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Not using my main forum account for this post.
Background info: I have been a dragon nest player since the early days of 24 cap. I’ve grown to love this game, the community, and mostly the players who play it. I am not a gold buyer, nor do I support buying gold.
Lets get started...
For those of you living under a rock, there is currently there is an issue with ED banning bot accounts, and players buying gold from these botting accounts.
We have tiered spending events to get best-in-slot unique grade cash costumes, and epic grade cash costumes both with overpowered stats that are required to run almost all end game content. And now its an issue that people are buying gear outside of the cash shop by means of buying gold. The P2W strategy has been something EyeDentity has engraved into the players and the game since they took over.
With Pay-to-Win being so heavily embedded into the game, it's only natural to have players buying/selling gold, or selling items for actual money via paypal. Dragon Nest has built a system where it's impossible to run end-game content without either paying for cash gear, buying gold, or farming 24-7 to try and get gear upgrades. Though, you can buy the epic grade cash gear off the marketplace for a hefty markup. I'll admit gold is been easier to farm these days than it was just a few months ago, but thats due to gold buyers willing to pay more for some materials and items. The marketplace right now is completely inflated due to most mats being harder to farm compared to how they were just a few months ago.
Currently, Best Hero tournament is the only thing counteracting the increasing prices of spaera on that marketplace. Players are able to make almost 100 spaera per character they are able to run on. I know its grindy, but at least it's a way to get them rather than hoping for a chance to see ONE in the chest in one of the Kaeron dungeons. I know eye has stated they plan to remove this from the game, and i don't agree with their plans to do so. Removing BHT means we go back to only getting 3 per week from the Aura shop, 10 per week with mentor points, and maybe 2-5 a day if you farm Kaeron dungeons all day. In the future, there will be an uncapped amount of spaera we can buy with nest points, but that doesn't have any effect on what’s going on now, so it's irrelevant to the current situation.
The changes to Neris enhancing were also a great change, because now you can enhance neris to +10, extract it, and take 6 weapon/armor stones out of it for only 50g with golden goose VIP. So now you can easily farm 50+ weapon/armor stones per day. We will also be able to buy weapon stones from Belin in the near future. These are excellent changes to the game, and cut back the amount of grinding/buy weapon stones in the future.
Being able to progress in this game without spending is crucial for new players coming in. I see new players come and go like dust in the wind. Every single time I see a new player come in, the complaint is always "It's too hard and too boring to progress in this game." The incoming goblin nest is going to be a great addition for new and old players when it arrives. New players will have some way to farm gold other than selling the materials they need, and veteran players will be able to afford their legend grade item enhancing more easily.
Gold buyers right now are a huge factor in how effective some strategies are in terms of making gold. If you follow the route EyeDentity is taking, and ban gold buyers, you're removing the biggest influx of new gold to the economy, without any replacement (as of now) way to generate new gold yet.
I'd like to get across that the point i'm making isn't that gold buying should be okay, because it isn't. its that I don't believe that banning the buyers is the best way to combat it, for the following reasons:
1. Back in April, you folks at ED made this post:
https://us.dragonnest.com/news/notice/all/153
It seems like this is just an empty promise made to the community. The problem with gold buying has only gotten worse and worse since then, and seems like there's nothing being done about it. I firmly believe the people buying should not be punished for this. The players know this: Spend money --> progression. And if Eye doesn't take care of the bots selling gold then people will spend money. Simple as that.
2. You're shooting yourself in the foot if you ban players willing to spend money (lol)
Look at the players you've banned and don't just look at them buying gold. Look at their purchase history in YOUR cash shop. A know of a lot of players that just got banned that literally just paid your company $500 for this conversion event on black Friday. If that's not counter intuitive th
3. You're about to get rid of a large portion of players in this game.
Personally, i never cared for spending money on this game but some of my friends do. I'm not sure how long i'll want to stick around this game if my friends are permanently banned. I know a lot of people that don't plan on sticking around if this ban is permanent, due to not being able to play with their friends anymore. What's the point of playing if you cant have fun with your pals? and Eye should already know how many players buy gold, considering they can check the game logs. and spoiler alert... it's a lot of players.
