if a brick and mortar store doesn't have what i like in it, i'm not going to spend my money in there. as a consumer, i have that kind of power. i'm not going to stand outside its doors and complain to the customers about my preferences nor am i going to waste my time writing letters to the company telling them what my preferences are and how they can cater to me personally.
i have the same ability when it comes to games. i can research the games that interest me and decide if i want to play or buy those games. if it doesn't appeal to me or even if it kind of appeals to me... it's unlikely that i'm going to dive in.
the great thing about a f2p game is i can try it out and if i don't like it, i don't have to keep playing it. i can move on to the things that appeal to me.
This is exactly the reason why the people running the game need to listen to player feedback. Whether said feedback is actionable or not. It is very easy for players to leave for another free game. Posts like this make people feel unwanted here. No need to push people away from the game or the forums.
Most of the players who bother to write a forum post (even rants or rage posts) actually care about the game. Don't get me wrong, they probably don't actually know what's best for the game. As players we can't always see the big picture. But we like something about it, or we wouldn't be here. I know for me, posting suggestions here isn't "wasting my time" at all.
This is exactly the reason why the people running the game need to listen to player feedback. Whether said feedback is actionable or not. It is very easy for players to leave for another free game. Posts like this make people feel unwanted here. No need to push people away from the game or the forums.
Most of the players who bother to write a forum post (even rants or rage posts) actually care about the game. Don't get me wrong, they probably don't actually know what's best for the game. As players we can't always see the big picture. But we like something about it, or we wouldn't be here. I know for me, posting suggestions here isn't "wasting my time" at all.
^Very true. I feel like theres a lot of pushing players away. From design decisions to even the forums. I also agree that player feedback is important, however at the same time some of our posts can also not be trusted. People are selfish so they can talk purely from their point of view which may only be in their interest rather than the games interest, but they can point out flaws in the games design that do make them unhappy, such as the refininig process. I feel like even if the devs did pay a little more attention to feedback here which they should.
I agree with your post completely, and the fact that you consider yourself a "Mini-Orca" and not a whale - even though you spent 9000 Zen at once - or 4,500,000 AD - Or 90$ - you probably really are not the biggest whale out there, and that's the issue of this game. 4,500,000 AD in this game, with 0$ involved, will take months for a new player to farm.
Oh, yes, that is very, very true. I can get about 100k AD per day total with Rank 20 Leadership on five level 60 characters, and Rank 18 to 19 Leadership on the other seven. Then there's the Dailies. But I have to do Professions every 8 hours and be lucky with the rare tasks to make that much. I take turns to actually play the characters and give them a rest when they have about 30k rough AD they cannot refine until the next day. I have two DC Mains, two TR semi-Mains (WK and MI), a Halfling GWF Swordmaster, an HR Combat Pathfinder and a Wood Elf HR Archer Stormwarden that I have started playing more and gearing them up so I do not drag down the Team too much in PvP. Saving all the level 60 blue gear drops for eight months helped with that - storage was the only problem.
In February, when we started, my Guild and I decided to just do the F2P thing - but after a few weeks we were so impressed with the PvE content that we all bought £50's worth of Zen (or the equivalent in Australian dollars, as my Guild mates are ex-Pat Brits in Oz) purely to support the game. We really thought it was that good. None of them do PvP, but I enjoy it when it's a balanced match - I don't care if we are beaten, as long as we put up a good fight. Still get Glory and Seals for gear either way.
The first thing I bought with Zen was some new character slots and respec tokens. Best value you can get from the Zen Store to my mind. Then I got an account-wide Epic mount for 3500 Zen - a White Tiger, as my Dwarf was in the snowy mountains at the time and it seemed to fit. Like, a Siberian Snow Tiger! Greater Bags of Holding I could get from the AH for 240k AD. No idea who could ever post them THAT cheap!
As time went on, I bought The Knights of the Feywild from Steam for £30 (down from £45) as I calculated it was a good deal. £45, not so much. Got 600k AD, a free character slot, an account-wide Unicorn, an account-wide Sylph Epic Companion plus stuff I could sell for AD and some fashion gear that looked great after dyeing it.
Then I bought the Dragonborn Legendary pack and changed my Halfling WK into a Dragonborn WK with the free Race Re-Roll and created a Dragonborn Scourge Warlock with the free character slot. The best thing about that was the Dragon Horde bag for every character on your account! Not used the Glyphs at all as I have no Black Ice gear yet. But the fashion gear looks great as well. And the Rank 8 Dragon Horde enchant is good.
Then I got the Scourge Warlock Booster pack that had another free Greater Bag of Holding, some gear and the account-wide Erinyes Companion.
To me, buying packs like that is not much different to buying DLC for a single-player game like Skyrim. It's just that the three DLC for Skyrim were a lot cheaper!
But a few times I spent €180 on 21,500 Zen, one time with an extra bonus. I bought Bank Slots, Greater Bags of Holding and more character slots and respec tokens, then bought a load of Enchanted Keys. All my characters have at least two Greater Bags of Holding. But they cost me 375k AD in Zen in the recent Sale, and they are already cheaper on the AH. I cannot trade any for less than 415k, due to the 10% cut, so there is no question of me being a "flipper".
But when I opened boxes in the past, I ended up with about 6 to 8 million AD from selling the stuff I did not want, plus Legit AD from Legit Resonators. This time, that is just not going to happen. It is not an addiction or a thrill thing from opening boxes - in the past, trading AD for Zen and opening boxes, selling the gear and making more AD than you spent on Zen was viable. Now, there is more stuff I need to keep as I have more level 60 characters, but also the drop rates are definitely not so generous, and the value of the drops is noticeably less.
I wish they would make more Shared Bank Slots available, as there is really not a lot left in the Zen Market for me to spend Zen on. Maybe some more interesting mounts for some characters, but I already have two Epic mounts each.
SO, yeah, I am really concerned that this game does not disappear up it's own fundament. Not because I have spent so much on it, but because it's a really good game.
Although, I have not even started the Icewind Dale grind yet. I do actually play all twelve of my level 60s.
You can say that again , from the stuff we have been uncovering on preview module five is literally going all out RP crazy , three piece artifact sets with set bonuses , artifact gear reroll tokens etc etc , to keep up with the best equipped ,or even the medium equipped you are going to either need deep pockets or a hell of a lot of spare time xD.
This is where they are going wrong, it seems to me. All the new content is not really "content" at all - it's more gear, more enchants, more power boosts, more grind.
I cannot keep up with people from Open Beta days, and new players cannot keep up with me. I have been in PvP matches against teams where four members had 18 to 21k Gear Scores and three to five Legendary items, plus Glyphs. Absolutely no chance at all. The weakest member was a 15k TR with normal Epics and Black Ice gear. My team had me, and a bunch of 9 to 11k players. And, on several occasions, 6k Bots who kept following the same path into the arena, getting killed and repeating the same actions over and over and over, when the rest of the team had camped at the spawn point. It was really quite comical.
And I have been against teams with 9 to 13k GS, so my 15k AC Healer had a chance - although, a 9k GS CW still freezes and melts her in seconds.
Module 5 should really have more dungeons, more quests etc. So far, from what I have seen of Tyranny of Dragons, there are no quests, just daily skirmish type things, like Dread Ring and Sharandar. There is still a huge amount of stuff for new players to do just to get through Sharandar, Dread Ring and Icewind Dale - so we don't need more of those. What we need is a Tier of Ultra Epic Dungeons for the Veterans, so they have a PvE challenge without the tedium of the grind, and they get teamed up with similar players in PvP.
I'd like to see another Anti-Hero Villain like Valindra, with a major quest line that only the uber-geared can participate in. At the moment, any new character can do ToD by level 26 or so - although there are things there worth getting, such as Dragon Horde enchants.
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chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
edited October 2014
Waiting to watch the video, not a good time.
Lockboxes are a bit worse than they used to be. You'd think that resale values would respond to the inflated price of zen, but no. Currently, however, i am opening 10 boxes a day without spending real money. I know that most times I will get nothing, but (hopefully) something good will come. The loss isn't as bad once you factor in the value of the bars.
This slow power creep is frustrating to us veteran players. The problem isn' t the huge AD cost per se, but rather they have nerfed the value of the only valid AD farm (CN) to absolutely nothing. I love running that dungeon, but really 200k for SW MH? who cares....
So hence i try to farm my belts, I got two relatively quickly, which was nice, but 150 runs before and at least 150 runs after (maybe more), all i get is tons of RAD.
As nice as these items are, and I get they should be rare, should they be THIS rare? seriously?
I am getting frustrated and I don't know whether to buy this great zen promo (it's actually a great promo) or not. I love this game, but the late game is objectionably hostile to new players.
Now when i was gearing up, back in mod 0/mod 1, CN weapons were worth real money, so if you played well and you had a good team, you could make good AD. That was great!
Now if you play well and have a good team you get way way way more RAD than you could ever refine and some rank 5 enchantments? seriously?
I probably won't quit until i have too much to do IRL, but still, it is very frustrating.
The problem isn' t the huge AD cost per se, but rather they have nerfed the value of the only valid AD farm (CN) to absolutely nothing. I love running that dungeon, but really 200k for SW MH? who cares....
I have to agree with this. I did many many CN runs. Now the loot is no longer BiS, it's old and no longer worthwhile. There's now been 3 new dungeons and they've followed the same pattern. Rare drops and heavily bop on the good stuff that does actually drop. Plus because we outgeared the content now, that also helps to deflate costs. I invested so much into getting passive AD generation because I saw this coming. I pity people trying to make AD now. Plus I wonder if I wasted my time if I no longer enjoy the content since it feels unrewarding. If they removed bop, that would be one step to make the game much more enjoyable. There's still lower drop rates and the overuse of dailies which are done in an unfun way, but bop is probably the thing I detest the most.
