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Discussion on Leadership and AD issues
doriangreigh
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 707 Arc User
I don't know if any developers read this and would actually weigh in, my opinion is it would be nice to know what the intent was behind some mechanics as that might help people see why things are the way they are.
There are some threads about leadership and AD. I don't know how people can say there is this massive amount of AD floating around, most people I play with don't have tons although I know some that have millions.
What are peoples thoughts on this idea. Make the AD in this game more normalized, if prices are capped at certain values then people with millions are essentially sitting on waste they can only buy so much. For instance make the auction house more of a trade house where items can be posted at set values (more reasonable than the ones currently set at default as the default price of a portable altar is stupidly high).
Create more reasonable streams of revenue, such as adding small AD rewards for completing story line quests or maybe even specific side quests. At 60 make some dailies offer up some small AD rewards.
Create more reasonable ways to spend AD, mount upgrades should be a bit cheaper, seriously 3+million to upgrade a mount to purple? No casual normal player is going to get that from 1 - 60 with a month of post 60 gaming. The result of this pricing encourages people to buy from third party people or other players by selling misc items in the AH for high values for a fee charged outside of PWE (ie ebay, paypal etc.). If the goal is to root this issue out then make the ability to earn AD to spend on things a bit more friendly (months of grinding to buy a mount upgrade is ridiculous, the zen store is already there to show that people spend money on this game and have some sort of style or prestige), let some of the more casual players at least be able to upgrade their white mount they spent 5 gold pieces for have some reasonable chance to upgrade their mount to something better. Its already a plain mount and arguable a poor mans mount and those buying zen mounts obviously have nicer looking stuff.
Make appearance changes a bit more accessible. People like looking unique and allowing people to more readily change appearances (a lot of them will do it regularly) might end up having more AD spent in the long run if it didn't cost 50K per piece to change. I know I would spend more on it if that price was more in line with 50k to change 4 pieces. I'd probably change my outfit more regularly overtime and certainly find myself wanting to run quests that offer up rewards that give neat looking gear (some of those green drops are pretty nice looking).
I don't know why everyone has such an issue with leadership. The problem isn't the level 20 leadership the problem is people making a dozen characters that work leadership up (let me say that must really take some good botting and dedication). The only way to do away with this perceived problem is to turn this game into a subscription game and do away with AD currency. On the Bot note, every game has bots and not a lot can be done about them without hurting actual everyday players who aren't botting. Some people say they want zax to be made to prevent sharing zen between toons but all you are doing is hurting players that have multiple characters for legit reasons (such as actually liking to play different classes and styles).
From my time playing the pricing scheme in this game is going to stay pretty much as is. So if people whining about leadership and AD have issues with people using them, the only real solution is take the time to work this profession up yourself and use it ... that is what i'm doing, all my toons now have 1 or more level 20 professions unlocked so I can craft weapons (Sharrandar or Dread Ring BiS) and maybe be able to craft armor (mainly shirt and pants) and a third to unlock a crafting slot, so my goal is to get at least 4 or more of my characters to level 20 leadership so that I can start running AD professions myself. Just because you don't have the dedication to do this yourself does not mean you should be punishing people who do. Leadership can only have 3 of the same tasks active at a time some of the good ones are rare and not always active so there isn't that much wrong with it.
My personal opinion on AD and people with too much is from AH being used to inflate things that can be bought in game, people who use AH to transfer wealth (not removing earned AD but moving it from one person to another). I think the AH is a great idea but at times it seems like it should be gold standard instead of AD or used to post items to be traded for (like someone getting titan helm who wanted an avatar of war could actually post it and someone who had one that didn't want or need one could trade for someone elses.
Bottom line is there is no real solution but Cryptic wants people to NOT buy third party AD but they make it too difficult to earn the amount that is needed to buy higher end game supplies. They want you to buy zen and spend it on the zen store but they make the items there too costly. I'm not going to place blame on Cryptic but if you have an issue of people using a black market for your game currency then you need to evaluate why that is happening and correct it. In this suggestion obviously your pricing is not at a point that makes people want to purchase and will happily go to third party suppliers (there will always be gold farmers but if this is more common than legit purchases you need to fix your pricing). There are way to encourage players to spend and thus far the only real encouragement is the occasional sale and the lockbox addiction (which supposedly most people buy keys with AD but i'm guessing that a large number get bought with real currency). Marketing is a key component in successful MMO (especially in F2P) and thus far I don't think the people in charge are really paying attention to what people are willing to spend and instead seem to be focused or forcing people to pay more than is typical of a "Game".
