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Item Transmutation
arontimes
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Cryptic recently added free appearance change items which, as the name suggests, cost nothing to transmute into. I find this a step in the right direction as it helps promote roleplaying without affecting the mechanical aspects of the game. But why stop there? Why not make more, if not all items free to transmute?
Discuss.
Discuss.
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I feel as the game progresses, the idea of controlling AD amounts per character is going to be a lot harder to maintain.
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This sounds good to me. THough I would be more OK with the AD cost if it was a one time fee to access the look any number of times later.
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I think there are 3 acceptable options here.
1) - Transmutation should be free
2) - Transmutation should cost gold instead of Astral Diamonds
3) - Transmutation should cost from 25% - 50% its current Astral Diamond Cost
I'm favorable to numbers 2 or 3. I dont think it should be completely free. but its current normal cost is just absurd.
1. If transmutation continues to be destructive, in the sense that the item whose appearance you want to use goes away when you perform the transmutation, then yes it should be free to transmute.
2. If transmutation allowed you to switch to the appearance of the item you used, but was also setup in such a way that you could click a drop down and change to the original, (or any other appearances you also attached to the target item), then I could see it costing a small amount.
3. If you could simply "remould" an item to take on the appearance of another, in a way that doesn't destroy the "source item", then I could see it costing more, or even require certain crafting materials, (this utility could possibly even be an expanded use for the various crafting professions).
4. Another possibly fantastic use of the crafting professions would be to create purpose built "free to transmute" items, as a sort of work-around/secondary purpose for them...
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That's why they could bring tons of transmutable items for money in ZEN store. Options are endless.
The more you make affordable for gold in this game the more gold spammers you will attract. I find it good that you hardly need gold anyway in this game. For me its perfectley enough to collect what drops from monsters to buy the little crafting stuff and pots. And yet I am still over 100g. There shouldn't be features in this game to buy with gold.
They aren't really "gold" sellers. They are currency sellers, and they do advertise "cheap astral diamonds". Really, it's irrelevant.
I guess I'm a maybe. I don't mind a nominal cost to transmute, with the free skins being a nice perk. I recognize that the current pricing seems prohibitive to a lot of players. I can afford it and I still feel it's too much to spend on a whim, and since I do not at this time have any of the best gear, I'm not using this feature (though I am saving things I like the look of). I think people who are more versed in this type of game than i am have a lot of good ideas on the matter.
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i also like the idea of giving us more options to transmute to.
Why? Would you rather pay exorbitant costs for functional upgrades like mounts and pets or would you rather have high costs to make yourself look exactly how you like to look and look far more unique than anyone else around you? The premium actually adds to the exclusiveness of looking great!
For example, the cost of upgrading pets, especially combat pets which are almost wholly unused despite there being a large variety is ridiculous. It is like a double or triple whammy to pets, especially due to unlocking a whole new ability at max rank for combat pets. I do not even like seeing combat pets, especially while on my Cleric in the endgame, but even I can see there is a direct contradiction here.
As for mount costs, I struggle to think of an investment that is more worthwhile in the game than a fast mount. To the point where, I, for example, did not bother doing whole events because the only thing that interested me in, say the Midsummer event, were the great looking and great animations of the Pig mounts. But without being able to upgrade them after already having spent a considerable sum getting a fast mount, I did not consider it worth my time for something I would only bring out very occasionally for purely cosmetic reasons...
Finally, it is an easy slippery slope to have huge costs associated with functionality. Whereas high costs for purely cosmetics can never be wrong, especially as the art portfolio of the game increases over time.
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Agreed, transmutation costs aren't that bad. Companions and mount upgrade costs on the other hand are very high.
And this extends out to all cosmetic aspects of the game really.
The pricing, as it is, as well as how transmutation is structured makes people think about transmuting too much. The transmutation fee should be a maximum of 25K or so AD so people don't consider the implications of changing cosmetics as much.
Other issues which compound the currently high cost of tranmutation are:
-Once a transmutation is done you lose the previous skin forever. So, for instance, the limited time Savage and Tiefling items can be lost if a player ever wants to switch to an alternate look. If I already have a Savage/Tielfing item transmuted on to my main weapon even if I liked the look of a new weapon appearance which gets released it would severely decrease my desire to transmute on top of that weapon.
As such tranmutation needs to consist of multiple (or unlimited) skin selections even if there was a fee to switch back and forth.
-Colors don't carry over! on top of the already trepadaciously high price for transmuting gear if I have my armor dyed I will also have to pay a fee to get a new set of dyes to also complement my armor. This is simply a double wammy.
Transmuting either needs to also apply the old dyes to the new appearance or the dyes need to be applied to a slot rather than an item piece. Needing to also pay for new dye simply because you wish to transmute an item is too steep IMO.