The problem isn' t the huge AD cost per se, but rather they have nerfed the value of the only valid AD farm (CN) to absolutely nothing. I love running that dungeon, but really 200k for SW MH? who cares....
Well stated. They keep introducing more powercreeps, but not rewarding/challenging PVE content to realistically attain them through normal gameplay.
By the way, mindless heroic encounters with horribly gated RNG loot is NEITHER rewarding NOR challenging. It is just mind-numbing and frustrating.
From my point of view, several things I do point to a larger and robust player base. It's no WoW, but my understanding is that WoW is unique amongst average MMOs in that it's many orders of magnitude larger. (Even EQ never approached the player size -- 12 million peak for WoW vs under 500k peak for EQ.)
Keep in mind the dates of release for both games and how they originated. When EQ was released it was after Ultima Online had pretty much help the entire MMO genre burst onto the scene. UO had a following from all of the Ultima games previous to it. When EverQuest released it was an entirely new idea with no previous games in it's history; ie; none of the WARCRAFT RTS games. No Lore, no background, nothing. For just coming onto the scene and drawing in 500k people is quite amazing when you think about it. Games back then, as they are now, were either hit or miss. But considering the date in time, the fact that it was subscription based and still drew the amount of people it did was awesome.
Warcraft on the other hand had the time to see how things were done and correct anything they thought needed it in a successful MMO. They also had a massive back catalog of lore and characters to draw upon. Not to mention people modding the RTS games (DOTA says hello).
Also consider the fact that a lot of people were also playing EQ on dial-up when it was released. Cable/DSL was more widely available and reliable when WoW released.
Keep in mind the dates of release for both games and how they originated. When EQ was released it was after Ultima Online had pretty much help the entire MMO genre burst onto the scene. UO had a following from all of the Ultima games previous to it. When EverQuest released it was an entirely new idea with no previous games in it's history; ie; none of the WARCRAFT RTS games. No Lore, no background, nothing. For just coming onto the scene and drawing in 500k people is quite amazing when you think about it. Games back then, as they are now, were either hit or miss. But considering the date in time, the fact that it was subscription based and still drew the amount of people it did was awesome.
As you say... unlike UO and WOW, EQ didn't have a huge starting base of fans. But when EQ released there wasn't much else out there like it. So they developed a fairly large following quickly. And did ok until it spread itself to thin. They had EQ, at the same time they had EQOA for the playstation 2, then eventually they released EQ2 and had all three. Dividing the playerbase they had that was loyal to the EQ franchise. Now they are working on adding 2 other EQ related games (landmark and next). They continue to spread their playerbase to thin.
As you say... unlike UO and WOW, EQ didn't have a huge starting base of fans. But when EQ released there wasn't much else out there like it. So they developed a fairly large following quickly. And did ok until it spread itself to thin. They had EQ, at the same time they had EQOA for the playstation 2, then eventually they released EQ2 and had all three. Dividing the playerbase they had that was loyal to the EQ franchise. Now they are working on adding 2 other EQ related games (landmark and next). They continue to spread their playerbase to thin.
I have higher hopes for EQN than NWO. NWO are alrealy porting the game to the console and I'm sure if the popularity kept going for a few years, they'd rerelease the game too. Not too confident about the popularity thing though since I think they've been shooting themselves in the foot. Landmark is different from nexk and is paving the way for next. Personally I hope they can deliver what players want. Would make a nice change.
I have to agree with this. I did many many CN runs. Now the loot is no longer BiS,...
And sadly, none of the new content is farmable. Sure you can sell belts but I wouldn't consider that farmable. It's been well over a 2 weeks and 300+ runs and I haven't seen a belt. In fact I think I've only gotten 2 gems and 1 dragon bone out of all those runs. The rest is just RAD and rank 5 enchants.
Waste of time IMHO. They need to back up the bus and rethink their strategy. My friends list went from lots of folks logging in for Mod 4 to barely anyone being on, so there is no question in my mind that they are losing lots and lots of players.
People complained about the 100/100 cost of the books for the last 2 boons. So what do they do? Add 2 more boons requiring those stupid books. I really don't get these guys. I don't believe they are reading these posts.
And sadly, none of the new content is farmable. Sure you can sell belts but I wouldn't consider that farmable. It's been well over a 2 weeks and 300+ runs and I haven't seen a belt. In fact I think I've only gotten 2 gems and 1 dragon bone out of all those runs. The rest is just RAD and rank 5 enchants.
Waste of time IMHO. They need to back up the bus and rethink their strategy. My friends list went from lots of folks logging in for Mod 4 to barely anyone being on, so there is no question in my mind that they are losing lots and lots of players.
People complained about the 100/100 cost of the books for the last 2 boons. So what do they do? Add 2 more boons requiring those stupid books. I really don't get these guys. I don't believe they are reading these posts.
They read some issues. Like they released the emperors shirt and pants (although really it could've been a free option like disabling visuals of the helm...) and changing your race, gender and ability score. However on the whole they've been really neglectful on providing the players with what they want. On the whole I've been unhappy with the content since mod 1 since it was all unfarmable.
I keep hearing things like "You can do everything in this game without spending a single dollar". Some guys say "I didn't spend a dollar on this game and I'm successful with high gear", and because they did it anybody can.
But the only population of people that is successful without spending money - is made of people who were here since the start, or people who joined not too long after the game came out. And back then, you really could compete with high end players as a new player, and I know this because I played in mod 1. There weren't 4 campaigns. There weren't Artifacts. There was purple gear as end gear, and the heavy gunners used Greater enchantments and a T2 set. And when I made it to 60, I was able to buy the T1 PvP set and had to farm a few more days to get a lesser enchantment, and even though I was inferior to the established players (Which makes perfect sense) - The gap wasn't huge. I had 9k gear score, the top guys had 11k-12k. I didn't feel completely useless when I joined Dungeons and PvPs, because when the gear difference isn't huge, your skill actually makes the difference.
Now? The game is so hostile to new players. Even at low levels the gap is already huge. Back then people weren't running around at level 29 with Greater Plague Fires and Perfect Vorpals, The only "gap" equipments were the "level 40 items that can be used at level 29" type of equips. Now they get to level 60, get a lesser enchantment and a T1 set, have some weak bonuses from boons and artifacts and make it to 10k gear score, while players around them have 14k (which is now considered low), 16k, and even 22k. And they see those guys when they do dungeons, they compete against them when they queue for PvP (and stand no chance at all).
Even if a new player decides to be completely dedicated, play 3-4 hours a day for a few months, thinks hard before he spends his cash, invests in leadership, etc - Stuff 99% of the population do because it's not really playing the game and feels more like doing tasks - Yeah, he'll get to maybe 15k-16k gear score with a normal or even greater weapon enchantment, some boons, maybe 3 artifacts - The problem is that at this time the rest of the population advances with him, and by the next module (that will come out in those months) - His months of investment will make him an AVERAGE player. You spend months of doing tasks and feeling irrelevant just to be average. This is terrible.
Ok, and what if you do decide to spend some cash. Well, the problem is that if you get your inital gear through the Zen to AD exchange, you probably won't be introduced to the ways of making AD in this game, which in my opinion are Leadership and Item swapping. So if you spend some cash in the beginning, say to get to this 15k gear score point - Again, you will be an average player in this game. How will you go from the "average" to "cut above" point? You will... Buy more Zen. Or farm for a few months. But I can assure you that those who did the inital investment will not stop there, and will put more money, Which is completely fine, but further increases the gap between them and the new, especially non-pay players.
The inflation also increases more and more and more, while the drop rates & amount of AD you can make per day remain the same. Bots and Farmers keep letting AD flow into the market. The AD earned from RAD has less value. However the AD earned from the Zen exchange increases with the inflation. You always get the same relative value, which is high. I mean, with 10$ you can get 500k AD. 500k AD is an amount you would make in a few weeks of gameplay as a new player. And this game rarely has 10$ spenders. It has whales that buy all the packs and spend hundreds of dollars for AD. The new player is stuck behind...
Another issue is that Neverwinter is competitive by nature; but the competition is purely between individual players and not groups. You join Dungeons, Skirmishes and PvPs with random players and compare yourself to them. If you're geared well, you'd do well. If you aren't geared well, you'll get kicked in Dungeons when the party dies, you'll die a lot (or won't be able to kill anything) in PvP, and basically feel useless as a player. With other games, Guilds often have reasons to actually help their members gear up other than "good will", because Guilds compete one against another, not simply player X vs player Y. In Neverwinter there's 0 modes for guilds to compete one against another, and gain fame or other things by being successful as a group. So Neverwinter doesn't care about synergies between players in groups or their skills, it cares about how player X is geared compared to player Y. And often guild members are forced to care about themselves and not about guildies because of this reason. The 18k-20k players have no reason at all to spare their additional enchantments or AD for newer members, not only that, they have a reason NOT to do so- they will be stuck behind in the next module if they don't invest everything in their non-ending boon/artifact grinding.
Anyway, to sum it up, I think Neverwinter is a fun game to play non-competitively, it's great if you're playing it with a constant party, but for competitive players, it feels to me like the game encourages you - and only yourself - to gear up, get better and better and better, basically a power creep, that new players have a hard time keeping up with.
