I guess I am just more laid back than all of you. I don't mind small incremental steps for improving my character.
Maybe its the different mindset.
Look, I wouldnt mid as much if the items werent SO much better than the alternatives. You cant even compare (for instance) the Formorian MH for GWFs to the orange artifact weapon, there is SUCH a difference in stats/damage and it will be even WORSE with the new OH coming which will give it a set bonus.
I DONT mind the items being rare. But what we have is NOT rarity, its pure zen for items...
I DONT mind if it DID take a long stinking time to level - FOR EVERYONE - without the zen short cut -but we have the zen shortcut.
They chose the worst of both paths there... Its NOT rare - nearly anyone/everyone who is 60 can have fairly easy access to the greens, so its not the artifact item that is rare. The fact that its easy to access and only (for the most part) actually achievable with the shortcut that ticks me off.
In a highly competitive pvp environment - that is slowly losing more and more interest BECAUSE of these "module specific items" that become obsolete, players are getting sick of buying zen for this stuff OR they are finding other ways of obtaining the items that end up hurting the economy and player base.
If this game wants to correct its mistakes here AMAZING items like this need to be gated behind CONTENT and not ZEN. Where the actual item that drops is more rare - desired and LESS difficult to "level"
I dont see how they can "fix" whats already been done, so the next best option is to introduce some type of system where its reasonable to USE/FARM Epic ITEMS to refine. All they are doing is promiting a bot-friendly environment currently by NOT rewarding actual meaningful play.
They can make RP stones Bound on Account and rewarded for every dungeon run. Id also like to see fun dailies that reward RP or even an "RP-Boost" Item that heck, you could even SELL FOR ZEN but it gives you 10x the RP when refining EPICS!
Win-Win. Then you could stash up epics, and use those for 50k a pop after buying a 500-1k zen item that boosts RP from epics for the next hour. W.E!
Just give us a VIABLE way to farm these things WHILE PLAYING the game, not PAYING the game. If you do that, MORE players will PAY because they wont continuously keep getting burned (Dragonborn legend anyone?)
g to lose players. It's real simple. Players are not donkeys you can hold a carrot to their nose and they'll just keep on chasing the carrot they'll never eat, while the paying customers drive a Jaguar the rest of us will never be able to own in any reasonable amount of time and effort
. In this module it was all very new and exciting and all that. So people tried their best at it, despite their horrible experience with IWD gear. But they can't keep this system of gear upgrading up forever. They need the casual players. More than they appear to realize.
Pretty much.
- non-paying players are CONTENT for the customers; you CANNOT afford to lose them.
- newcomers need to desire to remain in the game, they are the lifeblood of any MMO; at this point, they can come, try PvP at some point and probably leave after getting in a vs 20K GS match
Now, let's say you can get that Legendary weapon in 7 months. Some say, you gotta earn it, and I agree, you gotta work for the goodies (in the game...).
But there is a HUUUUGE issue.
This being an MMO, there are gear upgrades every 3-6 months or so. So by the time you will get your weapon, or belt to level 40-50 in refining, guess what, a better weapon will be released.
And you have to start again, without even being able to enjoy your gear a single week at maximum potential.
The "skipping" advancement far outweighs the advancement a player can make by playing.
I've done a little math based on my personal drop experience and by my calculations it would take over 7 months to level an artifact weapon/belt to legendary. 7 months.
And if they keep this up after that as well, they are going to lose players.
while the paying customers drive a Jaguar the rest of us will never be able to own in any reasonable amount of time or by any reasonable hard work and effort.
I snippet what you wrote - but I agree 110% with everything you put there.
1) The "Skip/Zen" advancement FAR outweighs the people who desire to actually PLAY the game.
2) 7 months on your calculations! When I was doing some math (couple weeks back) I had assumed a person FINDS 100 blue lvl 60 items a day, and it would take 2-3 MONTHS of doing that every day, and refining EVERYDAY (100 items!!) To get to lvl 60.... If that isnt ludicrous I really dont know what is.... Divide that in two (so 50 blues A DAY) and youll be at about 6 months (so our math probably adds up).
3) They have already lost players and dont realize its a downward trend. Lose players -> Less people to PAY, they make content require MORE PAY to try and increase revenue, lose more players ETC...
DEVs, compare population now to population 6 months ago, or 1 year ago... WHY?
4) "while the paying customers drive a Jaguar" - Yeah its this EXCEPT its a Jaguar that breaks down every new "module" and becomes worthless....
Its like having to buy a new car every single year, because the one you bought brand new last year doesnt work anymore.... Its WORSE than a phone, or computer, you name it.... Millions of AD required every 3 months..... DUMB
They'd cut their own throats if they did that. So they won't. Next up is a full artifact gear set. Then, with a little luck, some PvE content that requires the power gained from that set. And then will the new good gear come out. Basically the same way you go from T1 to T2, with the difference that it'll take you 3 years to go from T2 to T3(?) if you don't pay for it.
How can they justify this? Simple. You don't need artifact gear to get to 18k GS. There are already people with over 20k wearing normal T2 gear. You still have that as an "alternative". The real question is, will the casual players accept it? I honestly doubt it. I think most people will leave after hitting 15k-ish in their T2 gear. Anything higher is just out of reach and doesn't justify the work you have to put in it.
OK. There's this fear in the industry that making a game without enough annoyances will result in players not paying up.
NOT TRUE.
The Path of Exile experiment show that it is possible to be successful with a F2P Online game without selling ANY power whatsoever - just cosmetics. Catering to this niche guaranteed success - players in their forums asked for more opportunities to pay up! trust me, I've been there. "Take my money!". "Let me throw my money at you!" were not uncommon in posts there, because people liked what GGG was doing. So they wanted to show their appreciation and support.
As for 18K GS. It happens that my HR is EXACTLY there.
A bit of detail. I have a CW and HR that I consider "mains". I was unable to gear up both, so I chose the CW, which was my first char, which is now BiS gear-wise with 5 legendaries. My HR sadly has Mod 3 gear still, such as Purified weapon set and BI belt. I even cannibalized her enchants during the RP event so I can make a few rank 10s for the CW.
With all boons, and some Rank 6-7s, my HR is now at a very nice looking 18K GS.
However, fighting a legendary bow HR (at about same GS) showed me me how far removed from true competitiveness my HR is. After a few friendly fights, we decided to put Careful Attack on each other and spam Rapid Strike. The other HR ended at full HP after killing me - it was pretty much a world apart from what I could do, with the same build.
GS means almost nothing. The legendary items are incredibly powerful compared to any epic. The Weapon Damage and +4 Con/Int/Dex etc. make a HUGE difference to the point where you cannot fail against weaker, epics-geared adversaries.
So you see... the power creep is incredible. A single mod passed and completely made obsolete BiS gear from previous mod.
Conclusion:
There's no alternative for PvP but BiS, Legendary gear as of now. It is that, or fail.
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adernathMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited October 2014
I totally agree with the OP. I am here since open beta as well, and already gave up on this matter. Important for me are only a few things now. What I did is that I have purchased some zen here and there. And worked a bit on the AH, thats it.
I can only say that if you play decently (almost every day or a couple of times per week) as me and put your enchantments for refinement, you end up with three artifacts at around level 70 (or lower, like me when you also play some alts from time to time). Just by using the material you find on your way. The rest can only be achived with cash. I never used my AD for refining, because time-limited items or other things like the race unlock had always more priority for me.
