Revive farming has been "shadow nerfed"

G'day summoners,

It has been brought to my attention that quite a few members of the community are noticing less revives appear in the Act 5 quests that were so popular as of late.

Could this be a "shadow nerf" we are witnessing, or are Kabam in fact providing us with secret windows during which we are able to amass these revives to help us with some of the long term content namely Necropolis that has just come out?

Comments

Josh2507

Since revive farming is due to be "adjusted" can we please get some kind of buff for the apothecary?

Even if it's just an increase of 1 revive per day, that would help out a lot.

Cyta

The way I see it is this: revive farming was a thing cos of the content that needed a lot of resources in short time period . I wont repeat what was said about "die now" mechanic. There are 2 solutions that I can spot right now that will keep the farm as "once upon a time it was a thing" and people not that mad on it. Either remove the inventory cap on revives, so players can go do that quest in few months and slowly accumulate the resources they feel they need, or make the Everest content like AW..where champs dont get locked, and u can leave them there for like 2-3 weeks, do other content, get some resources again, go back in and do 1-2 more fights.
Nobody enjoys farming revives but it was the "necessary evil". If it will be removed, I believe this is the way to do it

Toproller89

The way I see it is this: revive farming was a thing cos of the content that needed a lot of resources in short time period . I wont repeat what was said about "die now" mechanic. There are 2 solutions that I can spot right now that will keep the farm as "once upon a time it was a thing" and people not that mad on it. Either remove the inventory cap on revives, so players can go do that quest in few months and slowly accumulate the resources they feel they need, or make the Everest content like AW..where champs dont get locked, and u can leave them there for like 2-3 weeks, do other content, get some resources again, go back in and do 1-2 more fights.
Nobody enjoys farming revives but it was the "necessary evil". If it will be removed, I believe this is the way to do it

These are some good ideas!
Imagine being able to run 2 quests simultaneously, that is something I wish was a thing.

Need just 1 revive? No problem, jump out of the quest for 10 minutes to go do a quick apothecary run, and pick up where you left off.

Being able to run one quest in the special quests tab while being free to a run story quest or event quest independently would be great, even if I need to run different champs for each.

MrTicTac19992008

Since we've discussed (not) silent nerfs, and data collection on this subject here, I feel this might be a good time to put this out into the battlerealm:

These earlier act revive farms will be nerfed. As we have discussed in the past, this has to happen, it is inevitable.

This is not the result of people posting in the forums, this is the result of looking at the data and the impact these types of things have on the contest, as a whole.

That being said: the timeline for this looks like it should land in early January, and likely before the final cut-off for the "Road to the Crypt" Necropolis event. So... I anticipate most of you will have free time in December... I'm not going to tell you how to use it... but you are now equipped to make informed decisions.

So... I anticipate most of you will have free time in December..

Do you think people don't work? Have lives? Or is that what you think of players, ah be fine, they probably children, Santa be arriving

Manup456

@kabam Jax We have been having AI issues pretty much the entire year so how can revive farming be a priority and have a timeline on when it will be adjusted when we haven't heard anything about the status of the fixes to the AI?

unknown

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Demonzfyre

Since we've discussed (not) silent nerfs, and data collection on this subject here, I feel this might be a good time to put this out into the battlerealm:

These earlier act revive farms will be nerfed. As we have discussed in the past, this has to happen, it is inevitable.

This is not the result of people posting in the forums, this is the result of looking at the data and the impact these types of things have on the contest, as a whole.

That being said: the timeline for this looks like it should land in early January, and likely before the final cut-off for the "Road to the Crypt" Necropolis event. So... I anticipate most of you will have free time in December... I'm not going to tell you how to use it... but you are now equipped to make informed decisions.
So... I anticipate most of you will have free time in December..

Do you think people don't work? Have lives? Or is that what you think of players, ah be fine, they probably children, Santa be arriving

Many people take time of around Christmas. That's what he's referring to. Calm down and stop being so sensitive.

Cyta

Just out of curiosity, those that hit the disagree button on my previous post, was it coz they dont like my solutions or is it that i`m willing to accept the fact that farming will change/disappear while they dont?

Shiroihara

If those spots are going to be nerfed come January, that kinda takes the pressure off for me.
There's no way I'll have the time to do 5 paths and I'm not going to do it with limited resources afterwards.
I'll wait for 8.4 to come around. I'm not even mad.

ahmynuts

Since we've discussed (not) silent nerfs, and data collection on this subject here, I feel this might be a good time to put this out into the battlerealm:

These earlier act revive farms will be nerfed. As we have discussed in the past, this has to happen, it is inevitable.

