People can still work for them in dungeons. I didn't say give everyone 100 coal wards. Make a tier 2.5 dungeons that have a small chance of dropping them.
Like I said in my previous post, are you really going to put that 1000zen pricetag to heart? Then nerf the drop rates of coal wards even more then. Justify that 1000zen pricetag.
Enchantments are not BOP. You could easily make a perfect enchantment by letting a praybot borrow an enchantment and fuse it.
Too easy of a workaround
Well if they really were 50k like you wanted, I could make a perfect every week if I farmed a decent amount although nowhere near the amount I used to, or anyone can get a lesser in 2 days with little effort. They still need to be long term goals, just they shouldn't reach the 300-400k point.
As for praybots making perfect enchantments, they'd probably be more likely to make lessers if anything. Perfects need rp, marks and multiple wards (which is a lot of mailing around considering the low drop rate).
Well if they really were 50k like you wanted, I could make a perfect every week if I farmed a decent amount although nowhere near the amount I used to, or anyone can get a lesser in 2 days with little effort. They still need to be long term goals, just they shouldn't reach the 300-400k point.
That's like saying you are able to farm 30x ancient weapons every week. If ancient weapon values are able to survive, coal wards will.
Also, those goals are pure idealism. I happen to be probably the most knowledgeable person on the innerworkings of the market and I can tell you that coal wards are being used to manipulate the market and perform underground trading. Take away those, and we probably could arrive at this "idealistic theory" of having a long-term goal.
As for praybots making perfect enchantments, they'd probably be more likely to make lessers if anything. Perfects need rp, marks and multiple wards (which is a lot of mailing around considering the low drop rate).
If mailing is the big hindrance, its won't make a difference then.
They won't make lessers if perfects are more profitable (which they are).
That's like saying you are able to farm 30x ancient weapons every week.
They won't make lessers if perfects are more profitable (which they are).
Well there was a time I'd do 30 in 2 days, but that kind of was a burn out for me. As for the mailing, if I was a botter I'd rather leave as little trace between my accounts as possible, but who knows.
Honestly though. If coal wards were 50k each, I would've probably got bored of this game sooner. However if they reached 400k, that'd be a major turn off and might have considered not even bothering trying to farm it.
I've alluded to the cause and gave my position in the Bug Reports section. Regardless, it's not worth derailing a thread.
Coal prices might be a bit high for newer players, but only because they have no means of income, excluding a lucky boss drop. Even that doesn't go to far.
So that time did exist then? Ancient weapons still hold value. I wouldn't worry about coal wards dropping in dungeons either then.
If Ancient weapons could survive, coal wards will be fine.
By the way to other posters, there is some discussion going offtrack to what I am aiming for. Please be mindful of what I'm getting at when responding to me.
So that time did exist then? Ancient weapons still hold value. I wouldn't worry about coal wards dropping in dungeons either then.
If Ancient weapons could survive, coal wards will be fine.
By the way to other posters, there is some discussion going offtrack to what I am aiming for. Please be mindful of what I'm getting at when responding to me.
Ancient items are dwindling in value though with no new content to replace it. Both 50k and 400k are either extreme side of the spectrum, noones arguing that they can't survive in either case. There just need to be a happy medium.
0
Options
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2014
It's important to remember unlike most items enchantments do not bind thus none are ever truly removed from the economy. Their prices are much more subject to price drops than any other items in the game.
I agree with the mods 100% on this one. The coal wards are not out of reach it shouldn't be made to easy to get the best gear in this game as its' easy enough to max level and gear is the only thing to keep you "growing" at that point. 260k or even 300k is not that much AD in this game if people take the time to learn the many ways to make it.
0
Options
xnordicxMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
It's important to remember unlike most items enchantments do not bind thus none are ever truly removed from the economy. Their prices are much more subject to price drops than any other items in the game.
As long you dont upgrade your enhancements thats correct
but since the new system use one enhacement along with a mark
to make next grade it one will be lost ones a player upgrade his enhancement.
Ancient items are dwindling in value though with no new content to replace it. Both 50k and 400k are either extreme side of the spectrum, noones arguing that they can't survive in either case. There just need to be a happy medium.
I believe the happy medium is 50k considering people use it for other methods nowadays than fusing.
I agree with the mods 100% on this one. The coal wards are not out of reach it shouldn't be made to easy to get the best gear in this game as its' easy enough to max level and gear is the only thing to keep you "growing" at that point. 260k or even 300k is not that much AD in this game if people take the time to learn the many ways to make it.
Except that wasn't my point.
My point was, coal wards are primarily being used to manipulate the market and also to perform underground trading either through trade chat or third party websites. Neither cryptic nor majority of the players are benefitting from it and in fact are harmed.
Coal Ward prices are stupid and nerfing the drop rate was even stupider. 3 characters, ONE Coal ward since Mod 2. By all means, make Coal Wards received via invocation BOP, but dammit, ONE drop on 3 characters in what, 5/6 months?
I had no problem paying 150k for a Coal Ward, but 260k+ or $10 in the Zen Store? You're having a fat laugh.
PSA: You don't need to grind Spinward Rise for your Elemental artifact main hand if you have some AD lying around. You can craft it via the Tyranny of Dragon's campaign screen.
the current price rise is all about mod3 anticipation, thus due to players and not Cryptic. Prices will drop quite sharply after mod3 hits, right now it's time to sell and not buy.