Suggestions to improve NW:
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
- This can be done by putting a guaranteed Black Opal in each DD chest.
- Enabling RP stones to drop like "candy" in actual dungeons.
- Creating more "daily" quests other than "do 4 pvp matches", these could be non-bottable(or much harder to bot) things
LIKE: - "Kill 10 players while below 50% Hp" - reward is an "Pouch that has random RP stones or an RP consumable that boosts RP gained". Basically you can take ALL the "PVP-Boon Tasks" and turn them into smaller "Daily" quests that award random RP <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
- Give ALOT more RP for actual EPICS!
CONCLUSION: ALL of these things put "farming" back onto the player and enable them to reach Legendary artifacts with actually PLAYING the game.
2) Consumables
These have honestly gotten out of hand. With all the events and things, a given player can have 8+ consumable buffs - im not even up to date on all of them.
All of the added HP/damage/DR/Deflect/Crit etc, is PART of what causes balance issues. Consumables are a BIGGER factor than going from Rank 7s/8s to rank 10s.
CONCLUSION: People who wants the "no holds" pvp, have open world. Domination PVP should be stripped down, PURE player on player. NO "consumable buffs" NO "pets" NADA. BTW - Glyphs fall into this category as well BTW (but thats another issue)
Legendary items are fine the way they are. They shouldn't be that easy and fast for players to get without paying. If it was any easier, you'll have more people leaving the game as they'll have less things to do. Gearing up characters is a big part that keeps people in the game. If you've calculated that it takes 7 months to get an item to legendary. Well, it took me longer than that since I've started playing from beta to make my first rank 10 enchantment. So far I've only got 2 rank 10s, the rest are rank 9s on both my chars. I don't feel that I need rank 10s, just like legendary items are not needed, but wanted.
For PvP:
Mod 4 brought a lot of things that has destroyed PvP.
-Glyphs, blues are fixed, but now reds are still doing way too much damage. It is coz of these glyphs that even my 20K GS chars can die in a matter of seconds once I'm CC'd.
-Builds that are 1 or 2 shotting people. Some are being fixed, but more are being created.
-GF's KV. They're super annoying, the lagging the fxxk outta everyone's game. Pugs will also stand no chance against 2 GF's that are taking turns at using SoS.
-Gear. Why oh why did they make another enchantment slot for legendary weapons? As if the weapon damage and stats on the weapons itself are not enough.
What I propose:
-Stats need to have a different diminished return in PvP, that's including and especially Power and HP. Players with all rank 10s should have an advantage over someone with all rank 7s, but the difference should be a lot smaller. Someone with a legendary weapon should be only getting such a small gain compare to someone using an epic weapon.
-Additional Stats points not from Ability Scores should be halved. So someone with a legendary belt and fully potted up isn't going to do so much more damage than someone without them.
-Future Artifact equipments should not have anymore enchantment slots. I can already see the possibility in the Artifact Offhands to have an additional enchantment slot. Most people that can afford it, will be putting a radiant rank 9 or 10 in for an additional 260 or 300 Power, plus the improved stats and set bonus they'll received.
You see, the problem isn't going to be solved by making these items easier to get. Newer players will always be out geared. Instead gear differences needs to have a diminished return to balance PvP out a bit. If the difference is reduced, then less geared people can stay relatively competitive, while people who has paid for top gear are not being punished and still have a small advantage.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
Legendary items are fine the way they are. They shouldn't be that easy and fast for players to get without paying. If it was any easier, you'll have more people leaving the game as they'll have less things to do. Gearing up characters is a big part that keeps people in the game. If you've calculated that it takes 7 months to get an item to legendary. Well, it took me longer than that since I've started playing from beta to make my first rank 10 enchantment. So far I've only got 2 rank 10s, the rest are rank 9s on both my chars. I don't feel that I need rank 10s, just like legendary items are not needed, but wanted.
For PvP:
Mod 4 brought a lot of things that has destroyed PvP.
-Glyphs, blues are fixed, but now reds are still doing way too much damage. It is coz of these glyphs that even my 20K GS chars can die in a matter of seconds once I'm CC'd.
-Builds that are 1 or 2 shotting people. Some are being fixed, but more are being created.
-GF's KV. They're super annoying, the lagging the fxxk outta everyone's game. Pugs will also stand no chance against 2 GF's that are taking turns at using SoS.
-Gear. Why oh why did they make another enchantment slot for legendary weapons? As if the weapon damage and stats on the weapons itself are not enough.
What I propose:
-Stats need to have a different diminished return in PvP, that's including and especially Power and HP. Players with all rank 10s should have an advantage over someone with all rank 7s, but the difference should be a lot smaller. Someone with a legendary weapon should be only getting such a small gain compare to someone using an epic weapon.
-Additional Stats points not from Ability Scores should be halved. So someone with a legendary belt and fully potted up isn't going to do so much more damage than someone without them.
-Future Artifact equipments should not have anymore enchantment slots. I can already see the possibility in the Artifact Offhands to have an additional enchantment slot. Most people that can afford it, will be putting a radiant rank 9 or 10 in for an additional 260 or 300 Power, plus the improved stats and set bonus they'll received.
You see, the problem isn't going to be solved by making these items easier to get. Newer players will always be out geared. Instead gear differences needs to have a diminished return to balance PvP out a bit. If the difference is reduced, then less geared people can stay relatively competitive, while people who has paid for top gear are not being punished and still have a small advantage.
While I agree on most parts, I have to say, that the advantage of legendary items and r10s is already very small… in comparison what it costs to bring them to that level. Your suggestion already exist in this game. Whats the difference between a r7 and a r10? 115 stat points. That is around 1% improvement of one stat, not counting in diminishing returns. But the difference in cost is 30x-40x times higher for the r10. And you want to shrink the gain of BiS gear further?
The real problem this game has is, that it is a super casual game! You have to understand that. 95% of all players never really touch competive pvp. And of the 5% of players who do, half quitting after some months. Not because of the better gear of others, but because of toxic pvp behaviour of certain guilds, because of exploits (stat exploit, lb exploit, kicking exploid, immunity exploit … .…), worst queue and matchmaking sytem ever combined with class imbalances.
Its kind of irony of life that solving the gear gap is discussed by members of a guild who has so greatly benefited from major ad exploits. I dont shame or name anyone. Just saying, that let you think about the state of the game and how deep the pit of hypocritism is.
Legendary items are fine the way they are. They shouldn't be that easy and fast for players to get without paying. If it was any easier, you'll have more people leaving the game as they'll have less things to do.
Cannot agree at all.
New players need ways to catch up relatively fast. Less than 2 months, so they can enjoy BiS status/module.
This is needed because it will make PvP fair - for those putting the time in to farm it.
You cannot realistically farm 7 months, only to see your formerly BiS item obsolete now.
So there should be an EASY way of getting gear, but it should be going obsolete periodically (once per mod) to keep players in the game, farming, with goals to achieve.
Always keep in mind new players should be as geared as you in a 1-2 months - they NEED to compete, or they will give up and leave.
You have stated the problem yourself: Cryptic would not devalue the items of the BiS crowd, because it would be bad for their buisness model.