This is not the result of people posting in the forums, this is the result of looking at the data and the impact these types of things have on the contest, as a whole.

That being said: the timeline for this looks like it should land in early January, and likely before the final cut-off for the "Road to the Crypt" Necropolis event. So... I anticipate most of you will have free time in December... I'm not going to tell you how to use it... but you are now equipped to make informed decisions.
So... I anticipate most of you will have free time in December..

Do you think people don't work? Have lives? Or is that what you think of players, ah be fine, they probably children, Santa be arriving

It's likely that Jax was projecting the Kabam companies' policies on free time onto the wider world of work. Which isn't bad, just not the case for most of us (especially in the US, work till you drop over here unless you work for saints).

But it is true that many take time off and/or have vacation around Christmas. Though that is also not the case for everyone

TheParasite

Since we've discussed (not) silent nerfs, and data collection on this subject here, I feel this might be a good time to put this out into the battlerealm:

These earlier act revive farms will be nerfed. As we have discussed in the past, this has to happen, it is inevitable.

This is not the result of people posting in the forums, this is the result of looking at the data and the impact these types of things have on the contest, as a whole.

That being said: the timeline for this looks like it should land in early January, and likely before the final cut-off for the "Road to the Crypt" Necropolis event. So... I anticipate most of you will have free time in December... I'm not going to tell you how to use it... but you are now equipped to make informed decisions.

do you mean to say there is a unit purchase cost of the revive is also being nerfed with this

ahmynuts

Since we've discussed (not) silent nerfs, and data collection on this subject here, I feel this might be a good time to put this out into the battlerealm:

These earlier act revive farms will be nerfed. As we have discussed in the past, this has to happen, it is inevitable.

This is not the result of people posting in the forums, this is the result of looking at the data and the impact these types of things have on the contest, as a whole.

That being said: the timeline for this looks like it should land in early January, and likely before the final cut-off for the "Road to the Crypt" Necropolis event. So... I anticipate most of you will have free time in December... I'm not going to tell you how to use it... but you are now equipped to make informed decisions.
do you mean to say there is a unit purchase cost of the revive is also being nerfed with this

That would be too pro player

Drago_von_Drago

So on one hand we’re being told “revive farming makes it too easy and has to end” but on the other hand we’re being told by DNA3000 and other that you can still accumulate 100ish revives without farming them in old act content anyways or you can rack up enough free units to buy them.

So what is the point exactly? Making it slightly more difficult and requiring 1000 units as part of the cost of stockpiling enough resources to make a reasonable run at it?

Very, very few players from what I’ve observed could run EOP paths without 20+ revives. Very few are going to run necropolis paths with under 50 it sounds like, especially those trying to rush the Jan. 15 cutoff for extra rewards.

So if there are other ways to rack up that many revives, why not let some of us continue to trade in extra energy to pick some up?

That’s really what it comes down to I think. Players have been converting time and energy refills into revives to tackle this big content and now we’re being told that’s not ok but it is ok to dump 2000 units into it to accomplish the same thing. The difference is units have other value and that time and energy can’t go towards anything else in the game.

unknown

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Wasy1

Are you out of ideas @Kabam? Every game has the farming for consumables and this game also has it since the start"why nerfing now?"

Why don't you just nerf the unit farming as well?

IvarTheBoneless

So on one hand we’re being told “revive farming makes it too easy and has to end” but on the other hand we’re being told by DNA3000 and other that you can still accumulate 100ish revives without farming them in old act content anyways or you can rack up enough free units to buy them.

So what is the point exactly? Making it slightly more difficult and requiring 1000 units as part of the cost of stockpiling enough resources to make a reasonable run at it?

Very, very few players from what I’ve observed could run EOP paths without 20+ revives. Very few are going to run necropolis paths with under 50 it sounds like, especially those trying to rush the Jan. 15 cutoff for extra rewards.

So if there are other ways to rack up that many revives, why not let some of us continue to trade in extra energy to pick some up?

That’s really what it comes down to I think. Players have been converting time and energy refills into revives to tackle this big content and now we’re being told that’s not ok but it is ok to dump 2000 units into it to accomplish the same thing. The difference is units have other value and that time and energy can’t go towards anything else in the game.

The thing is now you can farm them fast. So it's possible to complete the content very fast if you were farming already before the content dropped. After you will need more time to accumulate them + probably some unit spend which is where the real money comes is. Basically it is: explore it fast then use units (bought or grinded) or explore it slow and do it f2p but in 6-9months time for all 6 paths.