Disagree wholeheartedly. Coal Ward prices have been climbing since February. I documented on this forum how I watched the price climb 50% in three weeks in February. I was buying them for 120k and by the start of the fourth week I was getting gouged 180k. By the end of four weeks they were 200k. The climb has actually slowed the closer Mod 3 got. I know this because I have been watching them like a hawk as I still need about five of them, but prices are now just too high for a mere mortal such as myself.
I'll say what I said in that original thread; the Zen Store price of Coal Wards is a major culprit in the price hike. Why sell a Ward for 120k when the Zen Store equivalent is 380 - 440k, depending on the state of the exchange? The Zen Store price gives the hoarders room to jack the price up.
Also, the older players need to realise that they benefited from superior AD gain in the beginning and thus got their feet under the table gear wise, so stop saying it is easy to earn AD now to buy a ~250k lesser enchant or Coal Ward. Dungeons were bugged to hell back in the day and the Draco fight was far easier than it was now (CWs could just throw the adds away) so getting your hands on lucrative Ancient drops was much easier. BOE as well on T2 gear. These guys no doubt have a nice cache of medium to high end enchants that they can switch between characters. I started in August last year and even I have a handful of 7s and normals that I can pass around that were achieved at a lower cost than newer players face.
There is a lowbie 60 in my guild that is battling to get his lesser weapon and armour enchants and I simply cannot help him out. 2-3 months ago I'd easily buy/make him a lesser and then take my modest 12.7k DC through a few DDs and recoup the costs of a Coal Ward within the week. Now, that isn't happening and while I at least have the benefit of a decent DC to get me some AD to improve any new character I make, this guy is poked and will grind his guts out. The worst part is that as there is no end in sight to the price escalation of Coal Wards this guy doesn't know when he'll ever have enough. Today you need 260k for a Coal Ward, next week he'll need 280k, the week after 300k. The bar is constantly rising and for the players that need those enchants to take the next step they'll forever be chasing tails unless they get a lucky break (sweet boss drop, invocation, etc).
PSA: You don't need to grind Spinward Rise for your Elemental artifact main hand if you have some AD lying around. You can craft it via the Tyranny of Dragon's campaign screen.
0
Options
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
As long you dont upgrade your enhancements thats correct
but since the new system use one enhacement along with a mark
to make next grade it one will be lost ones a player upgrade his enhancement.
Actually you are not looking at the big picture.
Yes you do remove the lower level one from existence but you add a higher level one into the economy which really never leaves. The more enchantments upgraded the lower all enchantment prices go as the value of the lower ones are loosely tied to the value of the higher ones.
Once a Perfect enchantment is added to the game it only goes away if somebody discards it. They can sell it at any time they want by removing it from their gear. Also unlike most other gear they can be swapped around from one character to another so as long as you don't mind spending the time you really only need one of any specific perfect enchantment. The same can not be said of basically all other gear.
In the grand scheme of things the upgrade costs only increase the time it takes for enchantment to devalue.
Disagree wholeheartedly. Coal Ward prices have been climbing since February. I documented on this forum how I watched the price climb 50% in three weeks in February. I was buying them for 120k and by the start of the fourth week I was getting gouged 180k. By the end of four weeks they were 200k. The climb has actually slowed the closer Mod 3 got. I know this because I have been watching them like a hawk as I still need about five of them, but prices are now just too high for a mere mortal such as myself.
We know that every ~20 lockboxes opened (10 bars each) makes a new Coal, whether the new lockbox is good or not (in the latter case, people will keep opening the rusted one), after mod3 there will be thousands of lockboxes opened, thus lots of extra Coal wards.
the best part is the invocation is nearly usesless/pointless u can even skip it if u dont need the 360 days angel... i think since octomber i didnt get a coal ward in invocation box the gauntlet artifact from arcane coffer has like 1% chance to drop took me 1-2 months to get it on some alts and probably the coal ward from invocation box has like 0.1% chance to drop i dont know why bother with that devs? u can remove it anyway doesnt eve drop lol
0
Options
degraafinationMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2014
This thread has turned into a QQ thread. A few comments:
1) The price for Coalescent Wards will always be the lowest price someone is willing to purchase it. Plain and simple. There is no "right price."
2) Making AD in this game is amazingly easy if you think correctly (notice I did not say "farm" correctly). I have no doubt that if I started a new account I could easily be at 1,000,000 AD within a month from doing zero farming.
3) The enchanting cost, as a whole, is down significantly since the refinement changes. I remember when Perfects cost 10kk AD and when Rank 9s cost 3kk-4kk AD.
4) Complain all you want, Cryptic is insanely generous giving us a game where you can get (close to) anything in game with zero money out of pocket.
Why should they do otherwise? The primary goal of any company is to make money.
One issue I have with people trying to defend moves like this is that the primary purpose of a company is to make money. I don't disagree with this, however trying to make so much money by pricing everything to the point no one wants to buy it is stupidity, essentially you are catering to people with wealth and essentially saying that you are making a game for 10 people to pay 1000 dollars a month to play however long you can squeeze that amount out of them (if they have that kinda money i'm sure they will get bored buying all the high end stuff and move on).
The goal of a company is to get as many people paying as possible. IMHO what is going on now if indeed is by intent of the company and not a rumor, then it is just bad business. I have stated many times that if this company wants to make money they would make the zen market stuff less game impacting and more cosmetic and more desirable to people who don't want to drop 100+ dollars a month playing.
Should items be priced to the point everyone has them? Probably not but coalescent wards are a fine example that maybe they should price them around 1 - 5 dollars to buy just one not 10 dollars. I think the mounts should be reduced a bit as well.