I really wish some new Mod 4 or Mod 3 player will quote this post and say "You're wrong with your post, because I joined no more than 3 months ago and I have no problem at all competing with others with no Zen involved".
I keep hearing things like "You can do everything in this game without spending a single dollar". Some guys say "I didn't spend a dollar on this game and I'm successful with high gear", and because they did it anybody can.
Yeah I don't really understand it. I spent some money (nothing compared to the whales but enough for a few standalone games) and spent a lot of time and ad on long term investments. However as an old player I got more opporunities that aren't avialable now. The amount you can make from farming has done down a lot, though I imagine you can still make AD from dragon hoard enchants, but you may prefer to actually use that rp for artifact weapons anyway. Getting a split on 2 crown artifacts may have helped too :P.
I keep hearing things like "You can do everything in this game without spending a single dollar". Some guys say "I didn't spend a dollar on this game and I'm successful with high gear", and because they did it anybody can.
Completely agree with your entire post. Started to play again after some time away from the game and, to me, it felt like i didn't matter either in dungeons and specially in PVP. I'm not against character progession and better stats for better gear and etc... but gating every single step foward into an RNG and some tremendous type of grind just to extend the expansions time is pretty sad in my opinion and shows that beign this the third game done by cryptic they would have learned a thing or two about quality of gameplay.
I would STRONGLY encourage the developers, analysts, and other business partners at Cryptic/PWE to view this 6-minute video. If you want to skip to the important part, go forward past 3:30 in the video. This gives a perfect solution for long-term survival of NW.
myowmyow, I hate to break it to you, but that video was directed to us, the players, just as much if not more than to other developers. Those in the industry, and certainly the companies that have hundreds of such people, understand the dynamics and economics of F2P. What they really need is to change the mentality of the players of F2P games. The current proven and easier model is to make the most money off the whales during the height of the game's popularity. The model where you try to make more money off a wider percentage of your players over a much longer period of time is now much more difficult.
In short, this belief that the video contains some profound revelation that none of these companies know about, is ridiculous. It is as obvious as the sun that you need to focus on the average player to keep your game going. After all, by definition, the average player forms the majority of your player base. However, if focusing on the average player means sacrificing a large chunk of immediate revenue in hopes for longer term returns, is that economically sensible? How can you be sure all your efforts will make a difference, when the next big F2P game is only months away? The question then becomes, is it worth the risk? Remember, F2P is all about low barrier to entry. It's free to try! They are keenly aware that they need to focus on the average players, but also needs to strike a balance between that and "leaving too much money on the table."
Having said all that, it is true that they have made some changes that screams "We know the height of popularity of this game is in the past and we don't believe it is possible for us to get any where near that peak again. Let's focus on ways to increase our revenue through other means." Like making coffers BOP and lowering chance of getting coalescent ward from them. I too think it is too much that they are trying to force people to buy coalescent wards when they are $10 a pop.
However as an old player I got more opporunities that aren't avialable now. The amount you can make from farming has done down a lot, though I imagine you can still make AD from dragon hoard enchants, but you may prefer to actually use that rp for artifact weapons anyway.
1. Get 3 or 4 lesser dragon hoard enchants. Equip them into every utility slot that you have.
2. Do a farming foundry.
3. You will get a black opal. Sell for 10k.
4. Repeat.
I keep hearing things like "You can do everything in this game without spending a single dollar". Some guys say "I didn't spend a dollar on this game and I'm successful with high gear", and because they did it anybody can.
Non-issue. New players have it easier in every aspect except PvP. Only PvP is more hostile to new players.
Dungeons are easier. Artifacts, Boons, and Companion bonuses didn't exist back then. No reinforcement patches for our armor either. People are running the same dungeons with higher gear scores. That's easier, not harder. Even if a new player doesn't have all that, someone they are running with likely does. Making the run easier than it was for us back then. Not saying it was hard then. Just easier now.
AD is everywhere. Because of 'bad stuff' there is still more than their should be in the economy. Raises prices. On the other hand (because of the high prices), players are getting more for the stuff they do sell. And with the new Fey/Hoard enchants players can get stuff to sell from anywhere. Heck (as point pointed out) you could run foundries just to make money farming black opals if you wanted. Might not be the most efficient thing to do, but you would make AD doing it. Also salvage didn't exist back then. That's why so many used leadership. To me this either makes the game easier, or balances it out. Certainly not harder.
Is there room for improvement? Yes! Low level PvP for example is completely skewed towards twinks. And I also agree that they focus to much on big spenders. Instead of those that want to spend a little every month or two. But you have to understand what is going on before you see what actually needs to be improved. And if you even slightly think that the game is harder for new players than it was for old... then you don't see the big picture.
His months of investment will make him an AVERAGE player. You spend months of doing tasks and feeling irrelevant just to be average. This is terrible.
Why is that "terrible" as you say? What part of spending a lot time should make them a good player? I'm not saying spending money should make you better either. Its more a matter of what you do with either.
They say hindsight is 20/20. Its easy to look at stuff that's already happened and say what should have been done instead. Even easier to look around and list off all the stuff that's broken. Imo opinion what the company needs is suggestions. Not long drawn out posts about what is terrible with the game with no idea on how to fix them.
Ok, so I don't look completely hypocritical with the previous paragraph I'll throw out a few suggestions for Cryptic:
1. Low level PvP. I don't know enough about PvP in Neverwinter. What I do know is that if you want balance (not sure you do), then you have to control the stats. Rank 10s in a low level match is not control. There are many ways control could be maintained. Adding mandatory PvP sets with no sockets. Scaling all enchants to a certain point. Having PvP specific enchants. Whatever you do to add balance, just remember to maintain a feeling of progression. Such as adding onto the PvP campaign.
2. Dailies. Personally I love doing dailies. But even I see there are just to many of them now. Trim then down a little. ToD for example. Instead of having a character go to all 5 Zones each day. Have them go to 2 of the 5. Or let the player pick. Double/Triple the rewards, but you only get the daily quests for the first two areas you visit. This will tone down the burn out people are feeling.
3. Zen Shop. Ugh... My point of view: Ok, so I like free games. My income is erratic at best. One month I might have $200 to spend, another I might be broke. More than likely I have a little to spend. The biggest problem I see is you focus way to much on random packs. These are for whales. They are the only ones who have the money to buy enough of these to ensure that they get what they want from the RNG stuff.
You need stuff to buy at lower price points ($1, $5, $10, and $20) that isn't random. It doesn't have to be the best stuff in the world. But it needs to be worth it, and not random. People that only have $10 to spend, don't want to spend that $10 and not get what they wanted. There are a few things in there like dye-packs, but there could be so much more.
-Stuff like fashion sets. You guys actually make some great sets. But the good ones are all stuck in packs, or bought with tradebars. Put some (of the good ones) in the shop too.
-Another thing is the campaigns. You charge $50 to just be done with a campaign. Basically we pay you to not play your game. Why not put a low cost option to just reset the dailies on a campaign. So we can instead pay you to play through an area a couple extra times a day, if we want.
There are so many possibilities. I'm not going to list them all. My basic suggestion is this. Put low cost non-rng stuff in the shop so those with lower incomes have a way to contribute to the game and be rewarded as well.
No chance for long term success for not only this game, but the whole MMO genre, in the West, as what Take-Two said.
Players in the East have fun with their games. Players in the West think they own the games but in fact they don't spend a penny to develop anything and are entitled to nothing. They are just freeloading and hoping to get everything free and under their control. No Western game developers will be foolish to spend millions, if not tens of millions, and years to develop a game only to suffer all the loss.
The smart game developers all take a short term approach. Most games still run after 3 years, just not as good as the first couple of years... or better yet, just publish other people's game so they don't have to waste money on another Titan or Copernicus.
Non-issue. New players have it easier in every aspect except PvP. Only PvP is more hostile to new players.
I like the time and effort you put into this post, it is also great that you added suggestions.
Anyway, to your point, you said that Dungeons are easier and because of that it is now easier for new players than it was back then.
Yes, dungeons are easier. It's not even that difficult to get a T2 set (though you feel like a freeloader when you try to get it). But it doesn't really matter. T2 sets aren't really as relevant as they were before. In what situation would you rather be as a new player:
Easy to get 9k GS when the high ends run at 11k-12k, maybe MAX 13k; OR Easy to get 12k GS when the high ends run at 22k?
I understand there are ways of making money that weren't available back then, like Salvage, Dragon hoard, etc. But it's not like new players will make most of their AD from selling stuff, we agree on that, right? I mean, it would take a while (maybe a few weeks) until they could get a farming enchantment and, and even then, if they focus on just pure monster killing farming, it would take them weeks or months to get 500k AD. Something you can get in 1 click.
As for Salvage, even though RAD is the most consistent way of income, it is still capped at 24k a day while some items sell for 6m. Yes, New players have more ways of getting AD right now; But the amount of AD they make relative to the total economy is actually lower. This means that if in the past you had trouble getting AD, but when you did get it was a chunk that wasn't considered "low" in the economy, it was still better than accumulating peanuts, which is what new players get right now.
What I'm trying to say is, it's easier to get an absolute value of AD currently then it was back then (For example: It's easier to get 200k right now then it was back then), but those 200k right now are worth much less than they were in previous times (because prices went up), which makes me say - It was easier in Mod 1 to earn enough AD that was considered "relevant" than it is right now.
Look, the with the current situation, the most cost-effective way of getting AD, especially for new players - is to purchase Zen and convert it to AD. I mean, in 1-2 hours of (real life) work, you could get something that would take you 2-3 months of in game farming. And the inflation from all the bots and bugs is what caused it. It wasn't that bad back then.