And I state again! It is NOT THE GEAR GAP between f2p crowd and paying costumers. The difference is not that big as you think. I have won with my unbuffed gwf against a full potted one, we both were equal geared. And full potted is equal to 7-8 additional r10s.
The issue is the GAP OF SKILL AND AMBITION.
Do u you really think a player with four weeks of playing expirience would perform better against a premade of players with over one year expirience if both had same gear?
Good gear is a factor for sure, but what the heck… 300 more deflection or power will not make a match less balanced.
We need a LOBBY SYSTEM instead of this stupid random queue system! And nearly all balance issues would be solved:
- no more stomping of pugs
- no more troll comps
- communication between teams BEFORE a match starts whats alowed and whats not
- leaver penalty would be obsolete
- better attitude of players because they are in control of choosing teir opponents and thus, better accepting defeats
- arranging of equal sided team just by itself
WE NEED THIS GAME LOBBY SYSTEM! Everything else is just cosmetic that will NEVER solve the balance issues between teams. Mark my words!
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
I'm simply reasonable enough to understand that the game environment is set up in a way that encourages people to do so
This.
If Cryptic didn't leave avenues open to exploiters, we wouldn't be having all these issues. Yes it's up to the actual player to make the choice of whether he wants to exploit or not, but honestly, if the choice never existed, there would be no decision to make. One very good thing about WoW is that the devs acted immediately if there were game-breaking bugs or exploits in the game. That just doesn't happen in NW, where they act far too late when all the damage has already been done.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
Its kind of irony of life that solving the gear gap is discussed by members of a guild who has so greatly benefited from major ad exploits. I dont shame or name anyone. Just saying, that let you think about the state of the game and how deep the pit of hypocritism is.
Since you've quoted my post, and I was trying to suggest closing the gap of gear. I find it very offensive at such false accusation that was obviously targeted at me. I'll say it again, I have not benefited from any AD exploits (except buying stuff on ah that may have been posted up by botters, such as stacks of rank 4s that I'm sure you have done too). I am an officer in my guild and did not know what you were referring to. If you knew anyone personally that had exploited AD, it was that individual's action and has no link to my guild.
Back to the topic. The difference between a rank 7 and rank 10 isn't a lot, but you can have 10 enchantments on you which are for offensive or defensive stats. Let's say you have 5 radiants in defensive slots for HP. The difference between rank 10s and 7s is 2300HP, times that by feats which increases your max HP, usually 9%. That's 2500 HP difference. But wait, there's more... armor can be reinforced with 400HP per piece for all 4 pieces, 2 very popular artifacts that people use give 1800 and 1600HP at legendary. Add all these up, someone BiS will have around 8000 more HP than someone with just rank 7s. Don't tell me that doesn't have a big impact, and which is why HP from gear needs to have a diminished return of some sort.
Power is the other stat that needs to be looked at. Most people are stacking power since most of their other stats have hit diminished return. Although each 300 power is not a straight 1% more damage on top, if you add up all the offensive enchantments (extra 1 for legendary weapon), artifact belts which gives bonus ability score stat, legendary artifacts which gives more stats, you don't need to be a genius to see there's a big gap here again. I haven't bothered spending time to calculate the estimate difference, it's probably around 10%.
And lastly, the difference between an unbuffed person and fully potted one is not very big. That's because most of the stats added have hit diminished return. Let me fight you with 7-8 rank 10s enchantments of my choosing, against you with no enchants. I'm sure you'll feel the difference straight away.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
Currently the PVE crowd probably does think things are fine the way they are. From a PVE perspective, id probably agree with them based on the main factor that BIS gear is NOWHERE NEAR required to PVE.
Running T1/T2 dungeons is a CAKE walk and whats worse about PVE is the BIS gear isnt even farmed through dungeons but from farming Epic HEs... Do you need all rank 10s to farm ANY PVE content if you have R8s even? NO! Not at ALL!
In fact when I had to "cannibalize" my GWF to afford a Legendary artifact on my GF, I put rank 7s on him and saw almost ZERO decrease in PVE "effectiveness" because whats a few % less damage? almost nothing! Whats the difference between a Legendary MainHand versus the Epic ones? A few % more damage? and room for another offensive slot? Thats MINIMAL!
But here is the big issue:
PVP:
In PVP, every little bit counts when you are striving to be a competitive player. Sure talking about 100 stat points here or there doesnt make a big difference, but it actually does!
Why?
Because when you are able to hit "minimum threshholds" it opens more stat options. take for instance Life Steal, this was hardly EVER used prior to this module (I know some builds that used it, but overall not alot). Why is it SO much more popular now? Because players are able to much more easily afford things like 2k armor pen, 1500 crit without LOSING stats.
With all the boons, consumables, and now even armor kits to boost stats more, players are able to get 1k+ lifesteal without REALLY giving up much. In the past they always had a give and take, where a player had to carefully weigh his options....
With such sever diminishing returns on stats, players can "soft cap" MUCH more stats. This is why things LIKE artifact equipment make such a big deal.
The advantage of 2 offensive slots + the weapon damage for MH, the +4 Con for PVP?! Those are HUGE as they allow players to push stats further to those diminishing returns (soft caps) and then start stacking other areas (like lifesteal).
THATS the issue with artifact equipment. A player with no legendaries and no consumables may have similar stats, in 90% of the areas, but could be missing a very drastic stat.... Like another 1k lifesteal is HUGE...
Making these items not farmable by playing the game, only FORCES players to buy and just being brutally honest, I really doubt most PVPers are buying zen, but probably 3rd party.... So its not like they are increasing profits by having this "zen to win" feature.
All its doing is pissing players off (like me) who try and do all this by PLAYING the game, who CANT keep up with the massive AD required each module unless I do want to pay to stay competitive... Thats what is pissing me off, is after spending alot of money on this game buying zen (you can check my history PWE) I am not able to keep up with new modules because things that WERE required in the past to PVP are obsolete and have zero "re-sell" value (like a R10 encahnts has). A perfect example of this is Emblem which was REQUIRED to PVP module 2, now it just takes up space in my bank.... 10mil+ down the drain....
I guess an easy way to make players happy with regards to that would be allowing you to use orange artifacts to COMPLETELY level either new artifacts OR artifact equipment. Then youd see MUCH less of a "cost per module" increase since players can much more easily cannibalize obsolete artifacts to get new orange equipment. Why not? I mean players paid a TON of AD to level something to orange, if they want to "exchange" it for a "newer" one because their build changed.....
I agree that the reward for playing the game should be a lot greater than what it is now. Drop rates of everything needs to be increased.
-Dragon Hoard's Enchantments - let's say an average person has 4% chance of this enchantment dropping refining stones. I've been trying to run with 4% to do dailies, both the drop rate and quality have been quite disappointing. I had 6% at one point, and I was seeing better quality, but not quite enough to justify using it, so I ended up selling 1 of my dragon's hoard. My point is, upping the drop rates and quality of this enchantment isn't going to ruin business for NW, there will still be botters regardless to abuse them, but at least players that want to farm can feel more rewarded.
-Dungeons - I also think rewards should be better. Bosses from lair of lostmauth drop drake seals etc, well that's a good start, but how about make them have a relatively good chance to drop better things that can help players a bit more, ie refining stones which most players need right now.
-Artifact belt - We all know how bad the drop rates of these things are. Like come on, it's not going to hurt the players if they're easier to get, they'll still need to refine it after all.