The game mechanic here should be to buy to make you look cool or different. The mounts allow you to move faster so there maybe some issues with having slightly less expensive ones but as it stands there are NO bosses that drop mounts or even coal wards. The game should probably reward players that can clear the hard content and have those bosses drop items like that. Other MMO's do this. This MMO is great but if it wants to "make money" it needs to get MORE people to spend money on it NOT forcing people to spend like gambling addicts. That is just irresponsible business practice.
I do love this game it has many things going for it. But if the goal is to make coal wards 10 dollar items with no other means of obtaining them and or to make people play for months or years to be able to get high end companions or enchants then this game is going to become a fad. People will come in long enough to see they won't really have the time or the inclination to spend that kind of money and quit playing.
I always thought if you wanted to make it difficult to get rare items you made them hard to get from boss drops in group required quests not take them out of the game loot system and force people to buy them.
How many people are out there that will actually spend their entire time to run dailies for AD to get millions of AD? I got burned out after a couple of months an in that time I never got to a million until I joined a guild to run dungeons to sell BoE gear for tens of thousands of AD in the AH. If you were to take the AH out of the game or convert it to being a gold auction not an AD one, I bet you would quickly find that AD would become a lot harder to come by. There would be no farmers selling AD to people for cash (and less account hijacking from people trying to find legit people doing that) since you have to earn all your AD yourself at the rate of 24k/day. which is about 720k/month assuming you played everyday to earn at least the maximum AD refinement allotment. Thats 1.4 million every other month if you play ever day.
I don't see many people dedicating that time, sure there will be some but most will not. If the idea is to make money then you want lots of people to playing and keep playing, casual players are not going to play hours and hours a day all day every single day. I will play **** near daily but often I will take breaks and log in just to do the daily prayer in hopes that I will get the angel, of which i'm not certain i'll do if this game keeps making the top end stuff ever more unobtainable allow only a handful of people to have them which kinda turns this game in to being a game for the 1% to play and enjoy and the 99% to just log into to get beat up on because we don't have the stuff they do.
Why do video games feel like they are turning into class systems, why can't we spend money on a game and do all the game has to offer? Didn't other MMO's have good luck with just having a monthly fee? If people get bored then that just reinforces the fact that the game shouldn't be an MMO it should be a single player game with co-op features because it will get played a month and people will move on. MMO's will have endless content and motivation to keep playing. But it seems business has decided that promoting gambling is an acceptable business model and that game development is all about designing a game people want but not putting much effort into story and art work (skins) just to make "quick" bucks and then lazily put on expansions until the game loses its appeal from everyone and they can all move onto another "quick buck" money maker.
How about we give up calling these games MMO and just call this Neverwinterville.
when the number of coal wards needed to enchant were higher, they were easier to get. now that you need fewer to get a perfect enchantment, their value has gone up. in the way of supply and demand, this isn't surprising at all.
so then the hindrance is focused on the methodology of acquiring coal wards. to buy or to earn. to have patience or to not have patience.
to the references that allude to some kind of 3rd party conspiracy, it's incredibly laughable. zero proof simply means doom and gloom conjecture... and nothing that others haven't tried to spread before.
it's okay if taking time to earn in-game items isn't your bag. it's even okay if you don't think neverwinter isn't anything more than a grind-fest. the game is what it is. it does have end-game playability and there must be a core player base in addition to a constant cycle of new players in, old players out; old players in, old players out.
whether coal wards have anything to do with that... it seems to be part of the game that you either accept or you don't accept.
I don't get why people are complaining about their price ,yeah they are expensive so if you don't want to buy them then just make a bunch of alt accounts ,level up the characters to 11 then pray on them , the drop rate from the coffer of wondrous augmentation is low but they are definitely dropping ,I've had 2 in the past two weeks on my main account alone and that only has 6 characters on it plus a couple over the past couple of months on my other alt accounts , enough so I don't need to worry about buying them.
Simple really. Those people don't log on to play the game. They merely log on to make more AD. People like that want results as soon as they log on. Either that or they are PvPers who want Perfects as soon as they hit lvl 60.
You're right though. I have only 3 pray bots and I get enough of them to make my enchants. Not all in 1 day sure. But it doesn't have to be. I'll need to work to get the shards anyway. Sometimes you get 5 a day, sometimes nothing. That's life.
I wish I had your luck. I have 11 total characters, 6 at 60 and 5 between 15 and 31/32 (don't remember exactly). I pray on ALL of them every day, since the change to the drop rate I have gotten exactly 0 Coal Wards.
I wish I had your luck. I have 11 total characters, 6 at 60 and 5 between 15 and 31/32 (don't remember exactly). I pray on ALL of them every day, since the change to the drop rate I have gotten exactly 0 Coal Wards.
One thing I found that seems to work is sending all of the coffers to one character to open on each account , all my characters are synced up to reach 7 days at the same time and on my main I have 6 characters so my main character on my main account opens 6 one after the other , done this for 2 weeks and got one coal each week.
0
Options
doriangreighMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 707Arc User
This thread has turned into a QQ thread. A few comments:
1) The price for Coalescent Wards will always be the lowest price someone is willing to purchase it. Plain and simple. There is no "right price."
2) Making AD in this game is amazingly easy if you think correctly (notice I did not say "farm" correctly). I have no doubt that if I started a new account I could easily be at 1,000,000 AD within a month from doing zero farming.
3) The enchanting cost, as a whole, is down significantly since the refinement changes. I remember when Perfects cost 10kk AD and when Rank 9s cost 3kk-4kk AD.
