that enough people realize the futility of upgrading their companion and decide against doing it and maybe the developers will take notice and they drop the price. This is still on the test server so the price could easily change before it goes live. Our feedback helps them make decisions like this. It should not cost 50% more to upgrade a companion from white to purple than it cost to buy a epic one from the Zen store. At the very least they could even the price out some so that it is comparable. It still wouldn't be worth it to upgrade a blue stone, but it might make a epic cleric or man-at-arms slightly more feasible.

    It is up to the individual player and it is their choice if they want to spend the money. I am just letting people know the reality of what they are purchasing. I have tested upgrading quite a few companions and really did not see much improvement. Getting a companion to blue is about the biggest upgrade they can make. After that there really is no return on their money. This company has a habit of giving players as little information as possible and it sometimes causes people to really regret the purchases they make. At least they will have some information if they read one of my post.

    It is my opinion that upgrading a companion from rare to epic is a waste of AD, but it is still only my opinion. If you have tons of AD and feel like doing it I am not stopping you. I just want to let players know that upgrading to a higher level enchant would be a better value if they are running around with rank 7 or less.
  • melodywhrmelodywhr Member Posts: 4,220 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    i don't see why they don't grant preview AD on the preview shard to give us the opportunity to test some of these things... although i don't know that i want to spend hours on the preview shard since it's not really doing anything to help the progress of my actual characters.
  • aalricaalric Member Posts: 9 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    Does anyone know what special power is unlocked when a stone or a cat companion reaches lvl 30? If it was a good enough power, perhaps that might make it worth it....
  • dardovedardove Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    aalric wrote: »
    Does anyone know what special power is unlocked when a stone or a cat companion reaches lvl 30? If it was a good enough power, perhaps that might make it worth it....

    augment pets don't get an additional power.
  • axer128axer128 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    My hope is that enough people realize the futility of upgrading their companion and decide against doing it and maybe the developers will take notice and they drop the price. This is still on the test server so the price could easily change before it goes live. Our feedback helps them make decisions like this. It should not cost 50% more to upgrade a companion from white to purple than it cost to buy a epic one from the Zen store. At the very least they could even the price out some so that it is comparable. It still wouldn't be worth it to upgrade a blue stone, but it might make a epic cleric or man-at-arms slightly more feasible.

    People are gambling thousands upon thousands, if not millions of dollars on opening the stupid lockboxes. Which anyone who does even the smallest amount of research knows are plain and simply not wise to open - they are the lottery - a tax on dumb people. You think they won't be just as wasteful on making their pets shinier?

    No, i'm afraid there is no hope for the human race on this. They will pay the price. The futility here is trying to fight it. It's a battle that history is always won by the merchants, not the ones fighting the war.

    And while I do believe and have seen the devs act on our feedbacks, for a subject like this there are two issues with that ideal:
    A) It's not their call. Serious pricing decisions like this are made by the head guys at PWE - not the devs. The devs probably agree with us, but thats irrelevant and counter intuitive towards what they are working on.
    B) It's too late. There a week left, so big decisions on stuff like pricing i'm sure is quite locked in for now. Could it change years down the line when the management changes? Sure. But it won't anytime soon.

    For me like I said, it's not about "worth". My character has all best in slot gear - all rank7/8/GT, it's one more small bump up the ladder, so might as well continue. And yea I got two rank 8s and a 7 arm i think, so yea pretty sure its more than 1 higher rank enchant. Plus i'd rather just earn those over time since enchantments constantly flow in, where diamonds come and go constantly.

    Also keep in mind each quality upgrade is a flat +10% stats in addition to what the level ups get you, so not sure you included that fact in your stat figures.

    How far I'll continue with this game beyond these goals I dunno. If they don't make the ladder interesting enough each update, it will be hard to keep me.

    These upgrades and the few static buffs you get seem worthy enough for a play, but the loots <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, so we'll have to wait and see what path they take on the next one.

    PS: Keep in mind there is a 100% free alternative to get a purple ioun stone: Become a foundry master. The top or 2nd top foundry authoring achievement nets you a nice purple ioun stone for every character on your account. It's quite hard to get, but that is quite a nice reward.
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  • raptorskyfireraptorskyfire Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 120 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2013
    I personally think the mount upgrading/companion upgrading AD prices are insane. I mean, for mounts you could save up AD and changeover to Zen for an account-wide mount for pretty much the same prices that would take you to upgrade just ONE mount. Then there's companions, which everyone here has already said, upgrading augment companions isn't worth it, and that's pretty much what everyone uses for end game anyhow. You buy one companion off the Zen store and it's just for one character. Companions are overpriced as it is (Zen-wise) and this just pretty much makes it so that you'd rather buy a companion from the Zen market rather than upgrade your companions (which is probably why they're doing it, like they have with mounts). Account-wide companions would be wonderful, if only, but then you'd get the minority who like selling companions they get from the Zen whining (then again it depends on if it's BoP or BoE).
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  • satansnemesissatansnemesis Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 67
    edited August 2013
    axer128 wrote: »
    Also keep in mind each quality upgrade is a flat +10% stats in addition to what the level ups get you, so not sure you included that fact in your stat figures.

    Its a 4% upgrade to go from rare to epic. 10% is to go from uncommon to rare. I think it is 10% for common to uncommon also. I can't remember for sure because it was a while ago when I tested it.
  • arcmoon99arcmoon99 Member Posts: 499 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    Moral of the story is: Nobody, unless they got loads of money burning a whole in their pocket, is going to upgrade their companions unless the price is GREATLY reduced.
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  • cyrdecyrde Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 55
    edited August 2013
    Cut the upgrade costs by half. Since those active companions still die on red areas from monsters in dungeons, they are almost useless and most ppl won't use them. And the bonus for passive companions isn't worth the AD anyway.
  • axan22#6446 axan22 Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    I don't think I will be upgrading any at these prices.
  • whichwitch01whichwitch01 Member, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    I will not be upgrading either. The same with the mount upgrades. The value is not even close to the cost on either.
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