I feel this part of the argument is invalid for the simple fact that we can buy almost anything in game with Astral Diamonds. Nothing in the Zen Store is unobtainable and as Zen:AD ratio keeps dropping, as it is right now (Just bought a nice chunk of Zen for 477 Ad per), Zen items will become easier to obtain. This just leaves certain Packs that still cost real money and even some of them are on the Zen market too. So, once most of the AD is gone from the economy, players will need to decide: 1) Spend AD on Sinks, 2) Spend AD on Zen, 3) Buy Zen with real money.
As it is now, with the prices as they are, when an average players does either 1 or 2, that leaves them totally broke to do the other. Instead, what should happen is an economy where players don't feel like they have to dump all their AD into one thing.
in the end every fresh lvl 60 will have BiS stuff since it will be dirt cheap and drop in piles, and then they will just log on to invoke(only f2p way to get ad since items are worth nothing) and do daily quests(at best)
only thing ppl will spend AD on will be zen to buy zen RP, then there will be 100 bil zen backlog and then cryptic can shut down the servers
the problem is that either items are gated by insanely low RNG chance or they flood the market since the skill/time gating for content doesnt exist, every derp can run any content in 15min tops for as many times a day he has time
so they added stupid refinement system so everybody isnt BiS the day they hit lvl 60
make hard content that can be completed 1/day/account and reward BoE stuff at reasonable rates - that should solve most problems with gear overflow
Personally I appreciate that you can get decent rewards from newer content. Since module 1, I was heavily disappointed in all of the content released because it felt stingy and unrewarding. In order to get t2 gear you need to spend ad or zen for a key anyway. I feel like gg should have been more rewarding in its drops and the difficulty of the raid reflects its reward. You do say it affects newer players and older content, but personally I felt they have long been past worth doing anyway. They're just old. You may have a point with newer players. I've long felt sorry for them way before mod 5.
As for artifact belts. They were stupidly rare for something that starts out as a piece of rubbish and requires a tonne of resources and effort to gear up. Had they came legendary as someone else already said or there was a feasible non costly way to level them up (ie from only xp) then something closer (though preferably a little more achievable) to mod 4 drop rates would be acceptable. Unfortunately it's highly player unfriendly and so the drop rates and values are pretty fair I'd say.
Since module 1, I was heavily disappointed in all of the content released because it felt stingy and unrewarding. In order to get t2 gear you need to spend ad or zen for a key anyway.
i got my t2 set without any zen/keys/whatever. then it just took a guild that can run the content, had a lot of fun then, it was challenging, we wiped, tried different ways to do stuff. now there isnt anything fun left, everything is just a chore, spend x min doing that daily, then x min doing that, then run HE at 0.2~1fps, dungeons are so easy that i can do them with any pug that provides cannon fodder, cw's can solo about everything
This is a myth. It never was the case. Your "average" player wasn't speed running CN to sell the Ancient drops. They weren't making money selling lockbox stuff, or anything else the "elite" players were doing to make AD. That's why the prices were so high on stuff last year. It's silly to think that something the "average" player can do is going to generate the kind of AD you're talking about. It just doesn't make sense.
But again, this is the smokescreen the elites use because THEY could make money doing that. If you ever see someone on this forum lamenting how they can't farm CN anymore for lots of AD, they don't care about the average player. They just want to see a return to the days where only THEY could make lots of AD and sell otherwise unobtainable gear to the average. They're the ones who want to see a return to this by-gone era.
The whole "oooh, new players can't compete" is just a strawman constructed by people who want to return to the days where the top 1% were the only ones who had access to the "best" and sold it to the everyman for big profits.
That's pretty much what I got out of the opening post and the subsequent "new players can't catch up" argument. The easy ways of farming AD are gone and (some) people want them back.