I personally feel that Neverwinter has HUGE potential to be a money maker, the game play is simple and fun, it would not take much to push this game into the Next WoW if they would focus on real story content and bring pricing in line with time. Players tend to get bored and making people play for a year to get top end content is not really going to work well. Sure there are those that would do that, EQ and WoW prove there are those that do, but if you want a "wide" player base that is composed of people that actually spend money then you should have your game designed around the idea that you need to get more people playing to replace people that leave because they are tired of doing the same thing over and over for months. Many people can buy and own a game and have all the items that game has to offer after 60 hours of play. In MMO's for some reason they think that people should spend hundreds of hours playing to get all the game has to offer and frankly I don't think there are that many players that will do that and from an ethical standpoint that is encouraging poor health as you are saying that someone should game 8+ hours a day to get all the game has to offer when the actual amount of time playing a game is not to exceed an hour (for best health practices). The way this game works if I only play 1 hour a day (not even every day) i'd NEVER get a rank 8 enchantment let alone be able to buy or make an armor enchantment without paying real money in the zen market or some third party AD seller (which will probably sell AD cheaper than can be bought at the zen exchange).
Content needs to be made more time friendly for a broader player base, people that only play a little at a time as they should. People that choose to play more should have other methods of rewarding them, taking part in game events that are limited time for instance, something this game does fairly well on if it not for the fact that upgrading a companion is another insanely expensive option we have. It would be nice if at least the first companion you buy has a reduced cost in upgrading it making it easier to at least have a fully level rank 30 companion that is very basic in function.
It is my hope that people will echo some agreement in the pricing situation or at least mention what would actually make people with a lot of AD spend it on in game vending to remove as opposed to hoarding mass amounts of AD for inflated sale/transfer of wealth to buy things like legendary items from lock boxes for 20 million AD.
One last thing, i've said it in other posts and i'll say it again here. People should really stop transferring wealth in the AH in the form of buying marks of potency for prices higher than can be bought from an in game vendor. Essentially lots of new players that may not know better are lining the pockets of these people that hoard AD instead of removing it from the game. The only thing this type of purchase accomplishes is allows people to get AD without refining it and gauge players that just don't know. The addage of "its a crime to let a sucker keep his money" is not a justification.
Hopefully what will happen is that someone will create a poll that will determine if more people would spend AD if pricing were more reasonable with cost/time. And perhaps one that might indicate that people would be supportive of having more avenues of earning AD in the game even if its in small amounts such as having quest rewards give small amounts of AD say 100 for completion of certain tasks, similar the black ice reward in IWD.
There are some threads about leadership and AD. I don't know how people can say there is this massive amount of AD floating around, most people I play with don't have tons although I know some that have millions.
What are peoples thoughts on this idea. Make the AD in this game more normalized, if prices are capped at certain values then people with millions are essentially sitting on waste they can only buy so much. For instance make the auction house more of a trade house where items can be posted at set values (more reasonable than the ones currently set at default as the default price of a portable altar is stupidly high).
Create more reasonable streams of revenue, such as adding small AD rewards for completing story line quests or maybe even specific side quests. At 60 make some dailies offer up some small AD rewards.
Create more reasonable ways to spend AD, mount upgrades should be a bit cheaper, seriously 3+million to upgrade a mount to purple? No casual normal player is going to get that from 1 - 60 with a month of post 60 gaming. The result of this pricing encourages people to buy from third party people or other players by selling misc items in the AH for high values for a fee charged outside of PWE (ie ebay, paypal etc.). If the goal is to root this issue out then make the ability to earn AD to spend on things a bit more friendly (months of grinding to buy a mount upgrade is ridiculous, the zen store is already there to show that people spend money on this game and have some sort of style or prestige), let some of the more casual players at least be able to upgrade their white mount they spent 5 gold pieces for have some reasonable chance to upgrade their mount to something better. Its already a plain mount and arguable a poor mans mount and those buying zen mounts obviously have nicer looking stuff.