-Existing Artifacts - I agree if you use a legendary artifact as RP, it should give more than what it currently does. Maybe not 1:1 ratio, but something close to that. Although I don't see this will ever change as they need to make the AD sink once a player has spent it on their bound items.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
I agree that the reward for playing the game should be a lot greater than what it is now. Drop rates of everything needs to be increased.
-Dragon Hoard's Enchantments - let's say an average person has 4% chance of this enchantment dropping refining stones. I've been trying to run with 4% to do dailies, both the drop rate and quality have been quite disappointing. I had 6% at one point, and I was seeing better quality, but not quite enough to justify using it, so I ended up selling 1 of my dragon's hoard. My point is, upping the drop rates and quality of this enchantment isn't going to ruin business for NW, there will still be botters regardless to abuse them, but at least players that want to farm can feel more rewarded.
-Dungeons - I also think rewards should be better. Bosses from lair of lostmauth drop drake seals etc, well that's a good start, but how about make them have a relatively good chance to drop better things that can help players a bit more, ie refining stones which most players need right now.
-Artifact belt - We all know how bad the drop rates of these things are. Like come on, it's not going to hurt the players if they're easier to get, they'll still need to refine it after all.
-Existing Artifacts - I agree if you use a legendary artifact as RP, it should give more than what it currently does. Maybe not 1:1 ratio, but something close to that. Although I don't see this will ever change as they need to make the AD sink once a player has spent it on their bound items.
You know what IS hurting Cryptic/PWEs pocket? When the items are so grueling to get by playing, it forces players to buy to get, when they buy, the item becomes worthless next module when its nerfed and more is brought to the table, the player then decides again if they want to stay competitive and pay, or fall by the wayside. This causes players to get fed up and leave the game.
Another thing that hurts the game is lack of core DUNGEON running in PVE. To date, the "toughest" dungeon has always been Castle Never. This was seen as the pinnacle of PVE and farmed for over a YEAR for drops... Whats the best thing they have come up with since? a Dungeon that takes 15 minutes that can be PUGed and doesnt drop anything rewarding...
Another thing that hurts this game is PVP maps and gametypes. when the game hit OB how many maps did we have? TWO for domination. How many do we have now? TWO.....
We had one form of PVP - Domination. How many do we have now? ONE - Domination.
If you want players to PLAY the game, want them to INVEST in the company:
1) Gear should be attainable via PLAYING the game (see discussions above - mainly the RP for arti equip). Players will and should pay for CONVENIENCE! Things like character rerolls, stat changes, dyes, mounts, companions ETC.
Having this "zen-required" gear (such as artifact equip) is REALLY lame and kills the desire to play.
2) Give us actual PVE HARD content that is REWARDING - aka GEAR drops that is BIS! Requires REAL coordination and work. Call it T3 or w.e, dont care. But drops should be GOOD and worth while.
You know what IS hurting Cryptic/PWEs pocket? When the items are so grueling to get by playing, it forces players to buy to get, when they buy, the item becomes worthless next module when its nerfed and more is brought to the table, the player then decides again if they want to stay competitive and pay, or fall by the wayside. This causes players to get fed up and leave the game.
Another thing that hurts the game is lack of core DUNGEON running in PVE. To date, the "toughest" dungeon has always been Castle Never. This was seen as the pinnacle of PVE and farmed for over a YEAR for drops... Whats the best thing they have come up with since? a Dungeon that takes 15 minutes that can be PUGed and doesnt drop anything rewarding...
Another thing that hurts this game is PVP maps and gametypes. when the game hit OB how many maps did we have? TWO for domination. How many do we have now? TWO.....
We had one form of PVP - Domination. How many do we have now? ONE - Domination.
If you want players to PLAY the game, want them to INVEST in the company:
1) Gear should be attainable via PLAYING the game (see discussions above - mainly the RP for arti equip). Players will and should pay for CONVENIENCE! Things like character rerolls, stat changes, dyes, mounts, companions ETC.
Having this "zen-required" gear (such as artifact equip) is REALLY lame and kills the desire to play.
2) Give us actual PVE HARD content that is REWARDING - aka GEAR drops that is BIS! Requires REAL coordination and work. Call it T3 or w.e, dont care. But drops should be GOOD and worth while.
3) PVP maps and PVP gametypes....
Well to be fair, they did try to bring in GG PvP and BID, which both counts as daily PvP victory. Depends how you look at it, it can be fun, or you can think it's dumb or bad for whatever reason. But they did try.
For pure 5v5 domination PvP, perhaps give them some realistic ideas for new maps that will not benefit certain classes, and not very likely to have bugs. This may have been done before, I haven't read all the posts, but the ones I've read were just suggesting stuff like Capture the flag, which I personally don't think works in this game as it'll favour some classes more.
Things that I think may work better would be new maps which has traps, lava platforms and fireball tunnels like the ones from lair of lostmauth.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
Well to be fair, they did try to bring in GG PvP and BID, which both counts as daily PvP victory. Depends how you look at it, it can be fun, or you can think it's dumb or bad for whatever reason. But they did try.
For pure 5v5 domination PvP, perhaps give them some realistic ideas for new maps that will not benefit certain classes, and not very likely to have bugs. This may have been done before, I haven't read all the posts, but the ones I've read were just suggesting stuff like Capture the flag, which I personally don't think works in this game as it'll favour some classes more.
Things that I think may work better would be new maps which has traps, lava platforms and fireball tunnels like the ones from lair of lostmauth.
Yes, they tried to bring GG which was fairly popular for about 2 weeks until everyone realized its a horse race. There have been many suggestions about how to fix it such as reducing the number of nodes, shrinking the map etc - nothing.
They tried to give us OW pvp and ignored MANY of the PVPers cries saying the companions completely ruined it. Also have been MANY posts about ways to fix this as well as MANY suggestions ahead of time about BETTER ways to implement OW PVP: Ignored
Not to mention PRIOR to Mod 3, I think ONE of the biggest topics on these forums has always been new PVP domination maps and even gametypes: IGNORED
All this is secondary IMO to what is arguably the bigger issues:
1) RP for equipment that almost HAS to be purchased - its nearly impossible to do for even a more "hardcore" player since there is no real way to farm RP in game.
2) Consumables have continued to evolve with each new event adding more to where its a ridiculous levels now. Ever since matchmaking/ELO went live, players will stop at nothing to get an "edge"... Thats what saddens me.
Not only is PVP heavily reliant on having the absolute best gear (Different between R9s and R10s is small, but difference between orange belt versus purple is MASSIVE) but also all the potions on your character as well.
Its all just RUINED PVP past the point of being fun.
So again, from a LONG time player, who has taken a huge break this module due to ALOT of issues, PLEASE address those two issues...
I don't think they will do a 1 for 1 conversion rate but right now its way to low, you get 40% back from a legendary.just one module later they give us new belts and mainhands to choose from. Its not reasonable for most of us to just switch legendary's and start all over refining them.
I would like to suggest they release new one time consumable item on zen market. player who use it on the artifact item will receive a buff for a certain time period. This buff will transfer all experience gain from killling monster in any 60 epic DUNGEON Into Refine points and auto fill up the artifact Item.
