10/09/2015

No More AD From Leadership

General chat caught my eye today because people were arguing about a change that had been announced on the forums but nowhere else so far: the removal of astral diamond rewards from the leadership profession (and the foundry).

The driving force behind this is an unbalanced economy caused by "AFK-playing" and botting. Leadership rewards astral diamonds just for logging in and pressing some buttons, and Cryptic wants to stop that. In fairness, some players have taken this to pretty insane levels, farming leadership on fifty alts or even multiple accounts. Cryptic wants people to gain AD by actually playing the game, and I can't blame them for that.

However, I still think that the proposed changes are terrible, because after this the only ways of gaining astral diamonds will be dungeons, skirmishes and PvP (plus the pittance you get from invoking these days). But that's only a small part of the content! In practice this means that a lot of players will effectively have no source of AD anymore.

Take me as an example. I've found dungeons and skirmishes at max level to either be extremely dull or unforgivingly hard to the point that they are a pain to do in pugs. And PvP in this game is terrible in my opinion. Nonetheless I rack up a considerable amount of hours playing each week: I do dailies in the campaign areas and work on my guild's stronghold. None of this awards astral diamonds. If anything, things like unlocking campaign boons and upgrading your stronghold cost AD. Where is that currency supposed to come from in the future?

This seems like another one of those changes that hasn't really been thought through at all, or is simply driven by blind greed. ("If we minimise the ways of gaining currency in game, people will spend more money, right?")

4 comments:

  1. I read this as "No more Assistant Directors from Leadership".

    I think I've been working too hard lately....

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    1. And that's why I try to avoid overusing acronyms in my posts... but yes, you probably do need to work less. :P

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  2. I agree with your assessment Shintar. I have been away from NWO since just about the release of the Elemental Evil update and having returned, I am irritated and annoyed at the changes to Leadership. It's a pity that Cryptic went this route. I think the notion of game economy is less likely as a reason than a push to buying zen. I am also not interested in the PVP or end-game content, so there's no stream of AD for me either.

    Merilee Cwynyd

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    1. In fairness, they've added AD to the weekly campaign quests since I wrote this and drastically reduced the prices of certain consumables, which has helped.

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