Make appearance changes a bit more accessible. People like looking unique and allowing people to more readily change appearances (a lot of them will do it regularly) might end up having more AD spent in the long run if it didn't cost 50K per piece to change. I know I would spend more on it if that price was more in line with 50k to change 4 pieces. I'd probably change my outfit more regularly overtime and certainly find myself wanting to run quests that offer up rewards that give neat looking gear (some of those green drops are pretty nice looking).
I don't know why everyone has such an issue with leadership. The problem isn't the level 20 leadership the problem is people making a dozen characters that work leadership up (let me say that must really take some good botting and dedication). The only way to do away with this perceived problem is to turn this game into a subscription game and do away with AD currency. On the Bot note, every game has bots and not a lot can be done about them without hurting actual everyday players who aren't botting. Some people say they want zax to be made to prevent sharing zen between toons but all you are doing is hurting players that have multiple characters for legit reasons (such as actually liking to play different classes and styles).
From my time playing the pricing scheme in this game is going to stay pretty much as is. So if people whining about leadership and AD have issues with people using them, the only real solution is take the time to work this profession up yourself and use it ... that is what i'm doing, all my toons now have 1 or more level 20 professions unlocked so I can craft weapons (Sharrandar or Dread Ring BiS) and maybe be able to craft armor (mainly shirt and pants) and a third to unlock a crafting slot, so my goal is to get at least 4 or more of my characters to level 20 leadership so that I can start running AD professions myself. Just because you don't have the dedication to do this yourself does not mean you should be punishing people who do. Leadership can only have 3 of the same tasks active at a time some of the good ones are rare and not always active so there isn't that much wrong with it.
My personal opinion on AD and people with too much is from AH being used to inflate things that can be bought in game, people who use AH to transfer wealth (not removing earned AD but moving it from one person to another). I think the AH is a great idea but at times it seems like it should be gold standard instead of AD or used to post items to be traded for (like someone getting titan helm who wanted an avatar of war could actually post it and someone who had one that didn't want or need one could trade for someone elses.
Bottom line is there is no real solution but Cryptic wants people to NOT buy third party AD but they make it too difficult to earn the amount that is needed to buy higher end game supplies. They want you to buy zen and spend it on the zen store but they make the items there too costly. I'm not going to place blame on Cryptic but if you have an issue of people using a black market for your game currency then you need to evaluate why that is happening and correct it. In this suggestion obviously your pricing is not at a point that makes people want to purchase and will happily go to third party suppliers (there will always be gold farmers but if this is more common than legit purchases you need to fix your pricing). There are way to encourage players to spend and thus far the only real encouragement is the occasional sale and the lockbox addiction (which supposedly most people buy keys with AD but i'm guessing that a large number get bought with real currency). Marketing is a key component in successful MMO (especially in F2P) and thus far I don't think the people in charge are really paying attention to what people are willing to spend and instead seem to be focused or forcing people to pay more than is typical of a "Game".
I personally feel that Neverwinter has HUGE potential to be a money maker, the game play is simple and fun, it would not take much to push this game into the Next WoW if they would focus on real story content and bring pricing in line with time. Players tend to get bored and making people play for a year to get top end content is not really going to work well. Sure there are those that would do that, EQ and WoW prove there are those that do, but if you want a "wide" player base that is composed of people that actually spend money then you should have your game designed around the idea that you need to get more people playing to replace people that leave because they are tired of doing the same thing over and over for months. Many people can buy and own a game and have all the items that game has to offer after 60 hours of play. In MMO's for some reason they think that people should spend hundreds of hours playing to get all the game has to offer and frankly I don't think there are that many players that will do that and from an ethical standpoint that is encouraging poor health as you are saying that someone should game 8+ hours a day to get all the game has to offer when the actual amount of time playing a game is not to exceed an hour (for best health practices). The way this game works if I only play 1 hour a day (not even every day) i'd NEVER get a rank 8 enchantment let alone be able to buy or make an armor enchantment without paying real money in the zen market or some third party AD seller (which will probably sell AD cheaper than can be bought at the zen exchange).
