This game sucks and has NOTHING to do with Dungeons & Dragons. They fix the forums so F2P can't post? Lame. Obvious this model of game is garbage. They know it. Do YOU? Uninstalled, no money spent on this trash. Fair warning, this game is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
Why post on a forum of a game you quit and unistalled????? Also blatant lies about about who can post and who can't? It is trash like this that needs to be weeded out of the community. There should be some way to ban posters who claim to have quit game. Help them gently out the door or let the door hit them in the buttocks as it is being slammed on them.
"New" AD is actually easier to get now provided you have more than 1 60. I never met my refining cap before patch, and now I easily meet it on all 4 of my 60's just through prayer/leadership and pvp. The problem is that gear is hugely inflated since the patch (I sold drake seal rings for 45k lol) However the good thing is if you are already geared the enchants you need to upgrade don't seem to be increasing in price, wards have also stayed the same. So if you already have T2, you are upgrading enchants faster, and if you don't have T2 should be cake to get with new DD system no?
I'm not saying I like this BoP system, it makes dungeons completely worthless if you already have T2 since you meet your refine anyway. The only thing geared players are running is CN and malabog.
Guild Master of <Enemy Team>
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
He thinks another dude that spend 200$$ bought his zen or sth.
''LMAO at 8.5k gs trying to play t2 dungeons''???so you just hit 60 payed money and got ur gear then went t2??
Sorry mate rather have the 8.5k gs that know what to do than you lol.
You also imply all good geared ppl are p2w which i dunno where u came up with it.
Your reply basically reinforced the point of f2p being important to the game.
Also the whole "free players are the backbone" argument is a little silly. I myself am a free player, but I realize that without the money recieved from paying players there would be no Neverwinter for me to enjoy. So thank you to those that put money in and buy rank 9's and perfect vorpal's and 1 shot me on your TR =P I can still slaughter in 90% of the other PvP matches I don't meet you in. There will never be a shortage of "free" players, the games success depends on those that spend the money.
Guild Master of <Enemy Team>
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
This game sucks and has NOTHING to do with Dungeons & Dragons. They fix the forums so F2P can't post? Lame. Obvious this model of game is garbage. They know it. Do YOU? Uninstalled, no money spent on this trash. Fair warning, this game is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
< F2P Can post ! This is great ! Unlike in greasy SWTOR, when after being a subscriber for 4 months, and bought their expansion too, when I went preferred (a status between f2p, and subscriber), my ability to post anything on their forums was withdrawn. I use this opportunity to vent here, and provide a bit of an edge to the great game NWN Online is. SWTOR f2p and preferred status is a joke, even they realised it and sweetened it a bit ... but I am not gonna play with a 300k EC credit cap as a preferred player. That makes impossible buying stuff from the AH, stuff what would make the game playable as f2p. NWN does all this much much better. If you want to be a f2p and have a lot of time to play and stick around eventually you'll be able to aquire anything you'd wnat. Not everything, but hey, if you're greedy, than don't be afraid to touch that creditcard. In STO what has similar systems in place as NWN does, I even subbed for 3 months, for the persistent features it provided.
Whatever we deny or embrace, we belong togheter./ Pat Benatar
The salvage cap is circumventable through making multiple accounts and multiple characters on each accounts for the sole purpose of salvaging. The same thing some people have done with professions/praying. Ever wonder why coalescent ward prices are so low compared to how much it would cost to buy it via ad--->zen-->zen store coal purchase?
Yep.
This game's economy is broken on so many levels.
Also, imagine if coalescent ward prices weren't brought downwards by people gateway-profession-botting. Higher ranks of weapon & armor enchants would be terribly inaccessible. Zen store coalescent costs 3x as much as on the auction house on Dragon at the moment. It's come to the point where I hope whoever bothers to set up countless accounts with professionbots does it more and the amount of them become more numerous because it would decrease the cost ceiling for high rank enchants.
Cryptic is driving people towards these economic loopholes by restricting the ability to feel decent character power progression speed as a free to play player.
Ugh, it isn't HARDER to earn people. It is easier. PLAYERS control the set prices of AH. not PWE. Unbound T2 sets sky rocketed based on BOP and players controlling the AH. Yes, the 24k refine limit is lame, but that is because you are EARNING more AD than pre-patch. I am sure they will increase it, or the market will indeed become stagnant. 24k is CHUMP change. I have 250k plus in Rough AD just sitting there. If they want me to spend it, then increase the refine limit, period.