What we have isn't how I would have liked it to be, it's easier for me as a casual player to save AD and buy stuff than it is to earn it but that makes a degree of sense in a f2p economy. It's still better than how it used to be though as I can now obtain items that I previously viewed as unrealistically obtainable. Of course I have zero interest in catching up with the "old playerbase" (even though technically I am part of it) so my perspective on things is quite different.
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blazious11Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 331Arc User
edited December 2014
T1 drops from LOL killed T1 dungeons. T2 drops from Tiamat killed T2 dungeons. People can get full HV or AoW sets around 100k next saturday. Artifact Weapons killed MC, VT and CN. There is no reason, for going to these dungeons, even if you are a beginner at NWO. You can refine your 24k a day, you can get all the stuff from ah for 3 days refine, they're so cheap now. But you cant sell Vigh viziers cap for 800k anymore, to get some bonus AD. There is no way to get AD anymore, only with very high luck RNG, getting Tiamat artifact or lockbox epics.
But you cant level up your artifact equipment for free anymore. Dragon hoard enchantments were a really stupid way, to get rp. You could farm or bot foundries, which I refused, beacuse itS not what playing means to me. But at least I could buy resonance stone from AH, farming AD from T2, CN, etc. Not anymore.
Nothing has value anymore, just veeery rare rng (Tiamat artifact, lockboxes) and RP.
So, where does the RP comes now? From 800 zen bloody rubies?
The latest mods just killed Free playing IMO.
Remove t2 drops from Tiamat, replace them with some high value Rp items (no 1 lesser resonance stone!!). For example, a pouch of greater resonance stones - 1-10 r. stones in it - So you can get your gear up, playing the actual content, not botting foundries, and not buying those overpriced blood rubies. That's what, about 200 - 500 dollar cash for a legendary, or what?
More: Fresh People will not go to T1, T2, will not learn how to play with their charackters, just buy t2 sets right away, instead of farming it from dungeons.
My story is truly a grand tale! Of course, any story about me is going to be grand simply by virtue of the main character.
I feel this part of the argument is invalid for the simple fact that we can buy almost anything in game with Astral Diamonds. Nothing in the Zen Store is unobtainable and as Zen:AD ratio keeps dropping, as it is right now (Just bought a nice chunk of Zen for 477 Ad per), Zen items will become easier to obtain. This just leaves certain Packs that still cost real money and even some of them are on the Zen market too. So, once most of the AD is gone from the economy, players will need to decide: 1) Spend AD on Sinks, 2) Spend AD on Zen, 3) Buy Zen with real money.
As it is now, with the prices as they are, when an average players does either 1 or 2, that leaves them totally broke to do the other. Instead, what should happen is an economy where players don't feel like they have to dump all their AD into one thing.
Right zeb, in-game income is getting crushed, so if you want to have artifact items and/or decent stuff = enchants etc... it will require something supplemental. it is very difficult to farm significant AD now.
When ways to make AD dwindle, the prices tend to be low, which is what we have now. Cryptic does not want people to be able to farm and be come rich overnight. There is no skill-gated content in this game, it is all RNG because they cannot make content based on skill required because all of the "casuals" would quit, or at least they think so.
Of course, they've tried a bunch of other mistakes that have been made before in other MMO's and that didn't stop them then...
onegaki101Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 327Arc User
edited December 2014
I think the problem is the direction this game is taking. There is no need to create a party or even be a guild. All you do is run around and do HE. There is no max limit on number of players to do a HE, unlike a dungeon, so if a player is bad, there is no need to worry as there are 10 other people players what will pick up the slack.
It's good that new players have access to the gear and really, it was pretty easy before this via guild/legit channel to group up and do dungeons.
This new HE concept, and gear concept (artifact equipment) takes away the social aspects of needing a group/guild. Now, to get best items, I do not need to do dungeons or do anything with guild/party. I have to farm solo to get RP(doing it with other players means less RP as less mobs to get last hit on). So the game is promoting more solo play which defeats the purpose of having MMO.