4) Complain all you want, Cryptic is insanely generous giving us a game where you can get (close to) anything in game with zero money out of pocket.
100% F2P, Trace.
I respectfully disagree, I will take them by your points that you make:
1) while you are somewhat correct the lowest price of what someone is willing to pay is a valid point but that does have a bit of influence from other factors as how often people can get them from invocation or the like, not to mention the exchange value from the zen market. it would be nice if people were not buying them at the prices they are at but there does seem to be a large number of people that have AD farmers or spend a lot of real money to get AD. I think it just past the point where the zen exchange for 1000 zen for AD could actually get you 2 wards but now its like 1 ward with you part way to getting another.
2) Please do create a new account and make 1 million AD in a month, while it is possible since you have other characters and probably no real desire to drudge along in the so called story of the game, you could start a new character level up to about 5 start farming skirmishes for a week and have 100k before you out level that first skirmish, from there it gets a bit tighter but you can still get another 50k the following week. And if you have the time you can probably do dailies to help hit your cap from what you miss from skirmishes, at least until you start hitting the level where your pug groups start failing at the skirmish (not many are that way but I know a couple). I don't know if you come from a time when AD was easier to get (I started last December and I have been seeing a lot of forums about people saying AD was a little easier to come by at some point), however I have to say it takes a lot of time and devotion to build up AD and frankly if you are a new player it is so daunting that you either break down to spend money (which you pretty much have to if you want a decent mount cause no one is going to spend 3 million AD on upgrading the speed of one when you can just drop 10 - 20 bucks on a sale and buy one) or just quit playing after you obtain level 60 and discover that PVP is for people that spend lots of money to trounce people who don't or that in order to run dungeons people expect you to be over geared and often will tell you to just buy your gear from the AH. So there are lots of new players that spend AD as they level which makes it hard to hoard away AD. Lastly on this note i'll bring to your attention that you can only refine 24k/day. There are no rewards that give refined AD only rough AD. So even if you spend enough time to hit that cap each day and played EVERY single day without missing a day, you could only get 720k ad for a month (assuming 30 day average). Which is still 280k shy of a million and i'm pretty sure you would get sick of grinding out AD for that. But I will also assume that you will be like most relying on the wealth of those that have more AD than they know what to do with it you plan on selling rare items in the AH. But for my argument i'm removing that option because a lot of people that are new to the game will have issues getting dungeon runs not to mention guilds because of play etiquette and or competence. Not every player is going to be awesome at playing but still might enjoy playing. My girlfriend would be a great example of this, she is good but probably not so much dungeon ready but can do the other stuff well enough and have a good time.
3) i'm sure this is a valid point for you but I keep thinking in terms of business today in general. just because something is made so that it is easier or more affordable doesn't mean its "supposed" to now inflate prices to match how it used to be in cost. its like bathroom tile, you used to tile your walls which was not hard but time consuming and needed some semblence of skill, well now you have single piece wall panels that you can put up, and while the manufacturer cost is lower and the installation is easier companies don't want to save people money by selling these panels cheaper they want to reap more profits by selling them at or near or sometimes more than they did when it was more costly. This is greed but probably not a proper argument for this situation. I will say this I remember when I started that you could get a coal ward for 100k and I wasn't real happy about that then and i'm certainly not happy about it now since there are tons of other things that cost me hundreds of thousands of AD (upgrading artifacts being one) that i'd like to be doing and not hoarding for having to buy so many coal wards.
4) while I do enjoy the game and we all can have our praises or complaints about it, how do you figure on the generosity? We have a game that is so loose on story that I didn't even finish the last two areas of the game before 60 and already got praises from the lord protector? Yes the game is fun, Yes I do enjoy it, but seriously the quality is a bit low as far as story content goes. I was immersed in Star Wars and played many characters in that game for Story content but end game changes drove me away in that game. IN this game i'm not super thrilled about IWD but i'm going to give it a shot and see how it goes. To get back on point, yes this game can be played from 1 - 60 without spending a dime, it is 100% free to play. But i'm assuming that you are still playing post level 60. The end game content especially from a PVP stand point either requires monetary expenditure or massive amounts of grinding long term. Most aren't going to play for a year to build up a huge stash of AD so since most will only play 2 or 3 months i'd say on average then they will want to experience higher end equipment such as horses and enchantments buy spending some money either on lockboxes or wards to speed things along and still will probably not achieve a character with the best in game enchantments (rank 10 and perfect respectively). I have been playing since December of last year and I have only 1 character that has rank 7's and most of those I just recently bought because buying them was cheaper than making them. It would take me forever to play enough to just refine my enchants to rank 7 and then have the money to spend (100k/mark * 9 - 12 [12 if you worry about utility enchantments]) That is a lot of AD just work up to and I broke down to buy them when the prices dropped down to like 30 - 50k for Rank 7s. So yes you can play out of pocket without ever spending money but I bet anyone that plays more than a month will spend money to at least buy a mount as I doubt they'll grind enough to use AD to buy zen or one off the market (purple quality) since they'll be spending a lot of AD on other stuff as the level. And since cryptic seems to be wanting to sell coal wards for 10 bucks a piece people will probably buy them when they are on sale (which probably means the sale price people buy them the most at is the price they really should be at to promote sales) i'm certain people will spend money (mainly pvpers) on buying them for enchant upgrades since PVP only did not really net you AD in anyway shape or form until recently and even now you still aren't going to earn a bunch of AD strictly by PVPing.