They won't. The AD(dilithium) refinery cap is the most stable in STO. Veterans have some bonuses, apart of that, this is the only thing that keeps the game economy safe from exploits we all know to happen.
Whatever we deny or embrace, we belong togheter./ Pat Benatar
Yes 24k is chump change, but what if you have alts? even non 60 alts you can mail them BoE epics to salvage. I have 4 60's and 2 other alts so I easily bring in little over 100k a day. How hard is it to gear really? in a week I have a normal weapon/armor enchant. I can buy a rank 7 every day. Yes the gear itself is super inflated but whose going to buy their T2 when they can get it so easily from DD? What really sucks is that if you want GG armor you have to run GG like 1000 times lol, I'm glad I bought my TR's full armor set + weapons for gold pre patch.
Guild Master of <Enemy Team>
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
Also the whole "free players are the backbone" argument is a little silly.
Not really. As said before, free players provide the environment. The true number of "whales" in any game is usually very small. Not enough to provide a sustainable playerbase. One "whale" may spend more than a 1000 other players. But if they don't have anyone to compete against or cooperate with, then they won't spend anything.
Yes 24k is chump change, but what if you have alts? even non 60 alts you can mail them BoE epics to salvage. I have 4 60's and 2 other alts so I easily bring in little over 100k a day.
Shhhhh, we don't need everybody doing this.;)
Queen of Dragon Server
Goddess Uniique, lvl 60 DC.
PinkSugar, lvl 60 CW.
Baby Cakes, lvl 60 GWF.
*******, lvl 60 TR.
Premium Juicebox, lvl 60 CW.
Pink Exxxtacy, Ranger There is NO pvp in Neverwinter.
I made $5990 by doing a foundry quest and invoking during the day. $1990 for invoking, and 4000 for doing the 4 quests needed for the Foundry. I can buy zen but sheesh, people saying they are making $24,000 a day, I don't see where. Unless the gods I'm invoking are mad at me. lol
Making Astral Diamond harder to earn is a positive move. Im pointing out PW/Cryptic making Items dropped bound on pick up.
Generally, I think this is beneficial in terms of gameplay. In this way more people will be engaged in completing daily related quest from rhix or from Lord Neverember which rewards players with specific amount of AD. This will make contents like Gauntrym and other events to be generally played by people more to earn more astral diamonds.
I also suggest to increase number of astral diamonds that you can refine each day. Increasing the Cap for refining astral diamonds will enable players to do more game activities which rewards them AD.
More ability to refine AD = More players will play games which will reward them AD. This will also give players a reason to run dungeons where items are Bop (They can continuously farm purples to salvage them to AD until they hit the max limit for refining rough AD )
Farming Astral Diamond can also be a great end game purpose . This will prompt people to farm AD more until they can reach the daily limit in refining rough AD.
The only thing that engages people in is buying ad for real cash because the prices on ah will be ridiculous.
GG. When AD gain rate is nerfed, devs can link your thread as THE feedback they have been getting, while ignoring all those "AD are too hard to gain!!!" threads.
I'm still happy with my rank 6. And i just had a look at the AH out of curiosity a rank 8 silvery costs 180k so that is not that impossible to achieve. And good for PW/Cryptic for creating a Astral Diamond sink for the people who want to feel truly special, if we all ran around we the best stuff it wouldn't be fun either.
I made $5990 by doing a foundry quest and invoking during the day. $1990 for invoking, and 4000 for doing the 4 quests needed for the Foundry. I can buy zen but sheesh, people saying they are making $24,000 a day, I don't see where. Unless the gods I'm invoking are mad at me. lol
Leadership and PVP, I should think.
I don't really PvP anymore but I read that if Lord Neverember gives you a PvP daily then you can do that and the Rhix one at the same time for 12 K (4K Rhix + 8K from lord) AD for 4 matches.
I made $5990 by doing a foundry quest and invoking during the day. $1990 for invoking, and 4000 for doing the 4 quests needed for the Foundry. I can buy zen but sheesh, people saying they are making $24,000 a day, I don't see where. Unless the gods I'm invoking are mad at me. lol
Invoking 3 times added about 2K. About 10K from level 20 Leadership. 4K from the foundry dailies. Today is Neverember's foundry bonus, so another 8K from that for the same 4 foundry missions. Got a purple belt when I ran gnarled root cavern this morning that I salvaged. I'm already over the daily limit.