Another issue that I have with this game is that you buy Zen and can convert it directly to AD. In other games I've played there was no way on converting $ to in game currency. You could for example buy an armor set with $, then sell it for AD. This is the much better approach, because this way you flood the market with usable items - Which makes the prices of those items go down - which makes the economy better actually.
But in this game, the more time passes, the more it makes sense to buy Zen rather than to farm AD the "game way".
And I agree with all of your suggestions, but I think the game designers know what they're doing up there. I think those things are intentional. It's part of their model, and there's nothing wrong with that. You have to understand that "Satisfaction of players" may not be their ultimate goal. They definitely would want it, but it's probably not what they aim for.
A new player in NW is in hopeless situation.Some tutorials and guides in the forums but few to read then anyway.
The most hostile aggresive community ever existed on an MMO.
Inflation made the 24k ad cap ridicousloy small.
game has matured and the more "creative" ways of some of the forumers than now brag about LtP are in dust.I refer to glitch explotation and bug abuse in dungeons.(Valiant set one shotting,Stalwart Bullwark combine bonus,pushing adds in cliffs et etc....)
The gap has been broadered by a large margin.A forumer sum it up very well.back then the new player was at 9k gs and the veteran at 12k gs.
Now it is 9k gs and the veteran at 21k gs.
What is most annoying is the fact that if you go in higher gs it is more easy to make money-AD.A 18k gs toon can farm elol or sot and get richer.What a 9k gs can farm?CT?
The game remains challenging if you do not have one class in your side-CW.Most of the braggers about "ah content is too easy" are pew pew CWs.If you are not a CW and you are a TR at 9k gs then man you are really really in bad spot.
PVP is hostile to any normal newcomer.There is a very small percentage of players that will endure the abuse trash talking of the NW pvp community.Leap slam(now cannot be done) 1vs 1 trap etc etc..false node exchange offers...
There is an extra factor in NW that makes things alittle bit more difficult than other MMOs.You play Counterstrike.You suck.No prob.It is not a core roleplaying game or at least it was not advertized as such.While NW is in part(or tries ) an RPG game.Wizards of the coast licenced.That means that in NW come folks that want to roleplay.
They make to 60s they try the proffesions they ride to their level1 mount when they get it with pride.They paint their armors etc.They get emotionally touched to their toons more than in Counterstrike or shooter MMo for example.And then bang! they try to enter the dungeons with thier 9k beloved gs.
^^^^
What did they get?Kicking bad words trash talking frustration .
Some might even go to try pvp.........i stop here....
NW as said is more competitive than many other MMOs out there.Combine this with the challenges a newcomer faces ,the inflation.
Sorry for double post but i 'll like to mention it separately:
Most of the "experts" here that brag and say that getting high gear with a new toon are veterans that have many alts.The main toon of them farms and then using the bank (or mail in the past) give their new toons purple and R7s.
I ll want to see some of these "experts" to try to level a 60 from scratch.
So much misinformation.In order to get the sharandar boons you need one month minimum.
"hey do your campaigns and buy some blues and you ll be 12k gs in no time" .Yea sure...
No blues can reach you beyond 11k gs.I have alts and i know.
Some people write with ease spreading false information.Some folks read these and then try to do it.Ofcourse it is impossible.And then the folks thing that is something wrong with hemselves.Not that some delusional forumer wrote nonsense.
Edit:
I have a 18,3 GF.Not super gear but i think i am in mid-high level.I leveled a TR to get to 60 and the third boon in order to get the class artifacts.I know how much time takes first hand."1 week and blues" .lol....
Sorry for double post but i 'll like to mention it separately:
Most of the "experts" here that brag and say that getting high gear with a new toon are veterans that have many alts.The main toon of them farms and then using the bank (or mail in the past) give their new toons purple and R7s.
Back then we couldn't change enchants without spending more in AD than the enchant was worth. I have alts, I levelled a dozen character to 60 without scaling gear or enchants. Yes, I use them now. But the pre-60 mobs didn't get any harder between then and now. In fact I recall them making them easier in a few spots.
I ll want to see some of these "experts" to try to level a 60 from scratch.
So much misinformation.In order to get the sharandar boons you need one month minimum.
"hey do your campaigns and buy some blues and you ll be 12k gs in no time" .Yea sure...
No blues can reach you beyond 11k gs.I have alts and i know.
Some people write with ease spreading false information.Some folks read these and then try to do it.Ofcourse it is impossible.And then the folks thing that is something wrong with hemselves.Not that some delusional forumer wrote nonsense.
Edit:
I have a 18,3 GF.Not super gear but i think i am in mid-high level.I leveled a TR to get to 60 and the third boon in order to get the class artifacts.I know how much time takes first hand."1 week and blues" .lol....
Sharandar is bleh. It takes about 11 days to get 3 boons at Dread Ring. Trade your onyx for scrip. Don't bother with most of the dailies unless you are short on scrip. Do the weekly and the lair. I've done it in blues already on several alts I didn't want to bother with gearing. I did give them rank 5 enchants though.
I like the time and effort you put into this post, it is also great that you added suggestions.
Anyway, to your point, you said that Dungeons are easier and because of that it is now easier for new players than it was back then.
Yes, dungeons are easier. It's not even that difficult to get a T2 set (though you feel like a freeloader when you try to get it). But it doesn't really matter. T2 sets aren't really as relevant as they were before. In what situation would you rather be as a new player:
Easy to get 9k GS when the high ends run at 11k-12k, maybe MAX 13k; OR Easy to get 12k GS when the high ends run at 22k?
I understand there are ways of making money that weren't available back then, like Salvage, Dragon hoard, etc. But it's not like new players will make most of their AD from selling stuff, we agree on that, right? I mean, it would take a while (maybe a few weeks) until they could get a farming enchantment and, and even then, if they focus on just pure monster killing farming, it would take them weeks or months to get 500k AD. Something you can get in 1 click.
As for Salvage, even though RAD is the most consistent way of income, it is still capped at 24k a day while some items sell for 6m. Yes, New players have more ways of getting AD right now; But the amount of AD they make relative to the total economy is actually lower. This means that if in the past you had trouble getting AD, but when you did get it was a chunk that wasn't considered "low" in the economy, it was still better than accumulating peanuts, which is what new players get right now.
What I'm trying to say is, it's easier to get an absolute value of AD currently then it was back then (For example: It's easier to get 200k right now then it was back then), but those 200k right now are worth much less than they were in previous times (because prices went up), which makes me say - It was easier in Mod 1 to earn enough AD that was considered "relevant" than it is right now.
Look, the with the current situation, the most cost-effective way of getting AD, especially for new players - is to purchase Zen and convert it to AD. I mean, in 1-2 hours of (real life) work, you could get something that would take you 2-3 months of in game farming. And the inflation from all the bots and bugs is what caused it. It wasn't that bad back then.
Another issue that I have with this game is that you buy Zen and can convert it directly to AD. In other games I've played there was no way on converting $ to in game currency. You could for example buy an armor set with $, then sell it for AD. This is the much better approach, because this way you flood the market with usable items - Which makes the prices of those items go down - which makes the economy better actually.
But in this game, the more time passes, the more it makes sense to buy Zen rather than to farm AD the "game way".
And I agree with all of your suggestions, but I think the game designers know what they're doing up there. I think those things are intentional. It's part of their model, and there's nothing wrong with that. You have to understand that "Satisfaction of players" may not be their ultimate goal. They definitely would want it, but it's probably not what they aim for.
The biggest hurdle to new characters is information. There are easy ways to get AD, both back then and now. They just have to find them. Takes research. Most won't bother. This was a problem then and now. Nothing new.
For example, you mentioned players not getting farm enchants or selling on the AH. They should. If they knew about them, they are easy to get. Blacklake skirmish during 2-3 bonus hours can max your AD refinement for the day. In less than a week you could have 3 lesser feys (30K each). Maybe even 3 lesser dragon's hoards (50K each). Now that its cheap to switch enchants you'd only need one set till you could afford more.
As for the game and their ultimate goal. Its a business. Every business has profit as its ultimate goal. Big spenders are a huge chunk of that, but so should be the majority of average players. A diverse income means a less chance of a total loss if something bad happens in one part of it.
Number of players is in decline, people are noticing it, and they're worried. Nothing wrong with the fact that they're worried about it, but it's nothing I would worry too much about.
That's just Steam. Given it's not the primary platform for the game, I would think the numbers would be a percent of the player base. I had to switch over to the Arc client to redeem codes.
Those numbers also seem fine. Concurrent active players is very different from weekly or monthly active players -- and a much, much smaller number. e.g. if everyone played once a week for 24 hours, the weekly active would be 7x, and so on.
0
dragoness10Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 780Arc User
edited October 2014
Replying to a few bits in posts -
"OTHER POSTERS: Please don't post statement that will get this thread locked. No condemning others, no threats to quit, no blasting the developers, etc. Please . . . "
That's just inviting trolls. Best leave that off next time.
"For a modest fee, player gets a chance to be the best and to have everything he desires without spending crazy amount of money or hours on it."
NO. One of the reasons I play NW Online is that it's free, and I really don't care it takes some time to earn items. Those whom will stay with a game long term are reasonable, and last longer than 3 months for an instant "level up and throw $200 at a game" only to rage quit they cannot win/ get everything the minute they want it.
"You don't need perfects, r10s, augments, and BiS gear. You want that."