Content needs to be made more time friendly for a broader player base, people that only play a little at a time as they should. People that choose to play more should have other methods of rewarding them, taking part in game events that are limited time for instance, something this game does fairly well on if it not for the fact that upgrading a companion is another insanely expensive option we have. It would be nice if at least the first companion you buy has a reduced cost in upgrading it making it easier to at least have a fully level rank 30 companion that is very basic in function.
It is my hope that people will echo some agreement in the pricing situation or at least mention what would actually make people with a lot of AD spend it on in game vending to remove as opposed to hoarding mass amounts of AD for inflated sale/transfer of wealth to buy things like legendary items from lock boxes for 20 million AD.
One last thing, i've said it in other posts and i'll say it again here. People should really stop transferring wealth in the AH in the form of buying marks of potency for prices higher than can be bought from an in game vendor. Essentially lots of new players that may not know better are lining the pockets of these people that hoard AD instead of removing it from the game. The only thing this type of purchase accomplishes is allows people to get AD without refining it and gauge players that just don't know. The addage of "its a crime to let a sucker keep his money" is not a justification.
Hopefully what will happen is that someone will create a poll that will determine if more people would spend AD if pricing were more reasonable with cost/time. And perhaps one that might indicate that people would be supportive of having more avenues of earning AD in the game even if its in small amounts such as having quest rewards give small amounts of AD say 100 for completion of certain tasks, similar the black ice reward in IWD.
Post edited by doriangreigh on
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As for content being more time-friendly - yes, you need to do some serious grinding during some events. You are rewarded for that. Life is about choices. Some people choose to spend their time in-game. Others do not (sometimes due to other obligations). It happens.
Yes, there has been some 'neat' stuff be available during events, but most of the stuff I've personally been interested in has been obtainable to some degree. Weapon skins are a great example - usually pretty easy to get one. Even easier now that they've created the token system for them. You want the big prize, though, you need to put in the big effort. Don't complain if you can't / won't. Events run for ~5 days - barring things like vacations, most people can make the time to get at least the 'mid-range' item.
I would like to see upgrade costs more in-line with Zen market costs, though. If you look at white / green companions as 'extra' enchants though (as they just add stats), the price for a r10 enchant is still much more than the cost of the upgrade to purple. I doubt Cryptic will tell us their reasoning regarding upgrade costs anytime soon, unfortunately.
As for your claim of never being able to get a weapon / armor enchant - why not? Invoke, cash in for the 7 day box, you'll eventually get a coal ward. Spend 10k-20k for 4 shards. Refine.
And small rewards are given - Rhyx and Lord Neverember both have daily tasks that reward a few thousand AD each. Not much, but better than nothing.
If you are time-limited, and short on cash, I'd suggest dungeon running. Lots of good drops that can be sold for a nice sum, and most dungeons take less than an hour to run.
Oh, and lastly, you don't need r8s.
It really comes down to what you're willing to invest - time or money. If you're willing to invest time, you won't need to spend cash. If you're short on time to play, yes, it will take you longer to get things unless you're willing to invest money to speed things up. Players can't have it both ways. You can't play an hour every couple of days and expect to be able to have all the stuff that the hardcore player has accumulated without either putting in an equivalent amount of time or spending some money.
I have a dozen chars with leadership 20. I worked damned hard for it over the course of the year, and bought my extra char slots with cash.
I've spent 50 dollars per month (minimum) on this game since beta. That is my allowance.. it is what I do. It is not subject to your approval or to the approval of anyone but me.
All 12 of my characters are delve ready, boons loaded. All without bots. I MANUALLY play every single one of my dudes every single day.
Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
Well said, good sir. Everything is an investment in one currency or another. You either pay in time or in real cash, but you're paying for your progress with SOMETHING.
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Yeah, some people say it's fine, it'll normalise, you can still get zen and that you just need to wait for it. Except that you can get it now, but there's no signs that it will right itself if it keeps going up and the upcoming module is likely going to spike it even further.
Make all items from the Zen Shop Bind to Account.
If you buy from the zen shop it should be to benefit your chars and account.
Not to bypass the Exchange and sell the items for large amounts of AD.
If you want AD for your Zen, Use the Exchange.
