Nadia and the Blight Update

[HAG]

Also, how exactly do you test, tweak and make changes to balance a player economy without actually releasing those changes to the player base at large?

Things need to be done little by little, and their impacts felt, and adjusted for.

Have to agree on that one - even if i don't like some of the changes myself. I always found myself able to adapt any change and still have fun with HZ.

And come on folks - we really have Dev's that listen to us, compared to other games.

It's not a loyalty issue. It's a survival issue. Plain and simple.

Well sure, but ... without us loyal longtime players TG wouldn't exist anymore...


But to give my comment on the OP:
I think the change to nadia's prices was necessary. Thinking about it, i can't remember when i last went out to hunt for techcomps, though i constantly craft teched equipment and spells. I simply buy all tech-comps from nadia, as for me (ok, Ancient Dragon and/or AR 176 Biped) it's much faster to hunt those few silver than to hunt for the comps itself.

But maybe - pls read this, devs - it's smarter to raise the prices exponentially and not linear?
This way the Nadia-Prices for Starters could nearly stay the same, but t4- and t5-comps would still get tripled, as you intended.

[Seranthor]

Let me ask this, I see folks claiming this change with Nadia is a 'good' thing, what do you say to the NEW HZ recruit that CAN NEITHER afford their comps NOR find/successfully fight the mobs that drop what they need? Do you tell them tought titty?

IF your truly concerned about bringing new blood into the game the idea is to make it challenging and FUN, not make the prospect of looking for something as brutally painful as possible. I cant begin to list for you the number of players I have met that truly wanted to give HZ a chance and within a few short days or even a couple weeks finally threw up their hands in frustration and disgust and just said F*** it I give up. Most are now playing WoW, again.

It doesn't make a flying freak how many you can get to try the trial if you cant make the sale and convert them into ACTUAL PAYING CUSTOMERS.

YOU, as players AND TG, have to look at any change proposed through that prism and that prism alone... Will this change bring in customers or will it drive them away? THAT ALONE is what will keep HZ solvent and alive. In my most polite way freakin possible I'll say this. WAKE THE (censored) UP.

[HAG]

Seranthor, with all due respect, you really think the future of HZ should lie in players that want a fully teched equipment from the very start?

For my part, i say "No, let them go back to their comicshow".

[Salis]

Sometimes I really don't understand it.
A few weeks ago. It was all about We want more fluff in game, it may cost a lot, blablabla.
In my point of view: Technique Components are fluff. You can wear basic equipment. You want better stuff, you hunt for it or you pay up.

Nadia is Fluff. Sorry for those who tought techniqued equipment was normal stuff.
For all I care she asks 100silver for a Tier I comp, and 1gold for a Tier VI comp. It stays fluff.
This is all about instant gratification, if read several post stating that people who get pimped with lots of items, resources, plots, lairs, equipment and what not, usually leave the game much sooner, than those who had to make an effort to get it.
With Nadia getting more expansive, people who find a resource component can actually make a sale out of it. It will be a step towards a better economy.
I'm not for removing Nadia, unless we have a properly functioning economy and that is still far off.

[Vlisson]

hey my biped dont wear a teched armor, the jewelery he wears have been bought cheap from a player who changed his old t5 with t3 tech stuff to t5 techs.

i dont pay my hard earned money to nadia to get maxed equipment

the most things you cant get easy (look the discussion board) and i dont want to pay 300s for ONE t5 spell with 3 t5 techs

[Mearis]

Both my dragons and my primary biped are crafters first. My dragon is 59ADV, 100DCRA, and 61L/S. In Horizons I love crafting, love working on my plots or my lair. I would prefer working on my lair or plots to hunt anyday. I am level 100 craft, but still wearing my old T3 scales. Reason: I do not enjoy hunting as much as crafting, I do not want to grind up to 100 ADV just so I can get the comps for T5 teched scales. It took me an entire weekend and two evenings to grind and sell enough T5 gems to be able to afford the rest of the T5 resource formulas. If I wanted to raise adv I would have by now... my dragon is only 867days old. This is the one aspect of the patch I do not want to see go off of blight to Chaos or Order.

[Varraven]

Sometimes I really don't understand it.
A few weeks ago. It was all about We want more fluff in game, it may cost a lot, blablabla.
In my point of view: Technique Components are fluff. You can wear basic equipment. You want better stuff, you hunt for it or you pay up.