4. Like I've stated before, the game has started to move in the right direction, but its still not quite to the point where it’s 100% fun to play without a credit card.
This ban wave seems like it came a little too early, right before the game is about to get at least a minor solution to gold buying i.e. purchasing unlimited spaera from nest point shop, and buying stones from Belin. And the gold goblin event (which should be permanent, not just an event (^_^) )
5. What about players selling gold instead of just bots? Amidst all this banning of accounts I’ve still been seeing PLAYERS advertising the sale of their own gold via world chat. Is that any different than bots selling gold? Or what about people buying and selling genesis accessories from other players with real money? That’s also similar to buying gold, is it not? They’re just fast tracking their gear progression the exact same way they would with gold. I never see any of these players selling gold get banned, or players buying gold from them getting banned either.
6. This ban seems like it could work as a warning shot to say “Hey we know you’re buying gold, don’t do it anymore”
But, it wont work as a warning shot if you don’t enforce your rules after ban repeal. I think you can start heavily enforcing this rule after you give the players these new ways of farming materials, and farming gold. I don’t believe that now is the right time to do it.
I’ve been a long time player to this game, and I love and care for all the great friends I’ve made after all this time. I care a lot about the players in this community and i don't believe that this is the way you should handle this issue. You, as a company, have claimed you will make an effort to stop the goldsellers in the past, and have clearly failed to do so, as the problem persists and is constantly getting worse. You placing a ban on the players in this scenario is punishing the players for your own mistakes. I understand it's against the game rules to buy gold, but i can also see that until now there has been absolutely ZERO enforcement of any rules, so again… who can you really blame here? Do you really expect people to follow the rules if there’s no negative repercussions?
All I’m asking of you, EyeDentity, is that you put more work into helping this game grow and prosper into the amazing MMO we all know it can be. I’ve put in my two cents about how you can go about fixing this, but I’ll repeat it again for clarity’s sake.
Don’t ban the players right now. You can use this as a warning to make sure players know you are watching what they are doing, and you can enforce it again when you’ve come up with a solution to:
Issue 1. There isn't enough gold in the economy without gold buyers
And
Issue 2. There is no efficient way to farm materials you need for gear progression.
Background info: I have been a dragon nest player since the early days of 24 cap. I’ve grown to love this game, the community, and mostly the players who play it. I am not a gold buyer, nor do I support buying gold.
Lets get started...
For those of you living under a rock, there is currently there is an issue with ED banning bot accounts, and players buying gold from these botting accounts.
We have tiered spending events to get best-in-slot unique grade cash costumes, and epic grade cash costumes both with overpowered stats that are required to run almost all end game content. And now its an issue that people are buying gear outside of the cash shop by means of buying gold. The P2W strategy has been something EyeDentity has engraved into the players and the game since they took over.
With Pay-to-Win being so heavily embedded into the game, it's only natural to have players buying/selling gold, or selling items for actual money via paypal. Dragon Nest has built a system where it's impossible to run end-game content without either paying for cash gear, buying gold, or farming 24-7 to try and get gear upgrades. Though, you can buy the epic grade cash gear off the marketplace for a hefty markup. I'll admit gold is been easier to farm these days than it was just a few months ago, but thats due to gold buyers willing to pay more for some materials and items. The marketplace right now is completely inflated due to most mats being harder to farm compared to how they were just a few months ago.
Currently, Best Hero tournament is the only thing counteracting the increasing prices of spaera on that marketplace. Players are able to make almost 100 spaera per character they are able to run on. I know its grindy, but at least it's a way to get them rather than hoping for a chance to see ONE in the chest in one of the Kaeron dungeons. I know eye has stated they plan to remove this from the game, and i don't agree with their plans to do so. Removing BHT means we go back to only getting 3 per week from the Aura shop, 10 per week with mentor points, and maybe 2-5 a day if you farm Kaeron dungeons all day. In the future, there will be an uncapped amount of spaera we can buy with nest points, but that doesn't have any effect on what’s going on now, so it's irrelevant to the current situation.
The changes to Neris enhancing were also a great change, because now you can enhance neris to +10, extract it, and take 6 weapon/armor stones out of it for only 50g with golden goose VIP. So now you can easily farm 50+ weapon/armor stones per day. We will also be able to buy weapon stones from Belin in the near future. These are excellent changes to the game, and cut back the amount of grinding/buy weapon stones in the future.