I would like to suggest they release new one time consumable item on zen market. player who use it on the artifact item will receive a buff for a certain time period. This buff will transfer all experience gain from killling monster in any 60 epic DUNGEON Into Refine points and auto fill up the artifact Item.
This is not a bad idea at all.
Ive been chewing on this and honestly they need to make more daily "quests" both for PVE and PVP. The rewards from these quests can continue to be AD, but also things LIKE zen or RP stones.
Things like this and we can have a rotation of say 3 of these per day.
Rewards can be ONE of the following:
1x Black Opal
1x Greater Resonance Stone
2x Aquamarine
2x Resonance Stone
3x Lesser Resonance Stone
3x Peridot
Things like this. So for each quest completed you have a chance at ONE of the above. Essentially with 3 quests per day you could get almost 40k RP a day just from quests. Even this would be LAUGHABLE when it comes to the cost to create an orange item. So this in TANDEM with the idea of 1:1 RP swapping works GREAT!
Then not only that, but TBH if you WANT people to buy items, ALL zen items bought SHOULD BE BOA - Bound to Account!
This means Mounts/Companions/Cosmetics etc. Bound to ACCOUNT.
Then you will give players a slow method of daily farming to earn a reasonable amount of RP each day (maybe add 3 PVE quests as well for another 30k+ potential) and then if they want to speed that up, they can purchase zen.
What this will do though is remove SOME of the advantage of 3rd party by being able to buy items directly off the AH and force people to buy zen.
PvP elixirs should be able to be purchased for glory (500-800 seems fair), and you should be prohibited from using other elixirs in PvP.
You should be able to get a flawless sapphire, with a low chance for black opal every time you complete a dungeon during a dungeon delve. This alone would encourage high GS players to revisit old content like Idris, CT, etc. during delves. Alternatively, make rp stones have a much better drop rate in dungeons and skirmishes, especially epic ones.
Add new daily PvP quests that reward you with 5-6 peridots or at least let top players from pvp matches get rp for their high scores instead of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> blues that AH for 100 AD, if you're lucky.
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It's ridiculous that the best way to farm AD/RP in this game is by going AFK in foundry. It does nothing to encourage doing dungeons and daily quests for campaigns that you've already fully cleared. In other MMOs you're rewarded for doing the monotonous tasks. Not in this game. You have to play with your credit card sitting beside you.
PvP elixirs should be able to be purchased for glory (500-800 seems fair), and you should be prohibited from using other elixirs in PvP.
You should be able to get a flawless sapphire, with a low chance for black opal every time you complete a dungeon during a dungeon delve. This alone would encourage high GS players to revisit old content like Idris, CT, etc. during delves. Alternatively, make rp stones have a much better drop rate in dungeons and skirmishes, especially epic ones.
Add new daily PvP quests that reward you with 5-6 peridots or at least let top players from pvp matches get rp for their high scores instead of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> blues that AH for 100 AD, if you're lucky.
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It's ridiculous that the best way to farm AD/RP in this game is by going AFK in foundry. It does nothing to encourage doing dungeons and daily quests for campaigns that you've already fully cleared. In other MMOs you're rewarded for doing the monotonous tasks. Not in this game. You have to play with your credit card sitting beside you.
Agreed with everything except PvP elixirs. Veteran players like myself and many others will have way more unneeded glory compare to newer players would still need the glory for other purposes. It will actually make players that can afford it to use these elixirs even more. I usually never use any elixirs unless I see the other team using it too.
The suggestions for the rewards are great. We will still never be able to upgrade anything to legendary using this method, but at least it will help people to get somewhere a lot easier. Encouraging people to play the contents is a good way to keep the game alive. Most people run out of things to do, especially in between modules, and the game dies down.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
I would like to suggest they release new one time consumable item on zen market. player who use it on the artifact item will receive a buff for a certain time period. This buff will transfer all experience gain from killling monster in any 60 epic DUNGEON Into Refine points and auto fill up the artifact Item.
Seen this idea mentioned loads of times now and I love it- I do pray that they will implement this as it would truly benefit the people who are willing to work hard the W,S,A,D keys - not the credit card warriors.
- Major Peachy Bottom * Gutbuster's Brigade -
"Last request - microtransactions for alllll old skins for zen/weapon appearance changes, 500 zen to make ur wep glow the color/enchant you want it... You will make more off that one item than any other zen item ever made." freshour
"beckylunatic" Gateway AH should have column headers to sort by buyout, bid, end time, quantity, etc. These disappeared iirc with the module launch. It's obnoxious.
Comments
Maybe its the different mindset.
Look, I wouldnt mid as much if the items werent SO much better than the alternatives. You cant even compare (for instance) the Formorian MH for GWFs to the orange artifact weapon, there is SUCH a difference in stats/damage and it will be even WORSE with the new OH coming which will give it a set bonus.
I DONT mind the items being rare. But what we have is NOT rarity, its pure zen for items...
I DONT mind if it DID take a long stinking time to level - FOR EVERYONE - without the zen short cut -but we have the zen shortcut.
They chose the worst of both paths there... Its NOT rare - nearly anyone/everyone who is 60 can have fairly easy access to the greens, so its not the artifact item that is rare. The fact that its easy to access and only (for the most part) actually achievable with the shortcut that ticks me off.
In a highly competitive pvp environment - that is slowly losing more and more interest BECAUSE of these "module specific items" that become obsolete, players are getting sick of buying zen for this stuff OR they are finding other ways of obtaining the items that end up hurting the economy and player base.
If this game wants to correct its mistakes here AMAZING items like this need to be gated behind CONTENT and not ZEN. Where the actual item that drops is more rare - desired and LESS difficult to "level"
I dont see how they can "fix" whats already been done, so the next best option is to introduce some type of system where its reasonable to USE/FARM Epic ITEMS to refine. All they are doing is promiting a bot-friendly environment currently by NOT rewarding actual meaningful play.
They can make RP stones Bound on Account and rewarded for every dungeon run. Id also like to see fun dailies that reward RP or even an "RP-Boost" Item that heck, you could even SELL FOR ZEN but it gives you 10x the RP when refining EPICS!
Win-Win. Then you could stash up epics, and use those for 50k a pop after buying a 500-1k zen item that boosts RP from epics for the next hour. W.E!
Just give us a VIABLE way to farm these things WHILE PLAYING the game, not PAYING the game. If you do that, MORE players will PAY because they wont continuously keep getting burned (Dragonborn legend anyone?)
- non-paying players are CONTENT for the customers; you CANNOT afford to lose them.
- newcomers need to desire to remain in the game, they are the lifeblood of any MMO; at this point, they can come, try PvP at some point and probably leave after getting in a vs 20K GS match
Now, let's say you can get that Legendary weapon in 7 months. Some say, you gotta earn it, and I agree, you gotta work for the goodies (in the game...).
But there is a HUUUUGE issue.
This being an MMO, there are gear upgrades every 3-6 months or so. So by the time you will get your weapon, or belt to level 40-50 in refining, guess what, a better weapon will be released.
And you have to start again, without even being able to enjoy your gear a single week at maximum potential.
This model is extremely flawed and needs to go.
I snippet what you wrote - but I agree 110% with everything you put there.
1) The "Skip/Zen" advancement FAR outweighs the people who desire to actually PLAY the game.