Nadia is Fluff. Sorry for those who tought techniqued equipment was normal stuff.
For all I care she asks 100silver for a Tier I comp, and 1gold for a Tier VI comp. It stays fluff.
This is all about instant gratification, if read several post stating that people who get pimped with lots of items, resources, plots, lairs, equipment and what not, usually leave the game much sooner, than those who had to make an effort to get it.
With Nadia getting more expansive, people who find a resource component can actually make a sale out of it. It will be a step towards a better economy.
I'm not for removing Nadia, unless we have a properly functioning economy and that is still far off.

Sorry, but I just don't agree with this a bit. To me, fluff would be a single piece of equipment that had like +50 or more to each stat. Technique'd armor is, actually, very close a necessity, especially to a single-classing biped. I don't understand where people think that it should be for the gods to have armor with techs attached to it. And no, I don't think even this type of armor should be a piece of cake to get, but when the drop rates are how they are and some of the components are not even dropped because the monsters are still missing from the lands, well, nobody should have to fork out that kind of nonsense.

[Tantalyr]

Sometimes I really don't understand it.
A few weeks ago. It was all about We want more fluff in game, it may cost a lot, blablabla.
In my point of view: Technique Components are fluff. You can wear basic equipment. You want better stuff, you hunt for it or you pay up.

Nadia is Fluff. Sorry for those who tought techniqued equipment was normal stuff.
For all I care she asks 100silver for a Tier I comp, and 1gold for a Tier VI comp. It stays fluff.
This is all about instant gratification, if read several post stating that people who get pimped with lots of items, resources, plots, lairs, equipment and what not, usually leave the game much sooner, than those who had to make an effort to get it.
With Nadia getting more expansive, people who find a resource component can actually make a sale out of it. It will be a step towards a better economy.
I'm not for removing Nadia, unless we have a properly functioning economy and that is still far off.

I suppose that depends on your definition of "Fluff," Salis. I define Fluff as "eye candy"--a set of pixels that neither affects game balance nor what a player can or cannot do in the game. A "Sword of Complete and Total Uberness" is not Fluff. A rose bush on your plot is Fluff.

By my lights, teched gear is not Fluff. As has been pointed out earlier, a crafter must have Tier V teched gear to obtain the Master processing forms from the Cenotaphs, and must have teched gear on to do that processing once he has obtained the forms. Similarly, if you're the adventuring type, try spending some time hunting in the Eastern Deadlands with unteched weapons and gear. Bring plenty of ambrosia with you when you do.

Teched gear (and by extension, the tech components necessary to make it) dramatically affects game play. Indeed, without it there are a number of things that players simply cannot do.. And with Nadia's prices being tripled, the folks who love crafting far more than adventuring will either have to depend upon the kindness (or greed) of strangers, or finally dismiss any faint hope of obtaining the gear necessary to craft/build Tier VI items and structures.

[LaughingOtter]

It's just human nature to want neat & shiny stuff. Reward for effort. Teched gear is fluff the way a college degree is fluff. It is something you need in order to have the best chance to get what you want out of the game.

A yacht is fluff. A Lamborghini is fluff. It's fluff that shows you are successful. People buy things like that because they want to celebrate their success.

People want the same thing in the game. They want to succeed and to have nice stuff to show for it. Triple-teched T5 gear is like having a PhD or an MD - you can get by without them and be successful, yes, but if you have them, odds are very good that you will be successful if you put any real effort into it at all.

A new player coming in sees the fluff, wants the fluff, wants the shiny gear to get the fluff - and then gets the news that one of the options they had to get that gear has just been made less accessable. I don't agree that the current system is a handout to newcomers; they still have to work and earn what they want. This change is slamming the door in the face of the people we want to invite in and make welcome.

[Helcat]

I don't think we're screwing the new players at all here. You're viewing their game experience through the filter of your own previous in-game experience... they will see the current status quo as "normal" and play accordingly. No one is going to say... "Hey. How exactly did the game mechanics work six months before I started playing? I wanna make sure I'm not getting screwed here."

[LaughingOtter]

No one is going to say... "Hey. How exactly did the game mechanics work six months before I started playing? I wanna make sure I'm not getting screwed here."

They might not know a change was made, but the change is still there and the effects of it are still there. If the change lowers a new player's desire to become a long-term subscriber, it's a bad change, and it does not matter one whit if the lost subscriber knew there was a change or not. If the result of this change is fewer conversions and lower retention, it's bad for the game, because the bottom line IS the bottom line.