This is actually something that I'm growing to dislike about the modern f2p game. Many of them are skewed towarded needing one extreme or the other, lots of time or lots of money. There's often not a lot of middle ground. I might just be out of touch and spending $50-100 on a f2p game is considered a small amount and thus nets you a small amount of content. I'm becoming more of a pure f2p gamer as a result. I can't get much for my budget so I don't spend anything at all.
Maybe it's the nature of the market. Games are costly to make and maintain and paying customers are in the minority so you need to maximise the amount you can get of of them. The willingness of some to spend thousands prices me out of the market.
AN HOUR???? Really? I'm a hardcore gamer, and playing video games (especially RPGs) is all I do in my free time, so yes, that can mean 10 hours in one day on a day I have off. Its cheaper and provides more entertainment than other forms that might interest me. I am perfectly willing to put hundreds of hours into this game to get what I want. In fact, that is one thing I like about MMOs so much: that you have to really work for what you want, and that nothing is given to you on a silver platter.
...
Tired of running dungeons with exploiters and cheaters? Join the legit channel by visiting http://goo.gl/1zfnTS to apply!
Performing ritual pony sacrifices to Tiamat to earn favor with the RNG Gods since 2014.
...
It wont happen tho
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Free2play models can work well, though you still may be tempted to spend more than a standalone game. It's just that neverwinter seems to take the mick with their pricing.
What about spending some of that free time making/improving real-life relationships with friends and family?
Trust me, I was a no-lifer for about 3 years continuously on another MMORPG and really lost touch with reality - killed a few real relationships in the process.
I know I don't know your personal life, but just offering up some advice from personal experience that I had to learn the hard way.
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
Oooo. That is a pretty darned good idea!
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
I think the current backlog of ad says one thing loud and clear - the perceived value of the ad items does not equal the effort needed to get the ad. For example, if they made the cost to upgrade a companion or mount 100k to go white to green, 200k green to blue, 300K for each tier after (or even 100k for first tier to second for something that starts blue) and make the orange lvl 700K or a mill, you would see a huge flush of ad. or as suggested make keys available for 500K ad...
bottom line is people are not spending it because they feel they worked or paid more than it is worth to do it.
I agree. I spend several hours a day at work on the computer.
The issue I was gently raising (yes, it is off-topic) is that no "game" should adversely impact your real life situation. Sad thing is, I have experienced it myself and have seen others lose almost all touch with reality by becoming totally engrossed in an online game.
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
One thought I have had is to have two ways to open the lockboxes and different things for each. The zen key would do what it does now but the bazaar key would have different loot tables. That way all of these lockboxes that have been piling up you could potentially get something out of them and it would be an AD sink. They could also add a new item that would have to have a key bought with AD that would serve the same purpose. Either one of those would give the AD sink that is needed.
All they have to do is revert tarmalane wards. But clearly they don't care about the market or else they wouldn't have done that in the first place.
I honestly think you have folks that don't understand market mechanics making these types of decisions and these are the results.
Yeah, I hear you. We used to run a NwN1 world that was very very heavy RP. We had some people that got so sucked into it, it was a bit scary. I found myself coding a good 20-40 hours a week for the game and still played (i had 49 toons of various level so i could run with whoever was on) a ton, while working full time and had 3 kids (who played on the server as well) - My kids still joke about the Friday night 'D & D stands for Drunken Dad' rp fests we would have.... yup been there done that.
but the ecomony in that closed world was very tight and a dm could practically ruin it with one night of giving stuff away to friends.
Good story. Word!
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
Nerfing leadership or salvage won't fix the core problem. The exploiters will still have their huge supplies of ADs, and the tools to work those ADs to make their hoards larger, while some of the few ways available to the average or casual player to gain ADs (other than the mostly-not-worth-the-time dailies) get removed.
Someone from Cryptic should play NW in weekends when whole army of goldspam invite friends appears. They scan everyone who is visible in social/lookforparty, you have to keep yourself hidden/invisible to be immune against them. Reporting/ignoring doesnt work, they bring more. They invite you everywhere, when you chat with friend, fight boss in dungeon, etc. They must be very profitable to justify their existance and the scale.
— (The unwritten rule)