My view is that Transmutation should be an AD sink. AD sinks work best if prices are so cheap that people don't have to consider the implications of the costs. The costs being days worth of grinding, though, and costing a permanent loss of the previous skins simply creates too much thought for people to sink AD into transmutations.
The problem isn't a fee. The problem is a combination between a fee that is way too high and a lack of any form of buyers remorse or continued customizations without added hidden fees based on market values.
And again this spreads out to a major problem with all of the AD sinks and many of the prices in the Zen Market too.
If the prices are too high and require too much consideration while purchasing the use of such features will, without failure, be lowered drastically.
Just my two coppers. Your mileage may vary.
I went to the zen market because it had some really cool stuff there and I WANTED it. Steampunk, Mechbot.. very cool looks. Best of all there were shared bank slots, that ALL your toons could use, making gear, gold, and mod storage and transfer a snap.
In their rush to monetize this game Cryptic unnecessarily rode roughshod over so many basic player necessities, wanting us to buy virtually all of our customization and storage from the zen store almost immediately. AND THEY DID NOT HAVE TO! People who are going to spend money on the game are going to spend it anyway. Why put a gun to my head, make me WASTE my game budget on basic necessities when I would much rather spend it on things that I want.
I have 17 toons now, and have bought (foolish me, now I use a guild bank) 1 set of 16 bank slots, 0 costumes (execpting the pack bennies), and have transformed nothing more expensive than 200 ADs. If you want my money you are going to have to treat me like a customer, not a hostage. My only real concession has been 6 greater bags of holding, but I paid for 3 of those with AD bought zen not cash bought.
78 total inventory slots, bank AND personal, one ragged suit of peasant clothes, and whatever armor that you can wear, because you don't have room for a change. That's it. You want any more SUCKA you gone' have to PAY.
So your average player:
--- A) is a litterbug, leaving a trail of loot he can't carry wherever he goes.
(and tying up zone server resources every time BTW)
---
--- C) will have to really grind if he wants to carry an axe rather than a sword.
--- D) begins to wonder whether F2P here is just a sick joke.
In conclusion, when it comes to transmuting stuff, I say let us buy what we NEED with gold, But then put some nice stuff, that we will really WANT, in the zen store and make us pay for it. CO does this with just about everything.This has been the policy all along for mounts and followers, where it's done very good business, so why not for transmuting too?
I completly agree with you actually. 50k AD at lvl 60 is nothing. But then again, for some people it may be alot and especially since they dont have a "dressing room" or "preview room" to see what the gear looks like before they buy it. So if they make a mistake then its suddenly 100k AD. and 2 mistakes are 150k AD. etc etc. So, unless you are searching on google for "super cool neverwinter gear" and know exactly what to buy, it can cost up to a fortune.
I totally agree -- some form of preview system that doesn't require you to actually have the item in your inventory is pretty high up on my wish list, and a bigger issue, IMHO, than the actual cost of the transmutations.
^This.
Instead of adjusting the cost of transmute... They should be working on making the process easier and more user friendly. You shouldn't have to go to the preview server to check out how a piece of gear looks. And we should have some kind of near-unlimited storage for our appearance items.
And there are other issues not directly related to transmute that mess up the process. For example there are bugs that have the dye color showing up on the wrong part of the item (primary, accent, secondary) if you switch pieces of gear. Mess up and it could be a costly mistake. Also, there is a fundamental flaw with the transmute/dye system. The fact that we change gear so much before 60 makes it worthless to anyone not yet maxed. Changing the price won't help that though. Even if it was free, people aren't going to want to track down a set of transmute gear every 30 minutes as they upgrade their gear.
I see nothing wrong with the cost itself though. I can earn that in a couple days on a single level 60 character. And in my opinion appearance is what we SHOULD be paying for. Not wards, or profession packs, or other stuff that provides mechanical benefits.
Again, that's just my opinion. I realize many won't agree.
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Eh, its trivial to me, but then I don't buy keys. So maybe that's why. All the AD some waste on keys, I have for transmuting.
It is the other problems which makes the 50K too much including, but not limited to:
-The inability to do a full preview (colors and all)
-The loss of previous appearances
-The loss of dye colors
-The cost of the actual item (if you like the appearance but not the stats of another high end piece of gear)
-The lack of an undo feature such as a few hour forgiveness period. This is mainly an issue due to the poor preview, though.
So yeah, 50K can be pretty cheap. It's the other factors which come into play which cause me to say the price is too much. if the system was massively adjusted to be less plug and play guesswork along with not including a total loss of materials I would be fine with the price...
But as it is, no transmuting should not be free. It should cost AD and not gold. But the system needs an overall before the price is reasonable...
And even then my philosophy is that transmuting should be an AD sink and if the price was lower it would be a far more effective system. 50K is my upper liit as to what I feel I will spend without internally debating the decision and that's not necessarilly good for an AD sink. AD sinks should cause people to spend the value without ever bothering to consider the pruchases and 50K is just too close to the borderline.
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