Free players don't provide c r ap for me. I PVP, a lot. That's where the whales are. I one shot free players in PVP, so I look forward to matching up against well geared players in Domination. So again, NO f2p, beggars are not the backbone of this game. If anything they hinder everything from PVP to PVE. LMAO at 8.5 GS trying to play T2 dungeons. Go roleplay with your guild and stay out of the big boy areas.
I made $5990 by doing a foundry quest and invoking during the day. $1990 for invoking, and 4000 for doing the 4 quests needed for the Foundry. I can buy zen but sheesh, people saying they are making $24,000 a day, I don't see where. Unless the gods I'm invoking are mad at me. lol
Today Neverember asked me to do foundries. Add that to Rhix's foundry quest, and you're basically halfway there.
Check out Adventuring College! A 20 minute male-centric comedic solo adventure.
Quest ID: NW-DPCZNUVQ7
I don't do PVP and am level 3 on Leadership, so 24,000 AD is not possible for ALL players then, as most are saying.
Okay saying again, I can NOT live on Neverwinter. I come here to play a game.
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aaronjfMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited August 2013
Since the patch/module/disaster or whatever you want to call it, I have run 1 single instance. It was CN. Draco is bugged to heck which made things interesting. His weapon isn't bop so under normal circumstances, worth farming. W/ the buggy encounter, it really isn't worth it as only about 2-3 items he drops is even worth splitting 5 ways anymore. I won't be setting foot in any other dungeon t1/t2 since there is really no point. I mean, you have to be geared to run a t2, which means most people running it need no loot drop from there. If you can't sell the loot, you might win (delve) what is the point? The salvage vendor is ok. Sure it isn't terrible to sell a bound t2 hat to the salvage guy for 6k ad. I would much sooner sell that same hat on the ah for 150k give or take. That 5-6k ad the salvage guy gives me per delve doesn't really cut it. If I want to buy something off the ah, enchant, c ward etc, I have quite a bit of farming to do.
Needless to say, since this module has been released, I have been online long enough to do my 30 minutes or so of dailies and another hour or so of trade in zone. That will continue to diminish as the game continues to have no point. For myself, the game is about pve. I don't like pvp but can tolerate it in small doses. Taking out any reason for me to run a dungeon sort of killed this game for me. Oh well I guess Hopefully something will change because up to this module, the game was a blast. If not, I guess the 60 I spent on the first pack was worth it. Just glad I didn't spend any more than that
It would be fun to be a fly on the wall, watch a pug with the min gear score try to run most t2's.. Would be very interesting indeed..
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
I don't do PVP and am level 3 on Leadership, so 24,000 AD is not possible for ALL players then, as most are saying.
Okay saying again, I can NOT live on Neverwinter. I come here to play a game.
Leadership is not something that you need to "live on Neverwinter" for. You queue up your tasks and check back however many hours later. Various tasks have different rewards and times. Some are 12 hour waits for 1,600 AD. At level 3 you aren't going to have any good missions, no. But if you aren't willing to spend a few minutes a day leveling it up a bit, then nothing anyone says could help you.
Four foundry missions takes about an hour. With Neverember's daily and the Foundry daily, today a level 60 can get 12,000 AD for that hour. Playing the game for an hour does not make you "live on Neverwinter".
But atm I am not Level 20, is my point. It takes time to get there and I can do that without being in game but I'm still not making any AD. In fact it wants me to spend AD to do a task later on down the line I see.
It is possible. It is not our fault that you don't want to do what it takes.
The point again, is we are all different. Doing mind numbing stuff that doesnt interest me, is going against the reason I am here, which is to have fun. I am not skilled enough to do PVP...maybe in the future. Another point is, I'm new...I don't have the experience alot have so different levels of people cannot make 24,000 AD as easily as is suggested, which is my whole point.
But atm I am not Level 20, is my point. It takes time to get there and I can do that without being in game but I'm still not making any AD. In fact it wants me to spend AD to do a task later on down the line I see.
...there's literally nothing you have to spend AD on in crafting. Yes, you can gain some convenience by buying a Man-at-Arms worker instead of hiring & upgrading normal workers until you've got a Rank 3, but as I said - that's convenience. It's not forced. You can do every single Leadership task with white workers and white tools.
(I don't have lv20 leadership yet, either. But at lv10-13, there are several good AD-earning tasks. Just because lv20 has the best, doesn't mean you can't earn useful amounts of AD at lower levels.)