I don't agree with this and think there should be a faster way to do this for people that don't want to spend or slave their life away in arena

Asim38

So in chronological order, we had these revive/health potions nerf events occur:

1. Revive farm nerf 1.0 after a month or so after EOP release.
2. Apothecary introduced to offset (compensate for?) revive farm nerf. This equated to 1x 20% revive per day unless you get really lucky with a 40% revive on a path in Expert difficulty. Easy difficulty isn't even worth mentioning.
3. Revives were removed from EQ paths with the update maps. This should be called another revive nerf although its not farming.
4. Potions cost reduction. No increase in availability.

With the above changes, the following got de-valued:
1. Energy refills - These now simply expire with nothing to use them on because farming is no longer applicable.
2. 4 hour free crystals - These crystals at most times returned energy refills. See point 1 above. Also the health potions cost got cut so any return of health potions are now significantly less valuable.
3. EQ exploration offers after completion of each difficulty - Due to cost cuts of potions, the value of these offers have significantly dropped. These should be repriced or offer more or a combination of both.
4. Health potions rewards anywhere in the game - Example 22 hour event 4th milestone nets a Level 4 health potion which is equivalent to 6 units now. I can't remember the old price (22 units?). The point remains that the health potion rewards have been de-valued.

All things considered, every change made has had a ripple effect on the value of consumables. A major reassessment and overhaul is needed.

ShadowReptile

The only thing related to this game that needs to be nerfed is Kabam management and the employees that continually cause bugs and issues. Your company continually fails to compensate for all the bugs and issues you cause and the community instead receives a message that says oops our bad. You take away valuable resources that would semi offset these mistakes caused by Kabam employees because you want to milk players for as much $ as possible. The only way for players to offset this will be to horde stashes which directly contradicts your own statements about hoarding.

Djin

Since we've discussed (not) silent nerfs, and data collection on this subject here, I feel this might be a good time to put this out into the battlerealm:

These earlier act revive farms will be nerfed. As we have discussed in the past, this has to happen, it is inevitable.

This is not the result of people posting in the forums, this is the result of looking at the data and the impact these types of things have on the contest, as a whole.

That being said: the timeline for this looks like it should land in early January, and likely before the final cut-off for the "Road to the Crypt" Necropolis event. So... I anticipate most of you will have free time in December... I'm not going to tell you how to use it... but you are now equipped to make informed decisions.

....Create a problem, sell a solution.
🫡

GroundedWisdom

The only thing related to this game that needs to be nerfed is Kabam management and the employees that continually cause bugs and issues. Your company continually fails to compensate for all the bugs and issues you cause and the community instead receives a message that says oops our bad. You take away valuable resources that would semi offset these mistakes caused by Kabam employees because you want to milk players for as much $ as possible. The only way for players to offset this will be to horde stashes which directly contradicts your own statements about hoarding.

There are issues with this game, or any game for that matter, but no issues are present that warrant an endless supply of Resources. The source of people wanting to have unlimited hoards is impatience. They want to do things as soon as they're released.

Superdave1966

Nothing in the event quests for months either

Drago_von_Drago

This is flawed. First, the supply of farmed revives isn’t unlimited. It’s capped by a player’s time and energy constraints. And it’s been explained that similar levels of revives can be obtained for free through other means.

Second, the supply of revives is infinite for spenders. If the goal is to set the difficulty then institute a revive cap for the whole quest similar to war. That way they can set the cap to determine who can complete it and who can’t and adjust as needed. Saying “you can’t expect easy revives through farming” while also allowing the purchase of unlimited revives during the quest is contradictory if the goal is to control difficulty and pacing.

Now, if the goal is to create another avenue to drive spending, just own it. It’s not “pro player” and it won’t make anyone happy but transparency is better than this “it’s for the good of the game” nonsense.

Dukenpuke

Kabam came out a few months ago and said that they have certain spend benchmarks to reach for new content that is released. If they don't reach those benchmarks, they literally have to scrap new content because it's not profitable. Revive farming from early story content made them miss all their targets, so it had to be fixed.

There's 2 possible solutions. Make content require significantly more consumables to clear for most players (i.e. "die now" content) so that you'll have to spend units to have enough, or reduce the amount of free consumables that you have access to so that you'll have to spend units to have enough. Either way at the end of the day, the goal is to make players spend units to get them. This isn't a secret.

Everyone here is coming up with "alternative ideas" looking for a way around one of those two solutions.