Being able to progress in this game without spending is crucial for new players coming in. I see new players come and go like dust in the wind. Every single time I see a new player come in, the complaint is always "It's too hard and too boring to progress in this game." The incoming goblin nest is going to be a great addition for new and old players when it arrives. New players will have some way to farm gold other than selling the materials they need, and veteran players will be able to afford their legend grade item enhancing more easily.
Gold buyers right now are a huge factor in how effective some strategies are in terms of making gold. If you follow the route EyeDentity is taking, and ban gold buyers, you're removing the biggest influx of new gold to the economy, without any replacement (as of now) way to generate new gold yet.
I'd like to get across that the point i'm making isn't that gold buying should be okay, because it isn't. its that I don't believe that banning the buyers is the best way to combat it, for the following reasons:
1. Back in April, you folks at ED made this post:
https://us.dragonnest.com/news/notice/all/153
It seems like this is just an empty promise made to the community. The problem with gold buying has only gotten worse and worse since then, and seems like there's nothing being done about it. I firmly believe the people buying should not be punished for this. The players know this: Spend money --> progression. And if Eye doesn't take care of the bots selling gold then people will spend money. Simple as that.
2. You're shooting yourself in the foot if you ban players willing to spend money (lol)
Look at the players you've banned and don't just look at them buying gold. Look at their purchase history in YOUR cash shop. A know of a lot of players that just got banned that literally just paid your company $500 for this conversion event on black Friday. If that's not counter intuitive th
3. You're about to get rid of a large portion of players in this game.
Personally, i never cared for spending money on this game but some of my friends do. I'm not sure how long i'll want to stick around this game if my friends are permanently banned. I know a lot of people that don't plan on sticking around if this ban is permanent, due to not being able to play with their friends anymore. What's the point of playing if you cant have fun with your pals? and Eye should already know how many players buy gold, considering they can check the game logs. and spoiler alert... it's a lot of players.
4. Like I've stated before, the game has started to move in the right direction, but its still not quite to the point where it’s 100% fun to play without a credit card.
This ban wave seems like it came a little too early, right before the game is about to get at least a minor solution to gold buying i.e. purchasing unlimited spaera from nest point shop, and buying stones from Belin. And the gold goblin event (which should be permanent, not just an event (^_^) )
5. What about players selling gold instead of just bots? Amidst all this banning of accounts I’ve still been seeing PLAYERS advertising the sale of their own gold via world chat. Is that any different than bots selling gold? Or what about people buying and selling genesis accessories from other players with real money? That’s also similar to buying gold, is it not? They’re just fast tracking their gear progression the exact same way they would with gold. I never see any of these players selling gold get banned, or players buying gold from them getting banned either.
6. This ban seems like it could work as a warning shot to say “Hey we know you’re buying gold, don’t do it anymore”
But, it wont work as a warning shot if you don’t enforce your rules after ban repeal. I think you can start heavily enforcing this rule after you give the players these new ways of farming materials, and farming gold. I don’t believe that now is the right time to do it.
I’ve been a long time player to this game, and I love and care for all the great friends I’ve made after all this time. I care a lot about the players in this community and i don't believe that this is the way you should handle this issue. You, as a company, have claimed you will make an effort to stop the goldsellers in the past, and have clearly failed to do so, as the problem persists and is constantly getting worse. You placing a ban on the players in this scenario is punishing the players for your own mistakes. I understand it's against the game rules to buy gold, but i can also see that until now there has been absolutely ZERO enforcement of any rules, so again… who can you really blame here? Do you really expect people to follow the rules if there’s no negative repercussions?
All I’m asking of you, EyeDentity, is that you put more work into helping this game grow and prosper into the amazing MMO we all know it can be. I’ve put in my two cents about how you can go about fixing this, but I’ll repeat it again for clarity’s sake.
Don’t ban the players right now. You can use this as a warning to make sure players know you are watching what they are doing, and you can enforce it again when you’ve come up with a solution to:
Issue 1. There isn't enough gold in the economy without gold buyers
And
Issue 2. There is no efficient way to farm materials you need for gear progression.
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