...ditto on things like the Foundry daily. Yeah, you can grind it out every day doing four uber-short quests in an hour (at lv60). Or you can grab those dailies, and just do them for fun - pick four foundry quests that seem fun & interesting to you, even if they aren't the minimum time. Do one a day for four days. The daily is complete. Yeah, you didn't get the uber-efficient 4k a day. But you got 4k. Little amounts add up over time, just takes a little patience. Without having to turn into a "must grind out AD" farmer.
Same with the invoking and leadership - you can do those things without being all "I've got no life outside Neverwinter" and without feeling like it's stopping you from doing the things you want. Invoking takes seconds (and only needs to be done 1-3 times a day, no AD/coins/XP are awarded for 4+ invokes) and can be done whenever you hit any campfire in the game, even in the middle of a dungeon quest you're doing. Re-upping Leadership tasks, takes a minute or two - especially if you just have one low level character. 2-3 jobs doesn't take any tedium.
Yes, to get 24k daily, you kind of need to push at it (as I think I mentioned earlier, my characters have never capped refining except during the double AD event). But lesser amounts still add up. 5-10k a day? Week or two, you've got 50k.
Invoked for seven days in a row successfully? You can claim an enchantment box reward that sells on the auction for 20k. And for a grand total (including auctioning time) of around 5 minutes spent, not interfering with the things you WANT to do.
Sure, you can say "but I don't want to do any of those things".... but this is an MMO. It's always been a case of certain rewards come from certain tasks. If you choose not to do those tasks, you don't get the rewards. (If I don't want to mine ore in WoW, I'm not going to gain mining skill. Doesn't mean mining skill is impossible to get, just means that I chose not to get it. Ditto with BoP raid gear - if I choose not to raid, I don't get the rewards. And that's the way it is - and that's even true in single player games. If I don't want to farm crafting materials or gold in Final Fantasy Whatever, I can't get the things that come from it. It's a basic part of playing RPGs.)
But atm I am not Level 20, is my point. It takes time to get there and I can do that without being in game but I'm still not making any AD. In fact it wants me to spend AD to do a task later on down the line I see.
Level 16 is the magic point for leadership, running fight Spellplague and Battle Undead, lot stuff from the chests you can just sell for more AD instead of wasting them on other leader projects.
If you have few alts all running leadership you can make a small fortune a day without playing
casual gamers are meant to be average/able to do the same **** as everyone else just with less uber gear n what not (cba to go into the technicalities of it)
so a guy with 1 hr can earn up to 12k ad from the dailies
a guy with 10hrs can do 120k across multiple chars
either way its the same bull****
skill + rng + time = currency
not time = currency
id rather farm spellplague for 1hr, preclear, 1 run, then 1-2 more runs depending on speed, then with RNG maybe i get 1,2,3,4 t2 helms, some enchants from mobs n stuff etc
thats "skill" + time + rng = currency
and the more "skill" + time + rng youve had/got the more "skill" and the less "time" it should take in the future --> more tries at RNG
its fun and frustrating at the same time.. occasionally a little tedious
I tried the salvage deal last night, and i got like 5k for something i would have been able to sell for 50-100k a week ago...pretty lame if you ask me.
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sasheriaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited August 2013
@ theviking2006
you have to see the larger picture of the free players.
Your question is "Does free players pay for development?" the DIRECT answer is NO. The indirect answer is YES.
The economy in F2P games requires two things (like any economy) Supply and Demand.
The Supply is provided "usually" by the free players. These supplies could be anything from AD farms (provide AD for the exchange) BoE items (well that has change with BoP items) and materials (usually the daily coins and professional packs) because free players "usually" have a lot of time and "generate" all these supplies.
The demand (the one actually spending the cash) BUYS these products. They buy Zen to BUT the AD needed for stuff (AD shop and keep in mind that AD/Zen exchange is run by the players ONLY), demand spend AD to buy stuff from other players and sometimes Zen players also BUY Zen items and put on AH and provide supply in another aspect.
If you were to remove the free players and NOT change the mechanics at all (current mechanics) then there would be a big void of supply and prices will go up.
It is a symbiotic relationship. Now if this was a sub game, then the system will need to totally change that paying customer will have "benefits" of a sub.
Comments
I'm not saying I like this BoP system, it makes dungeons completely worthless if you already have T2 since you meet your refine anyway. The only thing geared players are running is CN and malabog.
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
''LMAO at 8.5k gs trying to play t2 dungeons''???so you just hit 60 payed money and got ur gear then went t2??