[Helcat]

People said the SAME THING about the Pawn Broker fix (or as I like to call it, Istaria's Welfare System) and yet -- subscriptions have risen, as has the retention rate. You are assuming these changes will somehow result in lower retention. You have zero way of knowing that for certain, and if the recent past is our only reasonable benchmark, retention rates will be just fine after this change.

[AA0]

Did we not have no Nadia prior to the merge? And were things like steel frags just not as hard or harder to get because of camping? That was a time when there was an economy.... When it motivated people to hunt and earn money to achieve new and better things.
Helcat is right, people will cry and threaten to leave, but the new people will stay and thrive. And maybe they all won't turn to crafting.. probably will unless more changes, but just maybe.

[Jayne]

This cracks me up. Some of you are complaining about this change that it affects new folks. and in the last breath I heard that many wont help hatchies to adult hood at level 30 because theres more to becoming an adult then just letting others do the work for you.

This is no different. how do you all know if a new player wants challenge or not? You don't. Everyone is different.

As I stated earlier I do like challenge. I collected all my comps for my T5 armor when I first became high enough to do so. And what is so wrong with going out and collecting the comps for one piece at a time? Its an accomplishment. Wow look I got my Chestplate done! Congratz. No this is everyone wanting to have everything now.

And many complain that there is nothing to do, why is that? Because you have rushed through it all. Honestly getting a piece of T5 armor done should be just as much of an accomplishment as getting a rare drop from SoG or anything else.

Jayne

[Tantalyr]

Did we not have no Nadia prior to the merge? And were things like steel frags just not as hard or harder to get because of camping? That was a time when there was an economy.... When it motivated people to hunt and earn money to achieve new and better things.
Helcat is right, people will cry and threaten to leave, but the new people will stay and thrive. And maybe they all won't turn to crafting.. probably will unless more changes, but just maybe.

That, good AAO, was also a time when we had a MUCH larger player base than we do now. Players create a player-driven economy--the more players, the more dynamic a player-driven economy.

Laughing Otter is spot on, methinks. If the strategic aim of the developers in making all these recent and proposed changes is to somehow jump-start some player-driven economy, then the fundamental question for each change should be: "Will this change ultimately create and sustain a larger player base?" If the answer is "yes," then by all means effectuate the change. If the answer is "no," then by all means ditch the idea.

Where we differ, I think, is in the answer to that vital question. You (and one assumes the developers) vigorously respond in the affirmative. I and some other folks just aren't as sanguine about the outcome.

[LaughingOtter]

Yes, there was an economy, when people were charging 30+ silver per steel golem frag, people were kill stealing right and left, fighting over spawn - Oh, yes, lets bring back the good old days...

I have no objection to adventurers earning a living. I object to what happens when a resource cannot be reasonably obtained. I object to adventurers camping and killstealing in order to preserve their profit margins. As things stand right now, that's what I see coming again. When T3 golem drops were nerfed to Hell pre-merge, the change itself angered a lot of people, but the camping and killstealing and price gouging was what drove a lot of people away.

[Helcat]

I've been one of the most active hunters since the early days of this game. I've probably experienced one or two instances of kill-stealing since we Launched, and those occurances were long ago. As far as "camping" is concerned, hell, I only wish we had the population for camping to even be a remote issue...lol. No, people did not leave in droves due to competition for MOBs... they left due to the attrocious client performance at the time... let's call it like it really is.

[AA0]

Thats exactly how it is, never was the camping and kill stealing; at its height was very rare. I'm not saying bring it back, I'm saying it existed and we had a hell of a lot more players than we do now... so if you can correct two mistakes things get better, right?

The client problems and performance still are the reason for the most people leaving. Its better.. manageable now, so maybe with a decent system in place people won't leave.

[Vlisson]

Did we not have no Nadia prior to the merge? And were things like steel frags just not as hard or harder to get because of camping?

yes but at this time you could not hunt all components, we got Nadia because most stuff has not lootable at all (some comps are like "not lootable because ro rarity)

[Jayne]

Oh and by the way these changes are intended for the new player base I'm sure.

We can complain all we want but we are biased in that we have been here so long, whether we agree or disagree with the change.

I hope you all take the hint in this change and realize that Nadia will eventually be gone. So prepare for that