Amen.
"People do have money to spend, but they have nothing to spend them on."
WRONG. There's plenty of items, and seriously if you have money to burn you can sell your purchased Zen, and stock up on consumables from the Auction House. There's plenty of ways to quickly waste paid for things.
Personally I budget better as I hardly can pay for anything with RL money due to personal finances.
So the rest of the posts go into debate after this, and it's rightfully pointed out that this is another "Why don't you make THIS game like this other game I play so it's more like what I already like?"
Well, it is it's own game. The random chance is far better than assuring only people whom pay RL money are guaranteed of the best stuff whilst the rest of us poorer people get stuck with the least useful items. I can put in a bit of effort to get as much as "Mr. /Ms. No SKillz But I Payz Fer Epic Stuffs". It's not bad.
If you have further complaints on a business model or suggestions for it how to massively change it perhaps the better method of comunication is to write Cryptic directly instead of trying to persuade other players on forums whom have no direct relation to making the game different.
Yes, the Devs can read the suggestions here. They are not in charge of the company though. It's like complaining to the auto mechanic how "Major Company" should better engineeer their cars to suit you.
" I tried to figure out the enigma that was you, and then I realized mastering Wild Magic was easier." - Old Wizard in Waterdeep
"Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."
"Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
Yes, the Devs can read the suggestions here. They are not in charge of the company though. It's like complaining to the auto mechanic how "Major Company" should better engineeer their cars to suit you.
I agree with you to a point. But only so far. There are things the Devs can do. And there are things players can suggest, ideas for ways to do things they might not have thought of. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Or maybe the idea isn't even possible. Never hurts to toss an idea out there though. As for the other stuff. You kinda have to have a little bit of faith that the community manager (or maybe the devs) would pass along some of the ideas to the people that do have the power. At least some of the time.
So the rest of the posts go into debate after this, and it's rightfully pointed out that this is another "Why don't you make THIS game like this other game I play so it's more like what I already like?"
Well, it is it's own game. The random chance is far better than assuring only people whom pay RL money are guaranteed of the best stuff whilst the rest of us poorer people get stuck with the least useful items. I can put in a bit of effort to get as much as "Mr. /Ms. No SKillz But I Payz Fer Epic Stuffs". It's not bad.
I know, right? I don't understand why some players want every game to just be a clone of every other game.
This is a separate game from all the other games out there. If you want to play those other games, play them.
That's just Steam. Given it's not the primary platform for the game, I would think the numbers would be a percent of the player base. I had to switch over to the Arc client to redeem codes.
Those numbers also seem fine. Concurrent active players is very different from weekly or monthly active players -- and a much, much smaller number. e.g. if everyone played once a week for 24 hours, the weekly active would be 7x, and so on.
That's a pretty impressive feat. It also puts the numbers in context. Portal 2 is #75 currently, but not the same genre. EVE Online is #112, also a free-to-play MMO, with an all-time peak of 3690 concurrent players.
Point is, again probably just to myself, the Neverwinter numbers are well ahead of other MMOs and popular games, based on Steam numbers. I don't think I picked a losing game. I also like the financial model and the ability to farm for AD->Zen as desired. It's truly not needed, though, which is awesome.
What I'm trying to say is, it's easier to get an absolute value of AD currently then it was back then (For example: It's easier to get 200k right now then it was back then), but those 200k right now are worth much less than they were in previous times (because prices went up), which makes me say - It was easier in Mod 1 to earn enough AD that was considered "relevant" than it is right now.
Look, the with the current situation, the most cost-effective way of getting AD, especially for new players - is to purchase Zen and convert it to AD. I mean, in 1-2 hours of (real life) work, you could get something that would take you 2-3 months of in game farming. And the inflation from all the bots and bugs is what caused it. It wasn't that bad back then.
Selling items hasn't been that bad on the run-up to 60. I've found several things I can regularly sell for a surprising amount of AD. (In particular, various low level pots that always outsell high level ones.) Converting AD to zen is faster than it seems, too. It's never taken more than 18 hours. Then you can buy stuff for zen (although, only a few items are cheaper that way, save the items that can't be purchased with AD.
Another issue that I have with this game is that you buy Zen and can convert it directly to AD. In other games I've played there was no way on converting $ to in game currency. You could for example buy an armor set with $, then sell it for AD. This is the much better approach, because this way you flood the market with usable items - Which makes the prices of those items go down - which makes the economy better actually.
Totally disagree. For one, all the free-to-play games I've played the only thing you can usually purchase with money is the in-game currency (the equivalent of AD, not Zen, and then AD wouldn't usually be an earn-able currency). And you usually can't convert between the earned currency and the $ currency (although some games have that, which makes for a very robust economy if the devs control supply, but not values, appropriately).
For two, just being able to buy better stuff for money is generally considered pay-to-win. If everything you can buy with $ can also be earned in game either because it's available for in-game currency or because you can buy the paid currency with earned currency, then it's a far fairer system to those who have more time than money. (And, interestingly, balances fairness for those with more money than time... older, pay-once games often had a problem where those who could play 18 hours a day had a huge advantage of those who could only play a few hours a week, removing the fun for casual players.)
But in this game, the more time passes, the more it makes sense to buy Zen rather than to farm AD the "game way".
That's the goal of F2P games. Make the in-game currency valuable enough that people want to use real money. Normally, though, the prices aren't fixed, so if a bunch of people went out and used $ for Zen, the price of Zen would go down in terms of AD (more zen to AD ratio). With it fixed at 500AD==1 zen, that doesn't happen. It means fixed value farming (invoking, SCA, leadership) are all worth a fixed amount of zen.
Comments
This is exactly the reason why the people running the game need to listen to player feedback. Whether said feedback is actionable or not. It is very easy for players to leave for another free game. Posts like this make people feel unwanted here. No need to push people away from the game or the forums.
Most of the players who bother to write a forum post (even rants or rage posts) actually care about the game. Don't get me wrong, they probably don't actually know what's best for the game. As players we can't always see the big picture. But we like something about it, or we wouldn't be here. I know for me, posting suggestions here isn't "wasting my time" at all.
^Very true. I feel like theres a lot of pushing players away. From design decisions to even the forums. I also agree that player feedback is important, however at the same time some of our posts can also not be trusted. People are selfish so they can talk purely from their point of view which may only be in their interest rather than the games interest, but they can point out flaws in the games design that do make them unhappy, such as the refininig process. I feel like even if the devs did pay a little more attention to feedback here which they should.
Oh, yes, that is very, very true. I can get about 100k AD per day total with Rank 20 Leadership on five level 60 characters, and Rank 18 to 19 Leadership on the other seven. Then there's the Dailies. But I have to do Professions every 8 hours and be lucky with the rare tasks to make that much. I take turns to actually play the characters and give them a rest when they have about 30k rough AD they cannot refine until the next day. I have two DC Mains, two TR semi-Mains (WK and MI), a Halfling GWF Swordmaster, an HR Combat Pathfinder and a Wood Elf HR Archer Stormwarden that I have started playing more and gearing them up so I do not drag down the Team too much in PvP. Saving all the level 60 blue gear drops for eight months helped with that - storage was the only problem.
In February, when we started, my Guild and I decided to just do the F2P thing - but after a few weeks we were so impressed with the PvE content that we all bought £50's worth of Zen (or the equivalent in Australian dollars, as my Guild mates are ex-Pat Brits in Oz) purely to support the game. We really thought it was that good. None of them do PvP, but I enjoy it when it's a balanced match - I don't care if we are beaten, as long as we put up a good fight. Still get Glory and Seals for gear either way.
The first thing I bought with Zen was some new character slots and respec tokens. Best value you can get from the Zen Store to my mind. Then I got an account-wide Epic mount for 3500 Zen - a White Tiger, as my Dwarf was in the snowy mountains at the time and it seemed to fit. Like, a Siberian Snow Tiger! Greater Bags of Holding I could get from the AH for 240k AD. No idea who could ever post them THAT cheap!
As time went on, I bought The Knights of the Feywild from Steam for £30 (down from £45) as I calculated it was a good deal. £45, not so much. Got 600k AD, a free character slot, an account-wide Unicorn, an account-wide Sylph Epic Companion plus stuff I could sell for AD and some fashion gear that looked great after dyeing it.
Then I bought the Dragonborn Legendary pack and changed my Halfling WK into a Dragonborn WK with the free Race Re-Roll and created a Dragonborn Scourge Warlock with the free character slot. The best thing about that was the Dragon Horde bag for every character on your account! Not used the Glyphs at all as I have no Black Ice gear yet. But the fashion gear looks great as well. And the Rank 8 Dragon Horde enchant is good.
Then I got the Scourge Warlock Booster pack that had another free Greater Bag of Holding, some gear and the account-wide Erinyes Companion.
To me, buying packs like that is not much different to buying DLC for a single-player game like Skyrim. It's just that the three DLC for Skyrim were a lot cheaper!
But a few times I spent €180 on 21,500 Zen, one time with an extra bonus. I bought Bank Slots, Greater Bags of Holding and more character slots and respec tokens, then bought a load of Enchanted Keys. All my characters have at least two Greater Bags of Holding. But they cost me 375k AD in Zen in the recent Sale, and they are already cheaper on the AH. I cannot trade any for less than 415k, due to the 10% cut, so there is no question of me being a "flipper".