The artifact gear is practically pointless for average/casual players anyway because they will never have enough AD to get them to legendary. It does not matter if you have a guild or not. There still are reasons for average/casual players to run old dungeons like MC; to get the artifacts that you can only get from there or have to spend millions of AD to acquire. The problem is that the drop rates are too low so even if a casual/average player obtains the belt/cloak combo (not impossible to do), they will never see the artifact that completes the set, let along get any of them to legendary status. The artifact refinement system needs serious work but many other areas of the game promote teamwork, like the lairs and Tiamat raid. The situation is not as dire and as has been pointed out, some very good things have come from these later modules. Probably the best is the drop in Zen prices on the exchange. Doesn't benefit new/casual/average players directly but it does have a perceivable effect as it causes prices in AD to fall for many desirable items.
The artifact gear is practically pointless for average/casual players anyway because they will never have enough AD to get them to legendary. It does not matter if you have a guild or not. There still are reasons for average/casual players to run old dungeons like MC; to get the artifacts that you can only get from there or have to spend millions of AD to acquire. The problem is that the drop rates are too low so even if a casual/average player obtains the belt/cloak combo (not impossible to do), they will never see the artifact that completes the set, let along get any of them to legendary status. The artifact refinement system needs serious work but many other areas of the game promote teamwork, like the lairs and Tiamat raid. The situation is not as dire and as has been pointed out, some very good things have come from these later modules. Probably the best is the drop in Zen prices on the exchange. Doesn't benefit new/casual/average players directly but it does have a perceivable effect as it causes prices in AD to fall for many desirable items.
forget legendary artifacts, getting my weapon to purple takes an annoyingly large amount of farming til i just decided to use my daily ad to buy peridots (when they were still dirt cheap ). getting my belt to purple? not even gonna bother so blue will have to do
The artifact gear is practically pointless for average/casual players anyway because they will never have enough AD to get them to legendary. It does not matter if you have a guild or not. There still are reasons for average/casual players to run old dungeons like MC; to get the artifacts that you can only get from there or have to spend millions of AD to acquire. The problem is that the drop rates are too low so even if a casual/average player obtains the belt/cloak combo (not impossible to do), they will never see the artifact that completes the set, let along get any of them to legendary status. The artifact refinement system needs serious work but many other areas of the game promote teamwork, like the lairs and Tiamat raid. The situation is not as dire and as has been pointed out, some very good things have come from these later modules. Probably the best is the drop in Zen prices on the exchange. Doesn't benefit new/casual/average players directly but it does have a perceivable effect as it causes prices in AD to fall for many desirable items.
As a casual player I disagree with your first point. The artifact weapons still have value at epic, just not their full legendary potential. I accept that I'll never get anything to legendary. It's a fair grind just getting it to that purple. I gave up refining "properly" at about level 26 and just bought RP of the AH. This may be why there's more purple gear available, it's meant to be used as RP.
Running dungeons for gear is pointless for the amount of time I play, except Lostmauth. They are still fun to play on occasion.
You're right, I will never complete a set at least not anytime soon. I don't even have any plans to try and get an artifact necklace at this stage. I've only just got belts.
Remember though this is a f2p game. The standard f2p business model assumes you're either spending lots of time or lots of money. Where money is a way to make up for lack of time. If you have neither or at least aren't prepared to spend then you need to scale back your expectations in terms of what you obtain of the time in which you obtain it.
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truelokasterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1Arc User
Remember though this is a f2p game. The standard f2p business model assumes you're either spending lots of time or lots of money. Where money is a way to make up for lack of time. If you have neither or at least aren't prepared to spend then you need to scale back your expectations in terms of what you obtain of the time in which you obtain it.
While I do agree with your point and especially your last argument, I think that the artifact "everything-but-underwear" madness have to be tuned down. Seems like it's a downhill road that is making a lot of old players lose interest and hope in the game. Investment keeps the game alive, and obviously you should have enhanced services for money spending customers, but in the current state a brand new player has no way to be competitive since even the big whales are struggling to be on top as there is are more endless grinding like the RP situation.