As a general rule F2P is just a method to disguise overly inflating the profits of a game. People would spend 60 bucks for solo content but companies have turned that into a not so profitable scenario (players partly to blame for demanding ever more amazing graphics and voice over content) so MMO comes along and now companies see a way to get monthly fees out of games which is fine as long as monthly fees ensures that you as a paying player get to experience every aspect of the game. F2P comes along and they discover that there are gamers out there that will overspend to "buy" things in game that either can't be earned or would take so long to earn that you would be sick of playing the game by the time you did, that you just spend real money on them. So instead of paying 10 - 20 dollars for expansion content and or a monthly fee. you now have gambling boxes that people spend hundreds of dollars on, you have people paying to buy cosmetic changes, you have people paying for mounts, things that don't even expand the game just make doing things in the game less time consuming. Basically MMO F2P is essentially facebook/zynga type games where people spend money to remove timers. Maybe that is the goal, to get the most money out of the people spending money by hurting the people who aren't spending that kind of money or making it so unpleasant its pay or quit.
To me the goal of the game is to get the most people actually spending some money to keep playing and paying not gouge the whales and shaming the ones who don't pay.
I have spent more money on this game since December than i'd care to admit and more than I have spent on buying games in the last year, i'm at a point where i've given enough and yet I will not be rewarded with enjoying everything the games offers (that is all items, enchants and the like). Once it gets to the point that dailies and AD farming is boring and I don't have enough AD to buy something that makes me gimp for not having it (ie enjoying pvp but due to lack of high end enchants will never know victory) then I will put the game down and find something else to play. I'd much rather do a free to play to level 10 or 20 to get you hooked but need to subscribe to keep playing beyond than I do this F2P stuff that makes enjoying all content difficult.
I'd also rather see Neverwinter go subscription and give benefits to subscribers. If you are F2P the game is as is, but if you subscribe you get monthly AD stipends, free coal wards (perhaps 1 or more/month) in game titles (since they seem to be big on things that cost money giving you a title) and the ability to transmute game items for free without spending AD, perhaps even doing a free respec token per month.
I dont' know the size of the community but there has got to be enough people playing now that would rather see the above subscriber model than keeping the F2P especially in the high cost of assets for crafting environment.
Trace plays the exchange market and the auction house so the daily cap doesn't effect him really , he would probably earn the million in one month without ever setting foot outside Protectors enclave unless he used a few skirmishes to build up his initial investment .
Now we're having two different discussions about why Coal prices are awful.
Anyone here with as much Neverwinter economic savvy as I am want to discuss a different dimension of why Coal ward prices need to be lowered instead of the usual "waah I can't afford perfect enchants"
Trace plays the exchange market and the auction house so the daily cap doesn't effect him really , he would probably earn the million without ever setting foot outside Protectors enclave unless he used a few skirmishes to build up his initial investment .
Only a million? That is small time.
It is too easy to earn ten million per week without stepping foot outside PE. For me at least
0
Options
degraafinationMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Comments
Well if they really were 50k like you wanted, I could make a perfect every week if I farmed a decent amount although nowhere near the amount I used to, or anyone can get a lesser in 2 days with little effort. They still need to be long term goals, just they shouldn't reach the 300-400k point.
As for praybots making perfect enchantments, they'd probably be more likely to make lessers if anything. Perfects need rp, marks and multiple wards (which is a lot of mailing around considering the low drop rate).
Anyway, that's all I care about.
That's like saying you are able to farm 30x ancient weapons every week. If ancient weapon values are able to survive, coal wards will.
Also, those goals are pure idealism. I happen to be probably the most knowledgeable person on the innerworkings of the market and I can tell you that coal wards are being used to manipulate the market and perform underground trading. Take away those, and we probably could arrive at this "idealistic theory" of having a long-term goal.
If mailing is the big hindrance, its won't make a difference then.
They won't make lessers if perfects are more profitable (which they are).
You can get them from Iron Strongboxes of Enchantments which is the only reason I can think of for why they're cheaper than actually making them.
Well there was a time I'd do 30 in 2 days, but that kind of was a burn out for me. As for the mailing, if I was a botter I'd rather leave as little trace between my accounts as possible, but who knows.
Honestly though. If coal wards were 50k each, I would've probably got bored of this game sooner. However if they reached 400k, that'd be a major turn off and might have considered not even bothering trying to farm it.
Coal prices might be a bit high for newer players, but only because they have no means of income, excluding a lucky boss drop. Even that doesn't go to far.
So that time did exist then? Ancient weapons still hold value. I wouldn't worry about coal wards dropping in dungeons either then.
If Ancient weapons could survive, coal wards will be fine.
By the way to other posters, there is some discussion going offtrack to what I am aiming for. Please be mindful of what I'm getting at when responding to me.
Ancient items are dwindling in value though with no new content to replace it. Both 50k and 400k are either extreme side of the spectrum, noones arguing that they can't survive in either case. There just need to be a happy medium.
As long you dont upgrade your enhancements thats correct
but since the new system use one enhacement along with a mark
to make next grade it one will be lost ones a player upgrade his enhancement.
I believe the happy medium is 50k considering people use it for other methods nowadays than fusing.
Except that wasn't my point.
My point was, coal wards are primarily being used to manipulate the market and also to perform underground trading either through trade chat or third party websites. Neither cryptic nor majority of the players are benefitting from it and in fact are harmed.
I had no problem paying 150k for a Coal Ward, but 260k+ or $10 in the Zen Store? You're having a fat laugh.