But when I opened boxes in the past, I ended up with about 6 to 8 million AD from selling the stuff I did not want, plus Legit AD from Legit Resonators. This time, that is just not going to happen. It is not an addiction or a thrill thing from opening boxes - in the past, trading AD for Zen and opening boxes, selling the gear and making more AD than you spent on Zen was viable. Now, there is more stuff I need to keep as I have more level 60 characters, but also the drop rates are definitely not so generous, and the value of the drops is noticeably less.
I wish they would make more Shared Bank Slots available, as there is really not a lot left in the Zen Market for me to spend Zen on. Maybe some more interesting mounts for some characters, but I already have two Epic mounts each.
SO, yeah, I am really concerned that this game does not disappear up it's own fundament. Not because I have spent so much on it, but because it's a really good game.
Although, I have not even started the Icewind Dale grind yet. I do actually play all twelve of my level 60s.
This is where they are going wrong, it seems to me. All the new content is not really "content" at all - it's more gear, more enchants, more power boosts, more grind.
I cannot keep up with people from Open Beta days, and new players cannot keep up with me. I have been in PvP matches against teams where four members had 18 to 21k Gear Scores and three to five Legendary items, plus Glyphs. Absolutely no chance at all. The weakest member was a 15k TR with normal Epics and Black Ice gear. My team had me, and a bunch of 9 to 11k players. And, on several occasions, 6k Bots who kept following the same path into the arena, getting killed and repeating the same actions over and over and over, when the rest of the team had camped at the spawn point. It was really quite comical.
And I have been against teams with 9 to 13k GS, so my 15k AC Healer had a chance - although, a 9k GS CW still freezes and melts her in seconds.
Module 5 should really have more dungeons, more quests etc. So far, from what I have seen of Tyranny of Dragons, there are no quests, just daily skirmish type things, like Dread Ring and Sharandar. There is still a huge amount of stuff for new players to do just to get through Sharandar, Dread Ring and Icewind Dale - so we don't need more of those. What we need is a Tier of Ultra Epic Dungeons for the Veterans, so they have a PvE challenge without the tedium of the grind, and they get teamed up with similar players in PvP.
I'd like to see another Anti-Hero Villain like Valindra, with a major quest line that only the uber-geared can participate in. At the moment, any new character can do ToD by level 26 or so - although there are things there worth getting, such as Dragon Horde enchants.
Lockboxes are a bit worse than they used to be. You'd think that resale values would respond to the inflated price of zen, but no. Currently, however, i am opening 10 boxes a day without spending real money. I know that most times I will get nothing, but (hopefully) something good will come. The loss isn't as bad once you factor in the value of the bars.
This slow power creep is frustrating to us veteran players. The problem isn' t the huge AD cost per se, but rather they have nerfed the value of the only valid AD farm (CN) to absolutely nothing. I love running that dungeon, but really 200k for SW MH? who cares....
So hence i try to farm my belts, I got two relatively quickly, which was nice, but 150 runs before and at least 150 runs after (maybe more), all i get is tons of RAD.
As nice as these items are, and I get they should be rare, should they be THIS rare? seriously?
I am getting frustrated and I don't know whether to buy this great zen promo (it's actually a great promo) or not. I love this game, but the late game is objectionably hostile to new players.
Now when i was gearing up, back in mod 0/mod 1, CN weapons were worth real money, so if you played well and you had a good team, you could make good AD. That was great!
Now if you play well and have a good team you get way way way more RAD than you could ever refine and some rank 5 enchantments? seriously?
I probably won't quit until i have too much to do IRL, but still, it is very frustrating.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
I have to agree with this. I did many many CN runs. Now the loot is no longer BiS, it's old and no longer worthwhile. There's now been 3 new dungeons and they've followed the same pattern. Rare drops and heavily bop on the good stuff that does actually drop. Plus because we outgeared the content now, that also helps to deflate costs. I invested so much into getting passive AD generation because I saw this coming. I pity people trying to make AD now. Plus I wonder if I wasted my time if I no longer enjoy the content since it feels unrewarding. If they removed bop, that would be one step to make the game much more enjoyable. There's still lower drop rates and the overuse of dailies which are done in an unfun way, but bop is probably the thing I detest the most.
Edit: wooops said hate instead of have...
Well stated. They keep introducing more powercreeps, but not rewarding/challenging PVE content to realistically attain them through normal gameplay.
By the way, mindless heroic encounters with horribly gated RNG loot is NEITHER rewarding NOR challenging. It is just mind-numbing and frustrating.
Keep in mind the dates of release for both games and how they originated. When EQ was released it was after Ultima Online had pretty much help the entire MMO genre burst onto the scene. UO had a following from all of the Ultima games previous to it. When EverQuest released it was an entirely new idea with no previous games in it's history; ie; none of the WARCRAFT RTS games. No Lore, no background, nothing. For just coming onto the scene and drawing in 500k people is quite amazing when you think about it. Games back then, as they are now, were either hit or miss. But considering the date in time, the fact that it was subscription based and still drew the amount of people it did was awesome.
Warcraft on the other hand had the time to see how things were done and correct anything they thought needed it in a successful MMO. They also had a massive back catalog of lore and characters to draw upon. Not to mention people modding the RTS games (DOTA says hello).
Also consider the fact that a lot of people were also playing EQ on dial-up when it was released. Cable/DSL was more widely available and reliable when WoW released.
As you say... unlike UO and WOW, EQ didn't have a huge starting base of fans. But when EQ released there wasn't much else out there like it. So they developed a fairly large following quickly. And did ok until it spread itself to thin. They had EQ, at the same time they had EQOA for the playstation 2, then eventually they released EQ2 and had all three. Dividing the playerbase they had that was loyal to the EQ franchise. Now they are working on adding 2 other EQ related games (landmark and next). They continue to spread their playerbase to thin.
I have higher hopes for EQN than NWO. NWO are alrealy porting the game to the console and I'm sure if the popularity kept going for a few years, they'd rerelease the game too. Not too confident about the popularity thing though since I think they've been shooting themselves in the foot. Landmark is different from nexk and is paving the way for next. Personally I hope they can deliver what players want. Would make a nice change.
And sadly, none of the new content is farmable. Sure you can sell belts but I wouldn't consider that farmable. It's been well over a 2 weeks and 300+ runs and I haven't seen a belt. In fact I think I've only gotten 2 gems and 1 dragon bone out of all those runs. The rest is just RAD and rank 5 enchants.
Waste of time IMHO. They need to back up the bus and rethink their strategy. My friends list went from lots of folks logging in for Mod 4 to barely anyone being on, so there is no question in my mind that they are losing lots and lots of players.
People complained about the 100/100 cost of the books for the last 2 boons. So what do they do? Add 2 more boons requiring those stupid books. I really don't get these guys. I don't believe they are reading these posts.
They read some issues. Like they released the emperors shirt and pants (although really it could've been a free option like disabling visuals of the helm...) and changing your race, gender and ability score. However on the whole they've been really neglectful on providing the players with what they want. On the whole I've been unhappy with the content since mod 1 since it was all unfarmable.
But the only population of people that is successful without spending money - is made of people who were here since the start, or people who joined not too long after the game came out. And back then, you really could compete with high end players as a new player, and I know this because I played in mod 1. There weren't 4 campaigns. There weren't Artifacts. There was purple gear as end gear, and the heavy gunners used Greater enchantments and a T2 set. And when I made it to 60, I was able to buy the T1 PvP set and had to farm a few more days to get a lesser enchantment, and even though I was inferior to the established players (Which makes perfect sense) - The gap wasn't huge. I had 9k gear score, the top guys had 11k-12k. I didn't feel completely useless when I joined Dungeons and PvPs, because when the gear difference isn't huge, your skill actually makes the difference.
Now? The game is so hostile to new players. Even at low levels the gap is already huge. Back then people weren't running around at level 29 with Greater Plague Fires and Perfect Vorpals, The only "gap" equipments were the "level 40 items that can be used at level 29" type of equips. Now they get to level 60, get a lesser enchantment and a T1 set, have some weak bonuses from boons and artifacts and make it to 10k gear score, while players around them have 14k (which is now considered low), 16k, and even 22k. And they see those guys when they do dungeons, they compete against them when they queue for PvP (and stand no chance at all).
Even if a new player decides to be completely dedicated, play 3-4 hours a day for a few months, thinks hard before he spends his cash, invests in leadership, etc - Stuff 99% of the population do because it's not really playing the game and feels more like doing tasks - Yeah, he'll get to maybe 15k-16k gear score with a normal or even greater weapon enchantment, some boons, maybe 3 artifacts - The problem is that at this time the rest of the population advances with him, and by the next module (that will come out in those months) - His months of investment will make him an AVERAGE player. You spend months of doing tasks and feeling irrelevant just to be average. This is terrible.
Ok, and what if you do decide to spend some cash. Well, the problem is that if you get your inital gear through the Zen to AD exchange, you probably won't be introduced to the ways of making AD in this game, which in my opinion are Leadership and Item swapping. So if you spend some cash in the beginning, say to get to this 15k gear score point - Again, you will be an average player in this game. How will you go from the "average" to "cut above" point? You will... Buy more Zen. Or farm for a few months. But I can assure you that those who did the inital investment will not stop there, and will put more money, Which is completely fine, but further increases the gap between them and the new, especially non-pay players.
The inflation also increases more and more and more, while the drop rates & amount of AD you can make per day remain the same. Bots and Farmers keep letting AD flow into the market. The AD earned from RAD has less value. However the AD earned from the Zen exchange increases with the inflation. You always get the same relative value, which is high. I mean, with 10$ you can get 500k AD. 500k AD is an amount you would make in a few weeks of gameplay as a new player. And this game rarely has 10$ spenders. It has whales that buy all the packs and spend hundreds of dollars for AD. The new player is stuck behind...