Sorry mate rather have the 8.5k gs that know what to do than you lol.
You also imply all good geared ppl are p2w which i dunno where u came up with it.
Your reply basically reinforced the point of f2p being important to the game.
keep on posting bro~~
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
< F2P Can post ! This is great ! Unlike in greasy SWTOR, when after being a subscriber for 4 months, and bought their expansion too, when I went preferred (a status between f2p, and subscriber), my ability to post anything on their forums was withdrawn. I use this opportunity to vent here, and provide a bit of an edge to the great game NWN Online is. SWTOR f2p and preferred status is a joke, even they realised it and sweetened it a bit ... but I am not gonna play with a 300k EC credit cap as a preferred player. That makes impossible buying stuff from the AH, stuff what would make the game playable as f2p. NWN does all this much much better. If you want to be a f2p and have a lot of time to play and stick around eventually you'll be able to aquire anything you'd wnat. Not everything, but hey, if you're greedy, than don't be afraid to touch that creditcard. In STO what has similar systems in place as NWN does, I even subbed for 3 months, for the persistent features it provided.
Yep.
This game's economy is broken on so many levels.
Also, imagine if coalescent ward prices weren't brought downwards by people gateway-profession-botting. Higher ranks of weapon & armor enchants would be terribly inaccessible. Zen store coalescent costs 3x as much as on the auction house on Dragon at the moment. It's come to the point where I hope whoever bothers to set up countless accounts with professionbots does it more and the amount of them become more numerous because it would decrease the cost ceiling for high rank enchants.
Cryptic is driving people towards these economic loopholes by restricting the ability to feel decent character power progression speed as a free to play player.
They won't. The AD(dilithium) refinery cap is the most stable in STO. Veterans have some bonuses, apart of that, this is the only thing that keeps the game economy safe from exploits we all know to happen.
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
Not really. As said before, free players provide the environment. The true number of "whales" in any game is usually very small. Not enough to provide a sustainable playerbase. One "whale" may spend more than a 1000 other players. But if they don't have anyone to compete against or cooperate with, then they won't spend anything.
and this does not seem difficult to understand :rolleyes:
Shhhhh, we don't need everybody doing this.;)
PinkSugar, lvl 60 CW.
Baby Cakes, lvl 60 GWF.
*******, lvl 60 TR.
Premium Juicebox, lvl 60 CW.
Pink Exxxtacy, Ranger
There is NO pvp in Neverwinter.
The only thing that engages people in is buying ad for real cash because the prices on ah will be ridiculous.
Pretty much.
check rank 8 dark.
Leadership and PVP, I should think.
I don't really PvP anymore but I read that if Lord Neverember gives you a PvP daily then you can do that and the Rhix one at the same time for 12 K (4K Rhix + 8K from lord) AD for 4 matches.
Invoking 3 times added about 2K. About 10K from level 20 Leadership. 4K from the foundry dailies. Today is Neverember's foundry bonus, so another 8K from that for the same 4 foundry missions. Got a purple belt when I ran gnarled root cavern this morning that I salvaged. I'm already over the daily limit.
This is exactly why i started this thread y'all.
Today Neverember asked me to do foundries. Add that to Rhix's foundry quest, and you're basically halfway there.
Quest ID: NW-DPCZNUVQ7
Okay saying again, I can NOT live on Neverwinter. I come here to play a game.
Needless to say, since this module has been released, I have been online long enough to do my 30 minutes or so of dailies and another hour or so of trade in zone. That will continue to diminish as the game continues to have no point. For myself, the game is about pve. I don't like pvp but can tolerate it in small doses. Taking out any reason for me to run a dungeon sort of killed this game for me. Oh well I guess
It would be fun to be a fly on the wall, watch a pug with the min gear score try to run most t2's.. Would be very interesting indeed..
It is possible. It is not our fault that you don't want to do what it takes.
Leadership is not something that you need to "live on Neverwinter" for. You queue up your tasks and check back however many hours later. Various tasks have different rewards and times. Some are 12 hour waits for 1,600 AD. At level 3 you aren't going to have any good missions, no. But if you aren't willing to spend a few minutes a day leveling it up a bit, then nothing anyone says could help you.
Four foundry missions takes about an hour. With Neverember's daily and the Foundry daily, today a level 60 can get 12,000 AD for that hour. Playing the game for an hour does not make you "live on Neverwinter".