Disagree wholeheartedly. Coal Ward prices have been climbing since February. I documented on this forum how I watched the price climb 50% in three weeks in February. I was buying them for 120k and by the start of the fourth week I was getting gouged 180k. By the end of four weeks they were 200k. The climb has actually slowed the closer Mod 3 got. I know this because I have been watching them like a hawk as I still need about five of them, but prices are now just too high for a mere mortal such as myself.
I'll say what I said in that original thread; the Zen Store price of Coal Wards is a major culprit in the price hike. Why sell a Ward for 120k when the Zen Store equivalent is 380 - 440k, depending on the state of the exchange? The Zen Store price gives the hoarders room to jack the price up.
Also, the older players need to realise that they benefited from superior AD gain in the beginning and thus got their feet under the table gear wise, so stop saying it is easy to earn AD now to buy a ~250k lesser enchant or Coal Ward. Dungeons were bugged to hell back in the day and the Draco fight was far easier than it was now (CWs could just throw the adds away) so getting your hands on lucrative Ancient drops was much easier. BOE as well on T2 gear. These guys no doubt have a nice cache of medium to high end enchants that they can switch between characters. I started in August last year and even I have a handful of 7s and normals that I can pass around that were achieved at a lower cost than newer players face.
There is a lowbie 60 in my guild that is battling to get his lesser weapon and armour enchants and I simply cannot help him out. 2-3 months ago I'd easily buy/make him a lesser and then take my modest 12.7k DC through a few DDs and recoup the costs of a Coal Ward within the week. Now, that isn't happening and while I at least have the benefit of a decent DC to get me some AD to improve any new character I make, this guy is poked and will grind his guts out. The worst part is that as there is no end in sight to the price escalation of Coal Wards this guy doesn't know when he'll ever have enough. Today you need 260k for a Coal Ward, next week he'll need 280k, the week after 300k. The bar is constantly rising and for the players that need those enchants to take the next step they'll forever be chasing tails unless they get a lucky break (sweet boss drop, invocation, etc).
Actually you are not looking at the big picture.
Yes you do remove the lower level one from existence but you add a higher level one into the economy which really never leaves. The more enchantments upgraded the lower all enchantment prices go as the value of the lower ones are loosely tied to the value of the higher ones.
Once a Perfect enchantment is added to the game it only goes away if somebody discards it. They can sell it at any time they want by removing it from their gear. Also unlike most other gear they can be swapped around from one character to another so as long as you don't mind spending the time you really only need one of any specific perfect enchantment. The same can not be said of basically all other gear.
In the grand scheme of things the upgrade costs only increase the time it takes for enchantment to devalue.
We know that every ~20 lockboxes opened (10 bars each) makes a new Coal, whether the new lockbox is good or not (in the latter case, people will keep opening the rusted one), after mod3 there will be thousands of lockboxes opened, thus lots of extra Coal wards.
1) The price for Coalescent Wards will always be the lowest price someone is willing to purchase it. Plain and simple. There is no "right price."
2) Making AD in this game is amazingly easy if you think correctly (notice I did not say "farm" correctly). I have no doubt that if I started a new account I could easily be at 1,000,000 AD within a month from doing zero farming.
3) The enchanting cost, as a whole, is down significantly since the refinement changes. I remember when Perfects cost 10kk AD and when Rank 9s cost 3kk-4kk AD.
4) Complain all you want, Cryptic is insanely generous giving us a game where you can get (close to) anything in game with zero money out of pocket.
100% F2P, Trace.
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
Actually that glosses over market manipulation and folks cornering the market. It's certainly not "plain and simple".
One issue I have with people trying to defend moves like this is that the primary purpose of a company is to make money. I don't disagree with this, however trying to make so much money by pricing everything to the point no one wants to buy it is stupidity, essentially you are catering to people with wealth and essentially saying that you are making a game for 10 people to pay 1000 dollars a month to play however long you can squeeze that amount out of them (if they have that kinda money i'm sure they will get bored buying all the high end stuff and move on).
The goal of a company is to get as many people paying as possible. IMHO what is going on now if indeed is by intent of the company and not a rumor, then it is just bad business. I have stated many times that if this company wants to make money they would make the zen market stuff less game impacting and more cosmetic and more desirable to people who don't want to drop 100+ dollars a month playing.
Should items be priced to the point everyone has them? Probably not but coalescent wards are a fine example that maybe they should price them around 1 - 5 dollars to buy just one not 10 dollars. I think the mounts should be reduced a bit as well.
The game mechanic here should be to buy to make you look cool or different. The mounts allow you to move faster so there maybe some issues with having slightly less expensive ones but as it stands there are NO bosses that drop mounts or even coal wards. The game should probably reward players that can clear the hard content and have those bosses drop items like that. Other MMO's do this. This MMO is great but if it wants to "make money" it needs to get MORE people to spend money on it NOT forcing people to spend like gambling addicts. That is just irresponsible business practice.
I do love this game it has many things going for it. But if the goal is to make coal wards 10 dollar items with no other means of obtaining them and or to make people play for months or years to be able to get high end companions or enchants then this game is going to become a fad. People will come in long enough to see they won't really have the time or the inclination to spend that kind of money and quit playing.
I always thought if you wanted to make it difficult to get rare items you made them hard to get from boss drops in group required quests not take them out of the game loot system and force people to buy them.