Another issue is that Neverwinter is competitive by nature; but the competition is purely between individual players and not groups. You join Dungeons, Skirmishes and PvPs with random players and compare yourself to them. If you're geared well, you'd do well. If you aren't geared well, you'll get kicked in Dungeons when the party dies, you'll die a lot (or won't be able to kill anything) in PvP, and basically feel useless as a player. With other games, Guilds often have reasons to actually help their members gear up other than "good will", because Guilds compete one against another, not simply player X vs player Y. In Neverwinter there's 0 modes for guilds to compete one against another, and gain fame or other things by being successful as a group. So Neverwinter doesn't care about synergies between players in groups or their skills, it cares about how player X is geared compared to player Y. And often guild members are forced to care about themselves and not about guildies because of this reason. The 18k-20k players have no reason at all to spare their additional enchantments or AD for newer members, not only that, they have a reason NOT to do so- they will be stuck behind in the next module if they don't invest everything in their non-ending boon/artifact grinding.
Anyway, to sum it up, I think Neverwinter is a fun game to play non-competitively, it's great if you're playing it with a constant party, but for competitive players, it feels to me like the game encourages you - and only yourself - to gear up, get better and better and better, basically a power creep, that new players have a hard time keeping up with.
I really wish some new Mod 4 or Mod 3 player will quote this post and say "You're wrong with your post, because I joined no more than 3 months ago and I have no problem at all competing with others with no Zen involved".
Yeah I don't really understand it. I spent some money (nothing compared to the whales but enough for a few standalone games) and spent a lot of time and ad on long term investments. However as an old player I got more opporunities that aren't avialable now. The amount you can make from farming has done down a lot, though I imagine you can still make AD from dragon hoard enchants, but you may prefer to actually use that rp for artifact weapons anyway. Getting a split on 2 crown artifacts may have helped too :P.
Completely agree with your entire post. Started to play again after some time away from the game and, to me, it felt like i didn't matter either in dungeons and specially in PVP. I'm not against character progession and better stats for better gear and etc... but gating every single step foward into an RNG and some tremendous type of grind just to extend the expansions time is pretty sad in my opinion and shows that beign this the third game done by cryptic they would have learned a thing or two about quality of gameplay.
myowmyow, I hate to break it to you, but that video was directed to us, the players, just as much if not more than to other developers. Those in the industry, and certainly the companies that have hundreds of such people, understand the dynamics and economics of F2P. What they really need is to change the mentality of the players of F2P games. The current proven and easier model is to make the most money off the whales during the height of the game's popularity. The model where you try to make more money off a wider percentage of your players over a much longer period of time is now much more difficult.
In short, this belief that the video contains some profound revelation that none of these companies know about, is ridiculous. It is as obvious as the sun that you need to focus on the average player to keep your game going. After all, by definition, the average player forms the majority of your player base. However, if focusing on the average player means sacrificing a large chunk of immediate revenue in hopes for longer term returns, is that economically sensible? How can you be sure all your efforts will make a difference, when the next big F2P game is only months away? The question then becomes, is it worth the risk? Remember, F2P is all about low barrier to entry. It's free to try! They are keenly aware that they need to focus on the average players, but also needs to strike a balance between that and "leaving too much money on the table."
Having said all that, it is true that they have made some changes that screams "We know the height of popularity of this game is in the past and we don't believe it is possible for us to get any where near that peak again. Let's focus on ways to increase our revenue through other means." Like making coffers BOP and lowering chance of getting coalescent ward from them. I too think it is too much that they are trying to force people to buy coalescent wards when they are $10 a pop.
1. Get 3 or 4 lesser dragon hoard enchants. Equip them into every utility slot that you have.
2. Do a farming foundry.
3. You will get a black opal. Sell for 10k.
4. Repeat.
Non-issue. New players have it easier in every aspect except PvP. Only PvP is more hostile to new players.
Dungeons are easier. Artifacts, Boons, and Companion bonuses didn't exist back then. No reinforcement patches for our armor either. People are running the same dungeons with higher gear scores. That's easier, not harder. Even if a new player doesn't have all that, someone they are running with likely does. Making the run easier than it was for us back then. Not saying it was hard then. Just easier now.
AD is everywhere. Because of 'bad stuff' there is still more than their should be in the economy. Raises prices. On the other hand (because of the high prices), players are getting more for the stuff they do sell. And with the new Fey/Hoard enchants players can get stuff to sell from anywhere. Heck (as point pointed out) you could run foundries just to make money farming black opals if you wanted. Might not be the most efficient thing to do, but you would make AD doing it. Also salvage didn't exist back then. That's why so many used leadership. To me this either makes the game easier, or balances it out. Certainly not harder.
Is there room for improvement? Yes! Low level PvP for example is completely skewed towards twinks. And I also agree that they focus to much on big spenders. Instead of those that want to spend a little every month or two. But you have to understand what is going on before you see what actually needs to be improved. And if you even slightly think that the game is harder for new players than it was for old... then you don't see the big picture.
As for this...
Why is that "terrible" as you say? What part of spending a lot time should make them a good player? I'm not saying spending money should make you better either. Its more a matter of what you do with either.
They say hindsight is 20/20. Its easy to look at stuff that's already happened and say what should have been done instead. Even easier to look around and list off all the stuff that's broken. Imo opinion what the company needs is suggestions. Not long drawn out posts about what is terrible with the game with no idea on how to fix them.
Ok, so I don't look completely hypocritical with the previous paragraph I'll throw out a few suggestions for Cryptic:
1. Low level PvP. I don't know enough about PvP in Neverwinter. What I do know is that if you want balance (not sure you do), then you have to control the stats. Rank 10s in a low level match is not control. There are many ways control could be maintained. Adding mandatory PvP sets with no sockets. Scaling all enchants to a certain point. Having PvP specific enchants. Whatever you do to add balance, just remember to maintain a feeling of progression. Such as adding onto the PvP campaign.
2. Dailies. Personally I love doing dailies. But even I see there are just to many of them now. Trim then down a little. ToD for example. Instead of having a character go to all 5 Zones each day. Have them go to 2 of the 5. Or let the player pick. Double/Triple the rewards, but you only get the daily quests for the first two areas you visit. This will tone down the burn out people are feeling.
3. Zen Shop. Ugh... My point of view: Ok, so I like free games. My income is erratic at best. One month I might have $200 to spend, another I might be broke. More than likely I have a little to spend. The biggest problem I see is you focus way to much on random packs. These are for whales. They are the only ones who have the money to buy enough of these to ensure that they get what they want from the RNG stuff.
You need stuff to buy at lower price points ($1, $5, $10, and $20) that isn't random. It doesn't have to be the best stuff in the world. But it needs to be worth it, and not random. People that only have $10 to spend, don't want to spend that $10 and not get what they wanted. There are a few things in there like dye-packs, but there could be so much more.
-Stuff like fashion sets. You guys actually make some great sets. But the good ones are all stuck in packs, or bought with tradebars. Put some (of the good ones) in the shop too.
-Another thing is the campaigns. You charge $50 to just be done with a campaign. Basically we pay you to not play your game. Why not put a low cost option to just reset the dailies on a campaign. So we can instead pay you to play through an area a couple extra times a day, if we want.
There are so many possibilities. I'm not going to list them all. My basic suggestion is this. Put low cost non-rng stuff in the shop so those with lower incomes have a way to contribute to the game and be rewarded as well.
Players in the East have fun with their games. Players in the West think they own the games but in fact they don't spend a penny to develop anything and are entitled to nothing. They are just freeloading and hoping to get everything free and under their control. No Western game developers will be foolish to spend millions, if not tens of millions, and years to develop a game only to suffer all the loss.
The smart game developers all take a short term approach. Most games still run after 3 years, just not as good as the first couple of years... or better yet, just publish other people's game so they don't have to waste money on another Titan or Copernicus.
Anyway, to your point, you said that Dungeons are easier and because of that it is now easier for new players than it was back then.
Yes, dungeons are easier. It's not even that difficult to get a T2 set (though you feel like a freeloader when you try to get it). But it doesn't really matter. T2 sets aren't really as relevant as they were before. In what situation would you rather be as a new player:
Easy to get 9k GS when the high ends run at 11k-12k, maybe MAX 13k; OR Easy to get 12k GS when the high ends run at 22k?
I understand there are ways of making money that weren't available back then, like Salvage, Dragon hoard, etc. But it's not like new players will make most of their AD from selling stuff, we agree on that, right? I mean, it would take a while (maybe a few weeks) until they could get a farming enchantment and, and even then, if they focus on just pure monster killing farming, it would take them weeks or months to get 500k AD. Something you can get in 1 click.
As for Salvage, even though RAD is the most consistent way of income, it is still capped at 24k a day while some items sell for 6m. Yes, New players have more ways of getting AD right now; But the amount of AD they make relative to the total economy is actually lower. This means that if in the past you had trouble getting AD, but when you did get it was a chunk that wasn't considered "low" in the economy, it was still better than accumulating peanuts, which is what new players get right now.
What I'm trying to say is, it's easier to get an absolute value of AD currently then it was back then (For example: It's easier to get 200k right now then it was back then), but those 200k right now are worth much less than they were in previous times (because prices went up), which makes me say - It was easier in Mod 1 to earn enough AD that was considered "relevant" than it is right now.