2) 7 months on your calculations! When I was doing some math (couple weeks back) I had assumed a person FINDS 100 blue lvl 60 items a day, and it would take 2-3 MONTHS of doing that every day, and refining EVERYDAY (100 items!!) To get to lvl 60.... If that isnt ludicrous I really dont know what is.... Divide that in two (so 50 blues A DAY) and youll be at about 6 months (so our math probably adds up).
3) They have already lost players and dont realize its a downward trend. Lose players -> Less people to PAY, they make content require MORE PAY to try and increase revenue, lose more players ETC...
DEVs, compare population now to population 6 months ago, or 1 year ago... WHY?
4) "while the paying customers drive a Jaguar" - Yeah its this EXCEPT its a Jaguar that breaks down every new "module" and becomes worthless....
Its like having to buy a new car every single year, because the one you bought brand new last year doesnt work anymore.... Its WORSE than a phone, or computer, you name it.... Millions of AD required every 3 months..... DUMB
OK. There's this fear in the industry that making a game without enough annoyances will result in players not paying up.
NOT TRUE.
The Path of Exile experiment show that it is possible to be successful with a F2P Online game without selling ANY power whatsoever - just cosmetics. Catering to this niche guaranteed success - players in their forums asked for more opportunities to pay up! trust me, I've been there. "Take my money!". "Let me throw my money at you!" were not uncommon in posts there, because people liked what GGG was doing. So they wanted to show their appreciation and support.
As for 18K GS. It happens that my HR is EXACTLY there.
A bit of detail. I have a CW and HR that I consider "mains". I was unable to gear up both, so I chose the CW, which was my first char, which is now BiS gear-wise with 5 legendaries. My HR sadly has Mod 3 gear still, such as Purified weapon set and BI belt. I even cannibalized her enchants during the RP event so I can make a few rank 10s for the CW.
With all boons, and some Rank 6-7s, my HR is now at a very nice looking 18K GS.
However, fighting a legendary bow HR (at about same GS) showed me me how far removed from true competitiveness my HR is. After a few friendly fights, we decided to put Careful Attack on each other and spam Rapid Strike. The other HR ended at full HP after killing me - it was pretty much a world apart from what I could do, with the same build.
GS means almost nothing. The legendary items are incredibly powerful compared to any epic. The Weapon Damage and +4 Con/Int/Dex etc. make a HUGE difference to the point where you cannot fail against weaker, epics-geared adversaries.
So you see... the power creep is incredible. A single mod passed and completely made obsolete BiS gear from previous mod.
Conclusion:
There's no alternative for PvP but BiS, Legendary gear as of now. It is that, or fail.
I can only say that if you play decently (almost every day or a couple of times per week) as me and put your enchantments for refinement, you end up with three artifacts at around level 70 (or lower, like me when you also play some alts from time to time). Just by using the material you find on your way. The rest can only be achived with cash. I never used my AD for refining, because time-limited items or other things like the race unlock had always more priority for me.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
1) Award RP for PLAYING the game.
- This can be done by putting a guaranteed Black Opal in each DD chest.
- Enabling RP stones to drop like "candy" in actual dungeons.
- Creating more "daily" quests other than "do 4 pvp matches", these could be non-bottable(or much harder to bot) things
LIKE: - "Kill 10 players while below 50% Hp" - reward is an "Pouch that has random RP stones or an RP consumable that boosts RP gained". Basically you can take ALL the "PVP-Boon Tasks" and turn them into smaller "Daily" quests that award random RP <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
- Give ALOT more RP for actual EPICS!
CONCLUSION: ALL of these things put "farming" back onto the player and enable them to reach Legendary artifacts with actually PLAYING the game.
2) Consumables
These have honestly gotten out of hand. With all the events and things, a given player can have 8+ consumable buffs - im not even up to date on all of them.
All of the added HP/damage/DR/Deflect/Crit etc, is PART of what causes balance issues. Consumables are a BIGGER factor than going from Rank 7s/8s to rank 10s.
CONCLUSION: People who wants the "no holds" pvp, have open world. Domination PVP should be stripped down, PURE player on player. NO "consumable buffs" NO "pets" NADA. BTW - Glyphs fall into this category as well BTW (but thats another issue)
Legendary items are fine the way they are. They shouldn't be that easy and fast for players to get without paying. If it was any easier, you'll have more people leaving the game as they'll have less things to do. Gearing up characters is a big part that keeps people in the game. If you've calculated that it takes 7 months to get an item to legendary. Well, it took me longer than that since I've started playing from beta to make my first rank 10 enchantment. So far I've only got 2 rank 10s, the rest are rank 9s on both my chars. I don't feel that I need rank 10s, just like legendary items are not needed, but wanted.
For PvP:
Mod 4 brought a lot of things that has destroyed PvP.
-Glyphs, blues are fixed, but now reds are still doing way too much damage. It is coz of these glyphs that even my 20K GS chars can die in a matter of seconds once I'm CC'd.
-Builds that are 1 or 2 shotting people. Some are being fixed, but more are being created.
-GF's KV. They're super annoying, the lagging the fxxk outta everyone's game. Pugs will also stand no chance against 2 GF's that are taking turns at using SoS.
-Gear. Why oh why did they make another enchantment slot for legendary weapons? As if the weapon damage and stats on the weapons itself are not enough.
What I propose:
-Stats need to have a different diminished return in PvP, that's including and especially Power and HP. Players with all rank 10s should have an advantage over someone with all rank 7s, but the difference should be a lot smaller. Someone with a legendary weapon should be only getting such a small gain compare to someone using an epic weapon.
-Additional Stats points not from Ability Scores should be halved. So someone with a legendary belt and fully potted up isn't going to do so much more damage than someone without them.
-Future Artifact equipments should not have anymore enchantment slots. I can already see the possibility in the Artifact Offhands to have an additional enchantment slot. Most people that can afford it, will be putting a radiant rank 9 or 10 in for an additional 260 or 300 Power, plus the improved stats and set bonus they'll received.
You see, the problem isn't going to be solved by making these items easier to get. Newer players will always be out geared. Instead gear differences needs to have a diminished return to balance PvP out a bit. If the difference is reduced, then less geared people can stay relatively competitive, while people who has paid for top gear are not being punished and still have a small advantage.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
While I agree on most parts, I have to say, that the advantage of legendary items and r10s is already very small… in comparison what it costs to bring them to that level. Your suggestion already exist in this game. Whats the difference between a r7 and a r10? 115 stat points. That is around 1% improvement of one stat, not counting in diminishing returns. But the difference in cost is 30x-40x times higher for the r10. And you want to shrink the gain of BiS gear further?
The real problem this game has is, that it is a super casual game! You have to understand that. 95% of all players never really touch competive pvp. And of the 5% of players who do, half quitting after some months. Not because of the better gear of others, but because of toxic pvp behaviour of certain guilds, because of exploits (stat exploit, lb exploit, kicking exploid, immunity exploit … .…), worst queue and matchmaking sytem ever combined with class imbalances.
Its kind of irony of life that solving the gear gap is discussed by members of a guild who has so greatly benefited from major ad exploits. I dont shame or name anyone. Just saying, that let you think about the state of the game and how deep the pit of hypocritism is.
Cannot agree at all.
New players need ways to catch up relatively fast. Less than 2 months, so they can enjoy BiS status/module.
This is needed because it will make PvP fair - for those putting the time in to farm it.