How many people are out there that will actually spend their entire time to run dailies for AD to get millions of AD? I got burned out after a couple of months an in that time I never got to a million until I joined a guild to run dungeons to sell BoE gear for tens of thousands of AD in the AH. If you were to take the AH out of the game or convert it to being a gold auction not an AD one, I bet you would quickly find that AD would become a lot harder to come by. There would be no farmers selling AD to people for cash (and less account hijacking from people trying to find legit people doing that) since you have to earn all your AD yourself at the rate of 24k/day. which is about 720k/month assuming you played everyday to earn at least the maximum AD refinement allotment. Thats 1.4 million every other month if you play ever day.
I don't see many people dedicating that time, sure there will be some but most will not. If the idea is to make money then you want lots of people to playing and keep playing, casual players are not going to play hours and hours a day all day every single day. I will play **** near daily but often I will take breaks and log in just to do the daily prayer in hopes that I will get the angel, of which i'm not certain i'll do if this game keeps making the top end stuff ever more unobtainable allow only a handful of people to have them which kinda turns this game in to being a game for the 1% to play and enjoy and the 99% to just log into to get beat up on because we don't have the stuff they do.
Why do video games feel like they are turning into class systems, why can't we spend money on a game and do all the game has to offer? Didn't other MMO's have good luck with just having a monthly fee? If people get bored then that just reinforces the fact that the game shouldn't be an MMO it should be a single player game with co-op features because it will get played a month and people will move on. MMO's will have endless content and motivation to keep playing. But it seems business has decided that promoting gambling is an acceptable business model and that game development is all about designing a game people want but not putting much effort into story and art work (skins) just to make "quick" bucks and then lazily put on expansions until the game loses its appeal from everyone and they can all move onto another "quick buck" money maker.
How about we give up calling these games MMO and just call this Neverwinterville.
I can't help it if some people hijack this thread to complain about how their characters can't afford a coal ward.
Anyway, will someone here actually respond to my points?
Though I doubt anyone here has half the assets I have to even understand/care about what I'm saying....so I'll say doubtful to my own question
so then the hindrance is focused on the methodology of acquiring coal wards. to buy or to earn. to have patience or to not have patience.
to the references that allude to some kind of 3rd party conspiracy, it's incredibly laughable. zero proof simply means doom and gloom conjecture... and nothing that others haven't tried to spread before.
it's okay if taking time to earn in-game items isn't your bag. it's even okay if you don't think neverwinter isn't anything more than a grind-fest. the game is what it is. it does have end-game playability and there must be a core player base in addition to a constant cycle of new players in, old players out; old players in, old players out.
whether coal wards have anything to do with that... it seems to be part of the game that you either accept or you don't accept.
I wish I had your luck. I have 11 total characters, 6 at 60 and 5 between 15 and 31/32 (don't remember exactly). I pray on ALL of them every day, since the change to the drop rate I have gotten exactly 0 Coal Wards.
One thing I found that seems to work is sending all of the coffers to one character to open on each account , all my characters are synced up to reach 7 days at the same time and on my main I have 6 characters so my main character on my main account opens 6 one after the other , done this for 2 weeks and got one coal each week.
I respectfully disagree, I will take them by your points that you make:
1) while you are somewhat correct the lowest price of what someone is willing to pay is a valid point but that does have a bit of influence from other factors as how often people can get them from invocation or the like, not to mention the exchange value from the zen market. it would be nice if people were not buying them at the prices they are at but there does seem to be a large number of people that have AD farmers or spend a lot of real money to get AD. I think it just past the point where the zen exchange for 1000 zen for AD could actually get you 2 wards but now its like 1 ward with you part way to getting another.
2) Please do create a new account and make 1 million AD in a month, while it is possible since you have other characters and probably no real desire to drudge along in the so called story of the game, you could start a new character level up to about 5 start farming skirmishes for a week and have 100k before you out level that first skirmish, from there it gets a bit tighter but you can still get another 50k the following week. And if you have the time you can probably do dailies to help hit your cap from what you miss from skirmishes, at least until you start hitting the level where your pug groups start failing at the skirmish (not many are that way but I know a couple). I don't know if you come from a time when AD was easier to get (I started last December and I have been seeing a lot of forums about people saying AD was a little easier to come by at some point), however I have to say it takes a lot of time and devotion to build up AD and frankly if you are a new player it is so daunting that you either break down to spend money (which you pretty much have to if you want a decent mount cause no one is going to spend 3 million AD on upgrading the speed of one when you can just drop 10 - 20 bucks on a sale and buy one) or just quit playing after you obtain level 60 and discover that PVP is for people that spend lots of money to trounce people who don't or that in order to run dungeons people expect you to be over geared and often will tell you to just buy your gear from the AH. So there are lots of new players that spend AD as they level which makes it hard to hoard away AD. Lastly on this note i'll bring to your attention that you can only refine 24k/day. There are no rewards that give refined AD only rough AD. So even if you spend enough time to hit that cap each day and played EVERY single day without missing a day, you could only get 720k ad for a month (assuming 30 day average). Which is still 280k shy of a million and i'm pretty sure you would get sick of grinding out AD for that. But I will also assume that you will be like most relying on the wealth of those that have more AD than they know what to do with it you plan on selling rare items in the AH. But for my argument i'm removing that option because a lot of people that are new to the game will have issues getting dungeon runs not to mention guilds because of play etiquette and or competence. Not every player is going to be awesome at playing but still might enjoy playing. My girlfriend would be a great example of this, she is good but probably not so much dungeon ready but can do the other stuff well enough and have a good time.