Look, the with the current situation, the most cost-effective way of getting AD, especially for new players - is to purchase Zen and convert it to AD. I mean, in 1-2 hours of (real life) work, you could get something that would take you 2-3 months of in game farming. And the inflation from all the bots and bugs is what caused it. It wasn't that bad back then.
Another issue that I have with this game is that you buy Zen and can convert it directly to AD. In other games I've played there was no way on converting $ to in game currency. You could for example buy an armor set with $, then sell it for AD. This is the much better approach, because this way you flood the market with usable items - Which makes the prices of those items go down - which makes the economy better actually.
But in this game, the more time passes, the more it makes sense to buy Zen rather than to farm AD the "game way".
And I agree with all of your suggestions, but I think the game designers know what they're doing up there. I think those things are intentional. It's part of their model, and there's nothing wrong with that. You have to understand that "Satisfaction of players" may not be their ultimate goal. They definitely would want it, but it's probably not what they aim for.
The most hostile aggresive community ever existed on an MMO.
Inflation made the 24k ad cap ridicousloy small.
game has matured and the more "creative" ways of some of the forumers than now brag about LtP are in dust.I refer to glitch explotation and bug abuse in dungeons.(Valiant set one shotting,Stalwart Bullwark combine bonus,pushing adds in cliffs et etc....)
The gap has been broadered by a large margin.A forumer sum it up very well.back then the new player was at 9k gs and the veteran at 12k gs.
Now it is 9k gs and the veteran at 21k gs.
What is most annoying is the fact that if you go in higher gs it is more easy to make money-AD.A 18k gs toon can farm elol or sot and get richer.What a 9k gs can farm?CT?
The game remains challenging if you do not have one class in your side-CW.Most of the braggers about "ah content is too easy" are pew pew CWs.If you are not a CW and you are a TR at 9k gs then man you are really really in bad spot.
PVP is hostile to any normal newcomer.There is a very small percentage of players that will endure the abuse trash talking of the NW pvp community.Leap slam(now cannot be done) 1vs 1 trap etc etc..false node exchange offers...
There is an extra factor in NW that makes things alittle bit more difficult than other MMOs.You play Counterstrike.You suck.No prob.It is not a core roleplaying game or at least it was not advertized as such.While NW is in part(or tries ) an RPG game.Wizards of the coast licenced.That means that in NW come folks that want to roleplay.
They make to 60s they try the proffesions they ride to their level1 mount when they get it with pride.They paint their armors etc.They get emotionally touched to their toons more than in Counterstrike or shooter MMo for example.And then bang! they try to enter the dungeons with thier 9k beloved gs.
^^^^
What did they get?Kicking bad words trash talking frustration .
Some might even go to try pvp.........i stop here....
NW as said is more competitive than many other MMOs out there.Combine this with the challenges a newcomer faces ,the inflation.
NW as a whole game is hostile to any new player.
Most of the "experts" here that brag and say that getting high gear with a new toon are veterans that have many alts.The main toon of them farms and then using the bank (or mail in the past) give their new toons purple and R7s.
I ll want to see some of these "experts" to try to level a 60 from scratch.
So much misinformation.In order to get the sharandar boons you need one month minimum.
"hey do your campaigns and buy some blues and you ll be 12k gs in no time" .Yea sure...
No blues can reach you beyond 11k gs.I have alts and i know.
Some people write with ease spreading false information.Some folks read these and then try to do it.Ofcourse it is impossible.And then the folks thing that is something wrong with hemselves.Not that some delusional forumer wrote nonsense.
Edit:
I have a 18,3 GF.Not super gear but i think i am in mid-high level.I leveled a TR to get to 60 and the third boon in order to get the class artifacts.I know how much time takes first hand."1 week and blues" .lol....
Back then we couldn't change enchants without spending more in AD than the enchant was worth. I have alts, I levelled a dozen character to 60 without scaling gear or enchants. Yes, I use them now. But the pre-60 mobs didn't get any harder between then and now. In fact I recall them making them easier in a few spots.
Sharandar is bleh. It takes about 11 days to get 3 boons at Dread Ring. Trade your onyx for scrip. Don't bother with most of the dailies unless you are short on scrip. Do the weekly and the lair. I've done it in blues already on several alts I didn't want to bother with gearing. I did give them rank 5 enchants though.
The biggest hurdle to new characters is information. There are easy ways to get AD, both back then and now. They just have to find them. Takes research. Most won't bother. This was a problem then and now. Nothing new.
For example, you mentioned players not getting farm enchants or selling on the AH. They should. If they knew about them, they are easy to get. Blacklake skirmish during 2-3 bonus hours can max your AD refinement for the day. In less than a week you could have 3 lesser feys (30K each). Maybe even 3 lesser dragon's hoards (50K each). Now that its cheap to switch enchants you'd only need one set till you could afford more.
As for the game and their ultimate goal. Its a business. Every business has profit as its ultimate goal. Big spenders are a huge chunk of that, but so should be the majority of average players. A diverse income means a less chance of a total loss if something bad happens in one part of it.
That's just Steam. Given it's not the primary platform for the game, I would think the numbers would be a percent of the player base. I had to switch over to the Arc client to redeem codes.
Those numbers also seem fine. Concurrent active players is very different from weekly or monthly active players -- and a much, much smaller number. e.g. if everyone played once a week for 24 hours, the weekly active would be 7x, and so on.
"OTHER POSTERS: Please don't post statement that will get this thread locked. No condemning others, no threats to quit, no blasting the developers, etc. Please . . . "
That's just inviting trolls. Best leave that off next time.
"For a modest fee, player gets a chance to be the best and to have everything he desires without spending crazy amount of money or hours on it."
NO. One of the reasons I play NW Online is that it's free, and I really don't care it takes some time to earn items. Those whom will stay with a game long term are reasonable, and last longer than 3 months for an instant "level up and throw $200 at a game" only to rage quit they cannot win/ get everything the minute they want it.
"You don't need perfects, r10s, augments, and BiS gear. You want that."
Amen.
"People do have money to spend, but they have nothing to spend them on."
WRONG. There's plenty of items, and seriously if you have money to burn you can sell your purchased Zen, and stock up on consumables from the Auction House. There's plenty of ways to quickly waste paid for things.
Personally I budget better as I hardly can pay for anything with RL money due to personal finances.
So the rest of the posts go into debate after this, and it's rightfully pointed out that this is another "Why don't you make THIS game like this other game I play so it's more like what I already like?"
Well, it is it's own game. The random chance is far better than assuring only people whom pay RL money are guaranteed of the best stuff whilst the rest of us poorer people get stuck with the least useful items. I can put in a bit of effort to get as much as "Mr. /Ms. No SKillz But I Payz Fer Epic Stuffs". It's not bad.
If you have further complaints on a business model or suggestions for it how to massively change it perhaps the better method of comunication is to write Cryptic directly instead of trying to persuade other players on forums whom have no direct relation to making the game different.
Yes, the Devs can read the suggestions here. They are not in charge of the company though. It's like complaining to the auto mechanic how "Major Company" should better engineeer their cars to suit you.
"Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."
"Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
I agree with you to a point. But only so far. There are things the Devs can do. And there are things players can suggest, ideas for ways to do things they might not have thought of. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Or maybe the idea isn't even possible. Never hurts to toss an idea out there though. As for the other stuff. You kinda have to have a little bit of faith that the community manager (or maybe the devs) would pass along some of the ideas to the people that do have the power. At least some of the time.
I know, right? I don't understand why some players want every game to just be a clone of every other game.
This is a separate game from all the other games out there. If you want to play those other games, play them.
I would actually point out, to myself, that Neverwinter is #45 on Steam: http://steamcharts.com/top/p.2
That's a pretty impressive feat. It also puts the numbers in context. Portal 2 is #75 currently, but not the same genre. EVE Online is #112, also a free-to-play MMO, with an all-time peak of 3690 concurrent players.
Point is, again probably just to myself, the Neverwinter numbers are well ahead of other MMOs and popular games, based on Steam numbers. I don't think I picked a losing game. I also like the financial model and the ability to farm for AD->Zen as desired. It's truly not needed, though, which is awesome.
Selling items hasn't been that bad on the run-up to 60. I've found several things I can regularly sell for a surprising amount of AD. (In particular, various low level pots that always outsell high level ones.) Converting AD to zen is faster than it seems, too. It's never taken more than 18 hours. Then you can buy stuff for zen (although, only a few items are cheaper that way, save the items that can't be purchased with AD.
Totally disagree. For one, all the free-to-play games I've played the only thing you can usually purchase with money is the in-game currency (the equivalent of AD, not Zen, and then AD wouldn't usually be an earn-able currency). And you usually can't convert between the earned currency and the $ currency (although some games have that, which makes for a very robust economy if the devs control supply, but not values, appropriately).
For two, just being able to buy better stuff for money is generally considered pay-to-win. If everything you can buy with $ can also be earned in game either because it's available for in-game currency or because you can buy the paid currency with earned currency, then it's a far fairer system to those who have more time than money. (And, interestingly, balances fairness for those with more money than time... older, pay-once games often had a problem where those who could play 18 hours a day had a huge advantage of those who could only play a few hours a week, removing the fun for casual players.)
That's the goal of F2P games. Make the in-game currency valuable enough that people want to use real money. Normally, though, the prices aren't fixed, so if a bunch of people went out and used $ for Zen, the price of Zen would go down in terms of AD (more zen to AD ratio). With it fixed at 500AD==1 zen, that doesn't happen. It means fixed value farming (invoking, SCA, leadership) are all worth a fixed amount of zen.