You cannot realistically farm 7 months, only to see your formerly BiS item obsolete now.
So there should be an EASY way of getting gear, but it should be going obsolete periodically (once per mod) to keep players in the game, farming, with goals to achieve.
Always keep in mind new players should be as geared as you in a 1-2 months - they NEED to compete, or they will give up and leave.
We don't want that.
And I state again! It is NOT THE GEAR GAP between f2p crowd and paying costumers. The difference is not that big as you think. I have won with my unbuffed gwf against a full potted one, we both were equal geared. And full potted is equal to 7-8 additional r10s.
The issue is the GAP OF SKILL AND AMBITION.
Do u you really think a player with four weeks of playing expirience would perform better against a premade of players with over one year expirience if both had same gear?
Good gear is a factor for sure, but what the heck… 300 more deflection or power will not make a match less balanced.
We need a LOBBY SYSTEM instead of this stupid random queue system! And nearly all balance issues would be solved:
- no more stomping of pugs
- no more troll comps
- communication between teams BEFORE a match starts whats alowed and whats not
- leaver penalty would be obsolete
- better attitude of players because they are in control of choosing teir opponents and thus, better accepting defeats
- arranging of equal sided team just by itself
WE NEED THIS GAME LOBBY SYSTEM! Everything else is just cosmetic that will NEVER solve the balance issues between teams. Mark my words!
This.
If Cryptic didn't leave avenues open to exploiters, we wouldn't be having all these issues. Yes it's up to the actual player to make the choice of whether he wants to exploit or not, but honestly, if the choice never existed, there would be no decision to make. One very good thing about WoW is that the devs acted immediately if there were game-breaking bugs or exploits in the game. That just doesn't happen in NW, where they act far too late when all the damage has already been done.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
Since you've quoted my post, and I was trying to suggest closing the gap of gear. I find it very offensive at such false accusation that was obviously targeted at me. I'll say it again, I have not benefited from any AD exploits (except buying stuff on ah that may have been posted up by botters, such as stacks of rank 4s that I'm sure you have done too). I am an officer in my guild and did not know what you were referring to. If you knew anyone personally that had exploited AD, it was that individual's action and has no link to my guild.
Back to the topic. The difference between a rank 7 and rank 10 isn't a lot, but you can have 10 enchantments on you which are for offensive or defensive stats. Let's say you have 5 radiants in defensive slots for HP. The difference between rank 10s and 7s is 2300HP, times that by feats which increases your max HP, usually 9%. That's 2500 HP difference. But wait, there's more... armor can be reinforced with 400HP per piece for all 4 pieces, 2 very popular artifacts that people use give 1800 and 1600HP at legendary. Add all these up, someone BiS will have around 8000 more HP than someone with just rank 7s. Don't tell me that doesn't have a big impact, and which is why HP from gear needs to have a diminished return of some sort.
Power is the other stat that needs to be looked at. Most people are stacking power since most of their other stats have hit diminished return. Although each 300 power is not a straight 1% more damage on top, if you add up all the offensive enchantments (extra 1 for legendary weapon), artifact belts which gives bonus ability score stat, legendary artifacts which gives more stats, you don't need to be a genius to see there's a big gap here again. I haven't bothered spending time to calculate the estimate difference, it's probably around 10%.
And lastly, the difference between an unbuffed person and fully potted one is not very big. That's because most of the stats added have hit diminished return. Let me fight you with 7-8 rank 10s enchantments of my choosing, against you with no enchants. I'm sure you'll feel the difference straight away.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
Surely Cryptic must make enough $ from lockboxes and repsecs to cover costs.
PVE:
Currently the PVE crowd probably does think things are fine the way they are. From a PVE perspective, id probably agree with them based on the main factor that BIS gear is NOWHERE NEAR required to PVE.
Running T1/T2 dungeons is a CAKE walk and whats worse about PVE is the BIS gear isnt even farmed through dungeons but from farming Epic HEs... Do you need all rank 10s to farm ANY PVE content if you have R8s even? NO! Not at ALL!
In fact when I had to "cannibalize" my GWF to afford a Legendary artifact on my GF, I put rank 7s on him and saw almost ZERO decrease in PVE "effectiveness" because whats a few % less damage? almost nothing! Whats the difference between a Legendary MainHand versus the Epic ones? A few % more damage? and room for another offensive slot? Thats MINIMAL!
But here is the big issue:
PVP:
In PVP, every little bit counts when you are striving to be a competitive player. Sure talking about 100 stat points here or there doesnt make a big difference, but it actually does!
Why?
Because when you are able to hit "minimum threshholds" it opens more stat options. take for instance Life Steal, this was hardly EVER used prior to this module (I know some builds that used it, but overall not alot). Why is it SO much more popular now? Because players are able to much more easily afford things like 2k armor pen, 1500 crit without LOSING stats.
With all the boons, consumables, and now even armor kits to boost stats more, players are able to get 1k+ lifesteal without REALLY giving up much. In the past they always had a give and take, where a player had to carefully weigh his options....
With such sever diminishing returns on stats, players can "soft cap" MUCH more stats. This is why things LIKE artifact equipment make such a big deal.
The advantage of 2 offensive slots + the weapon damage for MH, the +4 Con for PVP?! Those are HUGE as they allow players to push stats further to those diminishing returns (soft caps) and then start stacking other areas (like lifesteal).
THATS the issue with artifact equipment. A player with no legendaries and no consumables may have similar stats, in 90% of the areas, but could be missing a very drastic stat.... Like another 1k lifesteal is HUGE...
Making these items not farmable by playing the game, only FORCES players to buy and just being brutally honest, I really doubt most PVPers are buying zen, but probably 3rd party.... So its not like they are increasing profits by having this "zen to win" feature.
All its doing is pissing players off (like me) who try and do all this by PLAYING the game, who CANT keep up with the massive AD required each module unless I do want to pay to stay competitive... Thats what is pissing me off, is after spending alot of money on this game buying zen (you can check my history PWE) I am not able to keep up with new modules because things that WERE required in the past to PVP are obsolete and have zero "re-sell" value (like a R10 encahnts has). A perfect example of this is Emblem which was REQUIRED to PVP module 2, now it just takes up space in my bank.... 10mil+ down the drain....
I guess an easy way to make players happy with regards to that would be allowing you to use orange artifacts to COMPLETELY level either new artifacts OR artifact equipment. Then youd see MUCH less of a "cost per module" increase since players can much more easily cannibalize obsolete artifacts to get new orange equipment. Why not? I mean players paid a TON of AD to level something to orange, if they want to "exchange" it for a "newer" one because their build changed.....
-Dragon Hoard's Enchantments - let's say an average person has 4% chance of this enchantment dropping refining stones. I've been trying to run with 4% to do dailies, both the drop rate and quality have been quite disappointing. I had 6% at one point, and I was seeing better quality, but not quite enough to justify using it, so I ended up selling 1 of my dragon's hoard. My point is, upping the drop rates and quality of this enchantment isn't going to ruin business for NW, there will still be botters regardless to abuse them, but at least players that want to farm can feel more rewarded.
-Dungeons - I also think rewards should be better. Bosses from lair of lostmauth drop drake seals etc, well that's a good start, but how about make them have a relatively good chance to drop better things that can help players a bit more, ie refining stones which most players need right now.
