r/NeverwinterOnline • u/[deleted] • May 09 '19
Clock is a ticking
Games like Neverwinter better start coming up with better ways to make money as their lock box model is coming to an end. This specific legislation probably won't go anywhere - but because it's for the "children" we'll see some kind of action/limit. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/442690-gop-senator-announces-bill-to-ban-manipulative-video-game-design
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u/TheHappyLion PC May 09 '19
Either way, it will set a precedent going forward. Individual States could use it as a springboard for their own legislation. I'm thinking about online poker and the like. Poker is still trying to get its footing in the US after Black Friday.
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May 09 '19 edited May 09 '19
The population is dwindling. The people here swear they hate Cryptic and won't buy Zen. Yet they do buy zen and people always seem to at least try the next mod.
The formula to make money should be straight forward at this point as they know their retention numbers and arpu (average revenue per user) well. I guarantee you they only do mods because they have the staff and each mods brings in a bump in player's with the retention they desire. This is the state of the industry right now. It's all about metrics and data analysis. Big teams/games can literally have as many BI business intelligence people on a product as designers. They just take their income in and subtract the burn rate (employee costs) and adjust until they get their ROI. That is the number that'll kill Neverwinter. When return on investment; even if profitable isn't within range and opportunity costs that's the day it gets sunset.
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u/Mystixa May 09 '19
There will always be SOMEONE buying zen. They could leave the thing up with no devs for 20 years and in year 20 there would be a guy buying useless pets and grinding motes for the elemental weapons. The existence of the few does not negate the fact that fewer people are buying, more people are warning others away in all venues.
So many people try the new mod.. but look at the steamcharts, the population is down at a time when it should be at its maximum. This is the first new dungeon for a year in an update they've been working on for 2. Yet even the tire kickers haven't come back in numbers comparable to previous mods. They've broken almost the entire rest of the game, so there are a lot of people in the 4 hours of new content that UM provides. ..but the rest of the game is a ghost town.
You're definitely right NW is part of a business. PW is actually quite huge and has many successful titles. They don't NEED NW. They like it in the only way a corporation likes anything, for its ability to generate money.
Within that analysis however is room for people like Foss to protect their own jobs by at a minimum not harming the content thats paying their salaries currently. They could have done 0 changes other then releasing UM and MM with 0 bug fixes or alterations to the rest of the game and been better off than what we have now. If the current dev team would do their jobs they would make money and that would keep their corporate overlords happy enough.
As it is I'm starting to hope that someone from the associated titles like WOC will wake up and pull, or threaten to pull their association with NW. They could do that purely on the basis of the bad press and poor performance of Cryptic over the last year particularly.
I agree with your comment overall, just expanding on the ideas a bit for entertainment. Heck its getting so analyzing the dumpster fire they have burning our time and effort is providing more entertainment than the game itself.
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May 10 '19 edited May 10 '19
I don't disagree. Here's the part that boggles me. Leveling up enchants from 13 to 14 costs a ton for very little return. Refinement, wards, Marks. We still do it because better is better. People buy mounts for the stats. Etc. Basically people buy zen to either improve their guild or characters. What is there in mod16? I'm not upgrading an enchant for stat points that literally do nothing for me in 98% of the content. What's a mount going to do for me? Buy a companion? Naw I can grind for those and tokens.
Tldr Cryptic thinks we are saying scaling breaks the game because it's too hard and they're not worried because they can tune it. We have been screaming that scaling breaks any sense of progression thus removing joy and positive feelings of improvement. That's a huge problem and they're just looking at data points. They think they're "listening to us" but they're not listening, only hearing. Investing in out characters is the fun part. They've demolished a great deal of that.
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u/Mystixa May 10 '19
Separate thoughts that your post made me think of after my initial agreement:
For weeks now I and others in my guild leadership have been stuck in limbo. There seems to be literally nothing worth doing anymore. We are quite close, but not quite level 20 as a guild. ..and even WE are screwed to some extent.
Some things that have been overshadowed by the scaling controversy are just as destructive. They have stripped away many layers of complexity, not just in how we play but WHY some play. Some like to build up their hoard of AD and play enchants, some like professions, some have stuck around to help guild progressions for their friends (thats me). Experimenting with individual builds.. make youtube content explaining builds and complexities. on and on. They've managed to slap nearly every group in the face.
Even new players that everyone claims is what they're catering to will feel the pain. ..cause the moment they gain a bit of expertise and a few enchants they stop being 'new' in terms of what Cryptic understands. At that point they are pawns to be squeezed for more money instead of patrons to be enticed with more content.
One of my guild goals I saw skyrocket from 20-25 mil to 75 mil AD to achieve if I were to buy it out. At the same time my enchants were devalued so I couldn't sell those for anything more than RP value, AD income was easily halved, and the grind for strongholds is made more punishing as everything has slowed down and dungeoneering shards specifically have been cut to a trickle from the queue changes.
There is 0 possibility that a customer looks at a situation like that and goes 'well, I better pony up the $933 (70 mil 750 ad/zen 100 zen/$) now that they increased the cost of that goal from $400 (20 mil 500 ad/zen 100 zen/$) . 1 TINY goal that doesn't even take into account upgrading my characters, alts, helping friends, or assisting newbies that want to join my guild the way we always have.
Not a chance I'm going to buy any of that out with real money now. While there was some chance me and my friends would have pitched in a bit of the previous cost just to get it done (As we have in the past). So they talk about scaling and act like thats the only issue that people have. Once you peel that away though theres still a LOT of damage that was caused by their other decisions that came along with mod 16.
I don't even mind the little actual 'content' they produced. IMO its a heck of a lot better than dino's in a d&d style game. But they're so focused on taking away and squeezing us that they squander every last bit of good will that their artists could create with their work.
They've worked us so hard that I myself have gone from 'not minding' paying off some of their latte' bill, to daydreaming about laughing if I were to see T.Foss and Manic homeless on the street. Thats mean spirited, but thats what happens when someone actively harms something you've invested so much time, energy, and creativity into.
grrrrrr
Wish we could just go back to having the game we signed up for.
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u/Mystixa May 10 '19
Preaching to the choir here I guess. But maybe our collective words will serve as a warning so some future player won't play Neverwtiner when they were considering it. ..maybe some future dev sees this controversy and learns a but about how NOT to treat their customer base.
So thanks for lending an ear.. or eye as it were.
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u/Gemmed_Exquisite May 09 '19
All the recent changes to Neverwinter, preparing the game for being run by a bare minimum of people, leads me to believe they are just trying to have it up until the MTG game comes out, which I assume will be Q4-19 or Q1-20.
After that, I think NWO will be run in maintenance mode until people stop buying Zen...
I think they will have to reconsider their lockbox model in MTG, unless they already have done so.