3) i'm sure this is a valid point for you but I keep thinking in terms of business today in general. just because something is made so that it is easier or more affordable doesn't mean its "supposed" to now inflate prices to match how it used to be in cost. its like bathroom tile, you used to tile your walls which was not hard but time consuming and needed some semblence of skill, well now you have single piece wall panels that you can put up, and while the manufacturer cost is lower and the installation is easier companies don't want to save people money by selling these panels cheaper they want to reap more profits by selling them at or near or sometimes more than they did when it was more costly. This is greed but probably not a proper argument for this situation. I will say this I remember when I started that you could get a coal ward for 100k and I wasn't real happy about that then and i'm certainly not happy about it now since there are tons of other things that cost me hundreds of thousands of AD (upgrading artifacts being one) that i'd like to be doing and not hoarding for having to buy so many coal wards.
4) while I do enjoy the game and we all can have our praises or complaints about it, how do you figure on the generosity? We have a game that is so loose on story that I didn't even finish the last two areas of the game before 60 and already got praises from the lord protector? Yes the game is fun, Yes I do enjoy it, but seriously the quality is a bit low as far as story content goes. I was immersed in Star Wars and played many characters in that game for Story content but end game changes drove me away in that game. IN this game i'm not super thrilled about IWD but i'm going to give it a shot and see how it goes. To get back on point, yes this game can be played from 1 - 60 without spending a dime, it is 100% free to play. But i'm assuming that you are still playing post level 60. The end game content especially from a PVP stand point either requires monetary expenditure or massive amounts of grinding long term. Most aren't going to play for a year to build up a huge stash of AD so since most will only play 2 or 3 months i'd say on average then they will want to experience higher end equipment such as horses and enchantments buy spending some money either on lockboxes or wards to speed things along and still will probably not achieve a character with the best in game enchantments (rank 10 and perfect respectively). I have been playing since December of last year and I have only 1 character that has rank 7's and most of those I just recently bought because buying them was cheaper than making them. It would take me forever to play enough to just refine my enchants to rank 7 and then have the money to spend (100k/mark * 9 - 12 [12 if you worry about utility enchantments]) That is a lot of AD just work up to and I broke down to buy them when the prices dropped down to like 30 - 50k for Rank 7s. So yes you can play out of pocket without ever spending money but I bet anyone that plays more than a month will spend money to at least buy a mount as I doubt they'll grind enough to use AD to buy zen or one off the market (purple quality) since they'll be spending a lot of AD on other stuff as the level. And since cryptic seems to be wanting to sell coal wards for 10 bucks a piece people will probably buy them when they are on sale (which probably means the sale price people buy them the most at is the price they really should be at to promote sales) i'm certain people will spend money (mainly pvpers) on buying them for enchant upgrades since PVP only did not really net you AD in anyway shape or form until recently and even now you still aren't going to earn a bunch of AD strictly by PVPing.
As a general rule F2P is just a method to disguise overly inflating the profits of a game. People would spend 60 bucks for solo content but companies have turned that into a not so profitable scenario (players partly to blame for demanding ever more amazing graphics and voice over content) so MMO comes along and now companies see a way to get monthly fees out of games which is fine as long as monthly fees ensures that you as a paying player get to experience every aspect of the game. F2P comes along and they discover that there are gamers out there that will overspend to "buy" things in game that either can't be earned or would take so long to earn that you would be sick of playing the game by the time you did, that you just spend real money on them. So instead of paying 10 - 20 dollars for expansion content and or a monthly fee. you now have gambling boxes that people spend hundreds of dollars on, you have people paying to buy cosmetic changes, you have people paying for mounts, things that don't even expand the game just make doing things in the game less time consuming. Basically MMO F2P is essentially facebook/zynga type games where people spend money to remove timers. Maybe that is the goal, to get the most money out of the people spending money by hurting the people who aren't spending that kind of money or making it so unpleasant its pay or quit.
To me the goal of the game is to get the most people actually spending some money to keep playing and paying not gouge the whales and shaming the ones who don't pay.
I have spent more money on this game since December than i'd care to admit and more than I have spent on buying games in the last year, i'm at a point where i've given enough and yet I will not be rewarded with enjoying everything the games offers (that is all items, enchants and the like). Once it gets to the point that dailies and AD farming is boring and I don't have enough AD to buy something that makes me gimp for not having it (ie enjoying pvp but due to lack of high end enchants will never know victory) then I will put the game down and find something else to play. I'd much rather do a free to play to level 10 or 20 to get you hooked but need to subscribe to keep playing beyond than I do this F2P stuff that makes enjoying all content difficult.
I'd also rather see Neverwinter go subscription and give benefits to subscribers. If you are F2P the game is as is, but if you subscribe you get monthly AD stipends, free coal wards (perhaps 1 or more/month) in game titles (since they seem to be big on things that cost money giving you a title) and the ability to transmute game items for free without spending AD, perhaps even doing a free respec token per month.
I dont' know the size of the community but there has got to be enough people playing now that would rather see the above subscriber model than keeping the F2P especially in the high cost of assets for crafting environment.
Trace plays the exchange market and the auction house so the daily cap doesn't effect him really , he would probably earn the million in one month without ever setting foot outside Protectors enclave unless he used a few skirmishes to build up his initial investment .
Anyone here with as much Neverwinter economic savvy as I am want to discuss a different dimension of why Coal ward prices need to be lowered instead of the usual "waah I can't afford perfect enchants"
Only a million? That is small time.
It is too easy to earn ten million per week without stepping foot outside PE. For me at least
And here's where your thinking and my thinking strongly diverge. You believe this to be true, and I do not.
Best, Trace.
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!