-Artifact belt - We all know how bad the drop rates of these things are. Like come on, it's not going to hurt the players if they're easier to get, they'll still need to refine it after all.
-Existing Artifacts - I agree if you use a legendary artifact as RP, it should give more than what it currently does. Maybe not 1:1 ratio, but something close to that. Although I don't see this will ever change as they need to make the AD sink once a player has spent it on their bound items.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
You know what IS hurting Cryptic/PWEs pocket? When the items are so grueling to get by playing, it forces players to buy to get, when they buy, the item becomes worthless next module when its nerfed and more is brought to the table, the player then decides again if they want to stay competitive and pay, or fall by the wayside. This causes players to get fed up and leave the game.
Another thing that hurts the game is lack of core DUNGEON running in PVE. To date, the "toughest" dungeon has always been Castle Never. This was seen as the pinnacle of PVE and farmed for over a YEAR for drops... Whats the best thing they have come up with since? a Dungeon that takes 15 minutes that can be PUGed and doesnt drop anything rewarding...
Another thing that hurts this game is PVP maps and gametypes. when the game hit OB how many maps did we have? TWO for domination. How many do we have now? TWO.....
We had one form of PVP - Domination. How many do we have now? ONE - Domination.
If you want players to PLAY the game, want them to INVEST in the company:
1) Gear should be attainable via PLAYING the game (see discussions above - mainly the RP for arti equip). Players will and should pay for CONVENIENCE! Things like character rerolls, stat changes, dyes, mounts, companions ETC.
Having this "zen-required" gear (such as artifact equip) is REALLY lame and kills the desire to play.
2) Give us actual PVE HARD content that is REWARDING - aka GEAR drops that is BIS! Requires REAL coordination and work. Call it T3 or w.e, dont care. But drops should be GOOD and worth while.
3) PVP maps and PVP gametypes....
Well to be fair, they did try to bring in GG PvP and BID, which both counts as daily PvP victory. Depends how you look at it, it can be fun, or you can think it's dumb or bad for whatever reason. But they did try.
For pure 5v5 domination PvP, perhaps give them some realistic ideas for new maps that will not benefit certain classes, and not very likely to have bugs. This may have been done before, I haven't read all the posts, but the ones I've read were just suggesting stuff like Capture the flag, which I personally don't think works in this game as it'll favour some classes more.
Things that I think may work better would be new maps which has traps, lava platforms and fireball tunnels like the ones from lair of lostmauth.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
Yes, they tried to bring GG which was fairly popular for about 2 weeks until everyone realized its a horse race. There have been many suggestions about how to fix it such as reducing the number of nodes, shrinking the map etc - nothing.
They tried to give us OW pvp and ignored MANY of the PVPers cries saying the companions completely ruined it. Also have been MANY posts about ways to fix this as well as MANY suggestions ahead of time about BETTER ways to implement OW PVP: Ignored
Not to mention PRIOR to Mod 3, I think ONE of the biggest topics on these forums has always been new PVP domination maps and even gametypes: IGNORED
All this is secondary IMO to what is arguably the bigger issues:
1) RP for equipment that almost HAS to be purchased - its nearly impossible to do for even a more "hardcore" player since there is no real way to farm RP in game.
2) Consumables have continued to evolve with each new event adding more to where its a ridiculous levels now. Ever since matchmaking/ELO went live, players will stop at nothing to get an "edge"... Thats what saddens me.
Not only is PVP heavily reliant on having the absolute best gear (Different between R9s and R10s is small, but difference between orange belt versus purple is MASSIVE) but also all the potions on your character as well.
Its all just RUINED PVP past the point of being fun.
So again, from a LONG time player, who has taken a huge break this module due to ALOT of issues, PLEASE address those two issues...
I made a topic about just that a week ago: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?776211-Refinement-points-return-on-artifact-equipment
I don't think they will do a 1 for 1 conversion rate but right now its way to low, you get 40% back from a legendary.just one module later they give us new belts and mainhands to choose from. Its not reasonable for most of us to just switch legendary's and start all over refining them.
This is not a bad idea at all.
Ive been chewing on this and honestly they need to make more daily "quests" both for PVE and PVP. The rewards from these quests can continue to be AD, but also things LIKE zen or RP stones.
Some examples for PVP quests could be:
- Kill 10 enemies while below 50% HP.
- Revive 10 fallen teammates
- Earn 50 assists
- Win 3 matches
- Capture 10 domination zones
Things like this and we can have a rotation of say 3 of these per day.
Rewards can be ONE of the following:
1x Black Opal
1x Greater Resonance Stone
2x Aquamarine
2x Resonance Stone
3x Lesser Resonance Stone
3x Peridot
Things like this. So for each quest completed you have a chance at ONE of the above. Essentially with 3 quests per day you could get almost 40k RP a day just from quests. Even this would be LAUGHABLE when it comes to the cost to create an orange item. So this in TANDEM with the idea of 1:1 RP swapping works GREAT!
Then not only that, but TBH if you WANT people to buy items, ALL zen items bought SHOULD BE BOA - Bound to Account!
This means Mounts/Companions/Cosmetics etc. Bound to ACCOUNT.
Then you will give players a slow method of daily farming to earn a reasonable amount of RP each day (maybe add 3 PVE quests as well for another 30k+ potential) and then if they want to speed that up, they can purchase zen.
What this will do though is remove SOME of the advantage of 3rd party by being able to buy items directly off the AH and force people to buy zen.
You should be able to get a flawless sapphire, with a low chance for black opal every time you complete a dungeon during a dungeon delve. This alone would encourage high GS players to revisit old content like Idris, CT, etc. during delves. Alternatively, make rp stones have a much better drop rate in dungeons and skirmishes, especially epic ones.
Add new daily PvP quests that reward you with 5-6 peridots or at least let top players from pvp matches get rp for their high scores instead of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> blues that AH for 100 AD, if you're lucky.
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It's ridiculous that the best way to farm AD/RP in this game is by going AFK in foundry. It does nothing to encourage doing dungeons and daily quests for campaigns that you've already fully cleared. In other MMOs you're rewarded for doing the monotonous tasks. Not in this game. You have to play with your credit card sitting beside you.
Agreed with everything except PvP elixirs. Veteran players like myself and many others will have way more unneeded glory compare to newer players would still need the glory for other purposes. It will actually make players that can afford it to use these elixirs even more. I usually never use any elixirs unless I see the other team using it too.
The suggestions for the rewards are great. We will still never be able to upgrade anything to legendary using this method, but at least it will help people to get somewhere a lot easier. Encouraging people to play the contents is a good way to keep the game alive. Most people run out of things to do, especially in between modules, and the game dies down.
Have the gear and skills, but lack the friends to play with? Come and apply for Essence of Aggression. We have been here and strong since beta. (Immature, rude, and arrogant people will not be accepted)
Seen this idea mentioned loads of times now and I love it- I do pray that they will implement this as it would truly benefit the people who are willing to work hard the W,S,A,D keys - not the credit card warriors.
"Last request - microtransactions for alllll old skins for zen/weapon appearance changes, 500 zen to make ur wep glow the color/enchant you want it... You will make more off that one item than any other zen item ever made." freshour
"beckylunatic" Gateway AH should have column headers to sort by buyout, bid, end time, quantity, etc. These disappeared iirc with the module launch. It's obnoxious.