I think that it is funny that in Mod 4 the community asked for more BoE loot and that all the BoP stuff was killing the game. Now they have given you what you want all the BoE loot for T1 and T2, but now that is killing the game. The real thing these people wanted was BoE loot that is difficult to get so only the elite can farm and sell to everyone else. Be careful what you wish for because you might get it and when you do, you will no longer want it.
Remember though this is a f2p game. The standard f2p business model assumes you're either spending lots of time or lots of money. Where money is a way to make up for lack of time. If you have neither or at least aren't prepared to spend then you need to scale back your expectations in terms of what you obtain of the time in which you obtain it.
I agree with you, but up until this point, it actually WAS possible to do everything in the game in a reasonable period of time without paying money or investing hours and hours every week. As soon as artifact gear hit, that all changed. I don't have a problem with artifact refining being a grind and I like that there's something to do with useless gear that drops other than sell it. However, it seems the refining requirements are simply out of reach for a large segment of the player base and that had never been the case before. Yes, I could get an artifact or artifact gear to legendary if I wanted to spend absolutely every AD I earn on it, if I wanted to sacrifice campaign progress, give up professions which enhance existing non-artifact gear, give up upgrading enchantments, and focus all my attention on leveling a single piece of equipment and even then it will take a long time. And for all that work, if I decide I no longer want that gear, I can't even sell it to reclaim some of the investment I put into it. I can salvage it for a pittance or use it to refine another piece of gear that again, will have to have millions of AD spent on it and tons of time invested in it. It is one thing to grind dungeons over and over again for a single piece of loot that you want very badly. Even for boon drops, the developers recognized that the drop rate of books was so ridiculously low that nobody was able to get them except the elite players (and even they said it wasn't worth it to them), so they remedied the problem. There's now a viable and fair path to get the books. There's no shortcut for refining and it's simply out of reach. There's nothing like that in the rest of the game and it makes getting more artifact gear particularly unattractive.
There's no shortcut for refining and it's simply out of reach.
True with perhaps one exception, 2xRP. I never expected to get any of my artifacts beyond about level 40-50 and yet I have 2 at 60 and another ready to upgrade to 60. These are modest achievements for many here but I reached them as a result of 2xRP. The same applied/applies to artifact gear.
The first 2xRP event almost broke my will to play through farming, the second although a surprise came just before a planned (now) third that I'd been saving RP for.
It's another of those obnoxious but probably successful f2p techniques to have long grinds but offer periodic XP or whatever boosts. It may be the 2xRP becomes a slightly more regular thing.
Otherwise I don't really have a lot of positive things to say about the refining system in general, or at least the amount of RP required/value of refining items. It seemed like a great idea in theory to be able to use useless gear to upgrade something, in reality I stop using greens and blues after about levels 10-15 because it's such a hassle to micromanage and the gear is pretty worthless in terms of RP. Like much of the game, the influence of the business model ruins the design.
Things keep getting cheaper on the Auction House, which is a good thing. I personally do not think the Economy is in a horrible place at the moment. Yes, it does need to get better but the way for it to get better is not something the players can control. For what needs to be done is:
We need:
More cheap AD Sinks that encourage repeat purchases.
Cheaper costs on current sinks we have now for repeat purchases (mount and companion upgrades, transmutes, etc.)
Things to spend Rough Astral Diamonds on.
We don't need:
More AD in the game.
Once we have an ample supply of encouraged and cheap repeat purchase AD sinks, the Economy will get far better for everyone.
Then why the hell dont they put in what I've suggested several times already.