The point again, is we are all different. Doing mind numbing stuff that doesnt interest me, is going against the reason I am here, which is to have fun. I am not skilled enough to do PVP...maybe in the future. Another point is, I'm new...I don't have the experience alot have so different levels of people cannot make 24,000 AD as easily as is suggested, which is my whole point.
...there's literally nothing you have to spend AD on in crafting. Yes, you can gain some convenience by buying a Man-at-Arms worker instead of hiring & upgrading normal workers until you've got a Rank 3, but as I said - that's convenience. It's not forced. You can do every single Leadership task with white workers and white tools.
(I don't have lv20 leadership yet, either. But at lv10-13, there are several good AD-earning tasks. Just because lv20 has the best, doesn't mean you can't earn useful amounts of AD at lower levels.)
...ditto on things like the Foundry daily. Yeah, you can grind it out every day doing four uber-short quests in an hour (at lv60). Or you can grab those dailies, and just do them for fun - pick four foundry quests that seem fun & interesting to you, even if they aren't the minimum time. Do one a day for four days. The daily is complete. Yeah, you didn't get the uber-efficient 4k a day. But you got 4k. Little amounts add up over time, just takes a little patience. Without having to turn into a "must grind out AD" farmer.
Same with the invoking and leadership - you can do those things without being all "I've got no life outside Neverwinter" and without feeling like it's stopping you from doing the things you want. Invoking takes seconds (and only needs to be done 1-3 times a day, no AD/coins/XP are awarded for 4+ invokes) and can be done whenever you hit any campfire in the game, even in the middle of a dungeon quest you're doing. Re-upping Leadership tasks, takes a minute or two - especially if you just have one low level character. 2-3 jobs doesn't take any tedium.
Yes, to get 24k daily, you kind of need to push at it (as I think I mentioned earlier, my characters have never capped refining except during the double AD event). But lesser amounts still add up. 5-10k a day? Week or two, you've got 50k.
Invoked for seven days in a row successfully? You can claim an enchantment box reward that sells on the auction for 20k. And for a grand total (including auctioning time) of around 5 minutes spent, not interfering with the things you WANT to do.
Sure, you can say "but I don't want to do any of those things".... but this is an MMO. It's always been a case of certain rewards come from certain tasks. If you choose not to do those tasks, you don't get the rewards. (If I don't want to mine ore in WoW, I'm not going to gain mining skill. Doesn't mean mining skill is impossible to get, just means that I chose not to get it. Ditto with BoP raid gear - if I choose not to raid, I don't get the rewards. And that's the way it is - and that's even true in single player games. If I don't want to farm crafting materials or gold in Final Fantasy Whatever, I can't get the things that come from it. It's a basic part of playing RPGs.)
Level 16 is the magic point for leadership, running fight Spellplague and Battle Undead, lot stuff from the chests you can just sell for more AD instead of wasting them on other leader projects.
If you have few alts all running leadership you can make a small fortune a day without playing
so a guy with 1 hr can earn up to 12k ad from the dailies
a guy with 10hrs can do 120k across multiple chars
either way its the same bull****
skill + rng + time = currency
not time = currency
id rather farm spellplague for 1hr, preclear, 1 run, then 1-2 more runs depending on speed, then with RNG maybe i get 1,2,3,4 t2 helms, some enchants from mobs n stuff etc
thats "skill" + time + rng = currency
and the more "skill" + time + rng youve had/got the more "skill" and the less "time" it should take in the future --> more tries at RNG
its fun and frustrating at the same time.. occasionally a little tedious
you have to see the larger picture of the free players.
Your question is "Does free players pay for development?" the DIRECT answer is NO. The indirect answer is YES.
The economy in F2P games requires two things (like any economy) Supply and Demand.
The Supply is provided "usually" by the free players. These supplies could be anything from AD farms (provide AD for the exchange) BoE items (well that has change with BoP items) and materials (usually the daily coins and professional packs) because free players "usually" have a lot of time and "generate" all these supplies.
The demand (the one actually spending the cash) BUYS these products. They buy Zen to BUT the AD needed for stuff (AD shop and keep in mind that AD/Zen exchange is run by the players ONLY), demand spend AD to buy stuff from other players and sometimes Zen players also BUY Zen items and put on AH and provide supply in another aspect.
If you were to remove the free players and NOT change the mechanics at all (current mechanics) then there would be a big void of supply and prices will go up.
It is a symbiotic relationship. Now if this was a sub game, then the system will need to totally change that paying customer will have "benefits" of a sub.
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.