Put in potions of polymorph so if we want to look like a different race or even sex we can. You can put them in the wonderous bazaar
Things keep getting cheaper on the Auction House, which is a good thing. I personally do not think the Economy is in a horrible place at the moment. Yes, it does need to get better but the way for it to get better is not something the players can control. For what needs to be done is:
We need:
More cheap AD Sinks that encourage repeat purchases.
Cheaper costs on current sinks we have now for repeat purchases (mount and companion upgrades, transmutes, etc.)
Things to spend Rough Astral Diamonds on.
We don't need:
More AD in the game.
Once we have an ample supply of encouraged and cheap repeat purchase AD sinks, the Economy will get far better for everyone.
Everything is getting cheaper but RP is getting incredibly expensive.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Then why the hell dont they put in what I've suggested several times already.
Put in potions of polymorph so if we want to look like a different race or even sex we can. You can put them in the wonderous bazaar
Because what Zeb said is his opinion of a solution and not what the company stance is.
Additionally race changes were added... Thank goodness they cost a decent chunk of Zen though since that is NOT something which should be used commonly (IMO never)
Gender changes are not currently within the realm of possibility to add to the game without a large amount of work to inner workings of the code. At this time it is not worth the time adding that feature to the game. There are too many other things which have a bigger impact to justify working on gender swaps at this time.
The game runs the economy based on the exclusivity. The newest the item, more AD it'll be worth. But placing things for millions upon millions of AD will only make other players grind boring and repetitive dungeons trying to sell, at least, some items which MIGHT be useful to someone else. I don't want to grind for months only to get one item which will somehow benefit me in the longer run.
Items in this game become obsolete pretty fast, especially gear-wise, so I don't see what's the fuss about to have the epics drop from the encounters.
"Oh noes, everyone got a belt, nau I'm not speshul :sadwalletface: ".
I wish to see more content, not to see less drops and items which cost a small fortune to obtain. . .
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
I do not get the problem. Yes, now it's hard to "farm" content for AD. But also, you don't really need that much AD as things do cost less (you could sell a T1 item for 800k, but you also needed 5mil for an artifact belt... now you get far less AD for your T1 item, but also you get a top-tier artifact item for 3 days worth of refining).
I understand this means also that some "static" expenses (i.e. companion/mount upgrade, or stuff from AD bazaar) are overpriced now, but I hope Cryptic will put everything in perspective and rework them (they already did so for companion zen prices).
Yes the new module with the new gear made all the old weapons pretty cheap and worthless to farm for to get AD.
But there are still items you can farm to get more AD (at least 2) but if you can't see them you must be blind.
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
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vinceent1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,264Arc User
edited December 2014
what i am really worried, there will be enough players (from neverwinter online new countries f.e.) that will be buying that damned blood rubbies. so only option to refine will be hoard enchantment, that is 50000 rp = 99 peridots and his cost is 20000ad and little play, if i am not mistaked. but what i know it dont stacked, so cant be gather for double rp weekend
what i am really worried, there will be enough players (from neverwinter online new countries f.e.) that will be buying that damned blood rubbies. so only option to refine will be hoard enchantment, that is 50000 rp = 99 peridots and his cost is 20000ad and little play, if i am not mistaked. but what i know it dont stacked, so cant be gather for double rp weekend
lesser hoard enchantment is 34k RP, not 50k, IIRC. Other than the 20k AD, it "costs" 3-4 daily quests in terms of playtime (and some dragon coins, but everyone has those overflowing).
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited December 2014
Dial back the hyperbole just a bit guys.
Even at Blue or Purple rank, the Artifact Equipment is pretty much BiS for everyone.
It takes 42k RP to get to Blue. 571k to Purple. Yes, it's a whopping 4.6 million to Legendary.
But you don't NEED to get it there for it to be better than anything else is the game. But from what some people are posting here, you'd think they are totally useless until they're gold, which is simply not true. It's just a matter of "the best item" being "better".
Even at Blue or Purple rank, the Artifact Equipment is pretty much BiS for everyone.
It takes 42k RP to get to Blue. 571k to Purple. Yes, it's a whopping 4.6 million to Legendary.
But you don't NEED to get it there for it to be better than anything else is the game. But from what some people are posting here, you'd think they are totally useless until they're gold, which is simply not true. It's just a matter of "the best item" being "better".
Even at Blue or Purple rank, the Artifact Equipment is pretty much BiS for everyone.
It takes 42k RP to get to Blue. 571k to Purple. Yes, it's a whopping 4.6 million to Legendary.
But you don't NEED to get it there for it to be better than anything else is the game. But from what some people are posting here, you'd think they are totally useless until they're gold, which is simply not true. It's just a matter of "the best item" being "better".
true. i just wish that i didn't need legendary to get my defensive slot back
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truelokasterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1Arc User
true. i just wish that i didn't need legendary to get my defensive slot back
You nailed it sir!
And I'm still amazed with the "you don't need legendary" argument. Yup... Go play Skyrim and sit at the city's entrance on guard duty the whole game, after all "you don't need to be the Dovahkiin"...
Even at Blue or Purple rank, the Artifact Equipment is pretty much BiS for everyone.
It takes 42k RP to get to Blue. 571k to Purple. Yes, it's a whopping 4.6 million to Legendary.
But you don't NEED to get it there for it to be better than anything else is the game. But from what some people are posting here, you'd think they are totally useless until they're gold, which is simply not true. It's just a matter of "the best item" being "better".
It actually takes a lot of time or/and AD to level your equipment up to epic. Without paying real money, botting, buying AD from 3d party sites I mean.
M6 almost drains your soul given how boring it is. (c) joocycuzzzzzz
Comments
in the end every fresh lvl 60 will have BiS stuff since it will be dirt cheap and drop in piles, and then they will just log on to invoke(only f2p way to get ad since items are worth nothing) and do daily quests(at best)
only thing ppl will spend AD on will be zen to buy zen RP, then there will be 100 bil zen backlog and then cryptic can shut down the servers
the problem is that either items are gated by insanely low RNG chance or they flood the market since the skill/time gating for content doesnt exist, every derp can run any content in 15min tops for as many times a day he has time
so they added stupid refinement system so everybody isnt BiS the day they hit lvl 60
make hard content that can be completed 1/day/account and reward BoE stuff at reasonable rates - that should solve most problems with gear overflow
As for artifact belts. They were stupidly rare for something that starts out as a piece of rubbish and requires a tonne of resources and effort to gear up. Had they came legendary as someone else already said or there was a feasible non costly way to level them up (ie from only xp) then something closer (though preferably a little more achievable) to mod 4 drop rates would be acceptable. Unfortunately it's highly player unfriendly and so the drop rates and values are pretty fair I'd say.
i got my t2 set without any zen/keys/whatever. then it just took a guild that can run the content, had a lot of fun then, it was challenging, we wiped, tried different ways to do stuff. now there isnt anything fun left, everything is just a chore, spend x min doing that daily, then x min doing that, then run HE at 0.2~1fps, dungeons are so easy that i can do them with any pug that provides cannon fodder, cw's can solo about everything
That's pretty much what I got out of the opening post and the subsequent "new players can't catch up" argument. The easy ways of farming AD are gone and (some) people want them back.
What we have isn't how I would have liked it to be, it's easier for me as a casual player to save AD and buy stuff than it is to earn it but that makes a degree of sense in a f2p economy. It's still better than how it used to be though as I can now obtain items that I previously viewed as unrealistically obtainable. Of course I have zero interest in catching up with the "old playerbase" (even though technically I am part of it) so my perspective on things is quite different.
But you cant level up your artifact equipment for free anymore. Dragon hoard enchantments were a really stupid way, to get rp. You could farm or bot foundries, which I refused, beacuse itS not what playing means to me. But at least I could buy resonance stone from AH, farming AD from T2, CN, etc. Not anymore.
Nothing has value anymore, just veeery rare rng (Tiamat artifact, lockboxes) and RP.
So, where does the RP comes now? From 800 zen bloody rubies?
The latest mods just killed Free playing IMO.
Remove t2 drops from Tiamat, replace them with some high value Rp items (no 1 lesser resonance stone!!). For example, a pouch of greater resonance stones - 1-10 r. stones in it - So you can get your gear up, playing the actual content, not botting foundries, and not buying those overpriced blood rubies. That's what, about 200 - 500 dollar cash for a legendary, or what?
More: Fresh People will not go to T1, T2, will not learn how to play with their charackters, just buy t2 sets right away, instead of farming it from dungeons.
Right zeb, in-game income is getting crushed, so if you want to have artifact items and/or decent stuff = enchants etc... it will require something supplemental. it is very difficult to farm significant AD now.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
Of course, they've tried a bunch of other mistakes that have been made before in other MMO's and that didn't stop them then...
This game has no skill-gating, only RNG-gating.
It's good that new players have access to the gear and really, it was pretty easy before this via guild/legit channel to group up and do dungeons.
This new HE concept, and gear concept (artifact equipment) takes away the social aspects of needing a group/guild. Now, to get best items, I do not need to do dungeons or do anything with guild/party. I have to farm solo to get RP(doing it with other players means less RP as less mobs to get last hit on). So the game is promoting more solo play which defeats the purpose of having MMO.
forget legendary artifacts, getting my weapon to purple takes an annoyingly large amount of farming til i just decided to use my daily ad to buy peridots (when they were still dirt cheap
As a casual player I disagree with your first point. The artifact weapons still have value at epic, just not their full legendary potential. I accept that I'll never get anything to legendary. It's a fair grind just getting it to that purple. I gave up refining "properly" at about level 26 and just bought RP of the AH. This may be why there's more purple gear available, it's meant to be used as RP.
Running dungeons for gear is pointless for the amount of time I play, except Lostmauth. They are still fun to play on occasion.
You're right, I will never complete a set at least not anytime soon. I don't even have any plans to try and get an artifact necklace at this stage. I've only just got belts.
Remember though this is a f2p game. The standard f2p business model assumes you're either spending lots of time or lots of money. Where money is a way to make up for lack of time. If you have neither or at least aren't prepared to spend then you need to scale back your expectations in terms of what you obtain of the time in which you obtain it.
While I do agree with your point and especially your last argument, I think that the artifact "everything-but-underwear" madness have to be tuned down. Seems like it's a downhill road that is making a lot of old players lose interest and hope in the game. Investment keeps the game alive, and obviously you should have enhanced services for money spending customers, but in the current state a brand new player has no way to be competitive since even the big whales are struggling to be on top as there is are more endless grinding like the RP situation.
I agree with you, but up until this point, it actually WAS possible to do everything in the game in a reasonable period of time without paying money or investing hours and hours every week. As soon as artifact gear hit, that all changed. I don't have a problem with artifact refining being a grind and I like that there's something to do with useless gear that drops other than sell it. However, it seems the refining requirements are simply out of reach for a large segment of the player base and that had never been the case before. Yes, I could get an artifact or artifact gear to legendary if I wanted to spend absolutely every AD I earn on it, if I wanted to sacrifice campaign progress, give up professions which enhance existing non-artifact gear, give up upgrading enchantments, and focus all my attention on leveling a single piece of equipment and even then it will take a long time. And for all that work, if I decide I no longer want that gear, I can't even sell it to reclaim some of the investment I put into it. I can salvage it for a pittance or use it to refine another piece of gear that again, will have to have millions of AD spent on it and tons of time invested in it. It is one thing to grind dungeons over and over again for a single piece of loot that you want very badly. Even for boon drops, the developers recognized that the drop rate of books was so ridiculously low that nobody was able to get them except the elite players (and even they said it wasn't worth it to them), so they remedied the problem. There's now a viable and fair path to get the books. There's no shortcut for refining and it's simply out of reach. There's nothing like that in the rest of the game and it makes getting more artifact gear particularly unattractive.
True with perhaps one exception, 2xRP. I never expected to get any of my artifacts beyond about level 40-50 and yet I have 2 at 60 and another ready to upgrade to 60. These are modest achievements for many here but I reached them as a result of 2xRP. The same applied/applies to artifact gear.
The first 2xRP event almost broke my will to play through farming, the second although a surprise came just before a planned (now) third that I'd been saving RP for.
It's another of those obnoxious but probably successful f2p techniques to have long grinds but offer periodic XP or whatever boosts. It may be the 2xRP becomes a slightly more regular thing.
Otherwise I don't really have a lot of positive things to say about the refining system in general, or at least the amount of RP required/value of refining items. It seemed like a great idea in theory to be able to use useless gear to upgrade something, in reality I stop using greens and blues after about levels 10-15 because it's such a hassle to micromanage and the gear is pretty worthless in terms of RP. Like much of the game, the influence of the business model ruins the design.
Then why the hell dont they put in what I've suggested several times already.
Put in potions of polymorph so if we want to look like a different race or even sex we can. You can put them in the wonderous bazaar
Everything is getting cheaper but RP is getting incredibly expensive.
Because what Zeb said is his opinion of a solution and not what the company stance is.
Additionally race changes were added... Thank goodness they cost a decent chunk of Zen though since that is NOT something which should be used commonly (IMO never)
Gender changes are not currently within the realm of possibility to add to the game without a large amount of work to inner workings of the code. At this time it is not worth the time adding that feature to the game. There are too many other things which have a bigger impact to justify working on gender swaps at this time.
The game runs the economy based on the exclusivity. The newest the item, more AD it'll be worth. But placing things for millions upon millions of AD will only make other players grind boring and repetitive dungeons trying to sell, at least, some items which MIGHT be useful to someone else. I don't want to grind for months only to get one item which will somehow benefit me in the longer run.
Items in this game become obsolete pretty fast, especially gear-wise, so I don't see what's the fuss about to have the epics drop from the encounters.
"Oh noes, everyone got a belt, nau I'm not speshul :sadwalletface: ".
I wish to see more content, not to see less drops and items which cost a small fortune to obtain. . .
I understand this means also that some "static" expenses (i.e. companion/mount upgrade, or stuff from AD bazaar) are overpriced now, but I hope Cryptic will put everything in perspective and rework them (they already did so for companion zen prices).
Yes the new module with the new gear made all the old weapons pretty cheap and worthless to farm for to get AD.
But there are still items you can farm to get more AD (at least 2) but if you can't see them you must be blind.
lesser hoard enchantment is 34k RP, not 50k, IIRC. Other than the 20k AD, it "costs" 3-4 daily quests in terms of playtime (and some dragon coins, but everyone has those overflowing).
Even at Blue or Purple rank, the Artifact Equipment is pretty much BiS for everyone.
It takes 42k RP to get to Blue. 571k to Purple. Yes, it's a whopping 4.6 million to Legendary.
But you don't NEED to get it there for it to be better than anything else is the game. But from what some people are posting here, you'd think they are totally useless until they're gold, which is simply not true. It's just a matter of "the best item" being "better".
+1
Spot On.
Nail on the head.
I'd applaud if I knew how.... ;p
true. i just wish that i didn't need legendary to get my defensive slot back
You nailed it sir!
And I'm still amazed with the "you don't need legendary" argument. Yup... Go play Skyrim and sit at the city's entrance on guard duty the whole game, after all "you don't need to be the Dovahkiin"...
It actually takes a lot of time or/and AD to level your equipment up to epic. Without paying real money, botting, buying AD from 3d party sites I mean.