MrMagoo2017

Guys with massive rooster farms revives like crazy and clear content then when the average guy gets a decent roster to do it, revives are nerfed. Doesn’t look fair to me

GroundedWisdom

This is flawed. First, the supply of farmed revives isn’t unlimited. It’s capped by a player’s time and energy constraints. And it’s been explained that similar levels of revives can be obtained for free through other means.

Second, the supply of revives is infinite for spenders. If the goal is to set the difficulty then institute a revive cap for the whole quest similar to war. That way they can set the cap to determine who can complete it and who can’t and adjust as needed. Saying “you can’t expect easy revives through farming” while also allowing the purchase of unlimited revives during the quest is contradictory if the goal is to control difficulty and pacing.

Now, if the goal is to create another avenue to drive spending, just own it. It’s not “pro player” and it won’t make anyone happy but transparency is better than this “it’s for the good of the game” nonsense.

Money is a limiting factor. You can't say it's unlimited to everyone.
There are Revives in the game. Quite a substantial amount that aren't necessary for spending at all. There are also Units which are farmable. They require time and planning, and resource management.
If it hasn't become abundantly clear, let me clarify. Having a source that people can spam over and over isn't an intended aspect of this game.

jdschw

KT1 has a youtube post about this issue, and it covers a lot of the perspectives discussed here as well. I think there is one point that he makes that is really insightful, and in line with a lot of the comments here: The problem is not the revive nerf itself. The problem is that content has been tuned based on that revive availability, and then that availability is removed. (The "die now" timers are the most obvious example of this, as they are basically designed to simply require revives to continue fighting.)

This combination puts the everest content out of reach for most players. One reality that people here need to acknowledge is that Kabam is probably okay with that. Most players are F2P. F2P players don't actually need to complete everest content in order to keep playing the game for free. Their rosters will lag behind the spenders, but is that such a big deal? We will still be able to improve our rosters over time. A good F2P player can complete all of the top-level main quests EQs, paragon gauntlets, etc. without any revives beyond the 22 hr events. We won't be able to get valiant titles this month or next, but there will be plenty of F2P players that reach valiant in the next 6-12 months without ever completing the necropolis.

Kabam's calculus here is to make as much money as they can. A strong F2P community helps that effort a lot, but there also need to be spenders to make the math work. If these changes turn off enough of the F2P community that they actually see an impact to their bottom line, then I suspect they will loosen their grip on issues like this. But until then, your complaints are going to fall on deaf ears.

DNA3000

The way I see it is this: revive farming was a thing cos of the content that needed a lot of resources in short time period . I wont repeat what was said about "die now" mechanic. There are 2 solutions that I can spot right now that will keep the farm as "once upon a time it was a thing" and people not that mad on it. Either remove the inventory cap on revives, so players can go do that quest in few months and slowly accumulate the resources they feel they need, or make the Everest content like AW..where champs dont get locked, and u can leave them there for like 2-3 weeks, do other content, get some resources again, go back in and do 1-2 more fights.
Nobody enjoys farming revives but it was the "necessary evil". If it will be removed, I believe this is the way to do it

Your two "solutions" are literally what Kabam is trying to prevent happening. In both cases, players are allowed to use unlimited resources to overcome challenging content, making the challenge essentially worthless. It turns challenges into grinds. It turns the Necropolis into the arena.

This is a progressional game. It rewards roster progress, and it rewards player skill progress. There are many players who cannot do content like the Necropolis without using an essentially unlimited number of revives and potions. That doesn't mean that the game is forcing them to use unlimited revives, and thus owes them a way to get them. Rather, it means they are not ready for that content, and might never be ready. This game has very easy content that practically everyone can do. It has core progressional content that most if not all players can grow into, such as the Acts. And it has challenge content that is designed to test the highest progress and strongest players, stuff like Eternity of Pain, Grandmaster's Gauntlet, and The Necropolis.

Almost everyone needs the occasional revive or health potion, that's why they exist. And Kabam is not opposed to players earning those in-game, which is why things like the Apothecary exist and why we get revives in things like the 22 hr events. But if players are allowed to gain an unlimited amount of them by just grinding content over and over without needing significant skill or resources, that trivializes challenge content. Or forces them to make that content even harder, requiring even more resources.

The "solution" to not being able to grind an unlimited number of revives is not to add other ways to grind unlimited revives. Unlimited revives are the problem. I can understand the disappointment of the players who need far more revives to do the content they want than the game allows for without revive farms. But while the game tries to have something for everyone, it does not give everything to everyone. Some things, particularly the highest difficulty challenging content, isn't meant for everyone to do. If you can't do it with what's available, you can't do it. Kabam doesn't see that as a problem, and is not going to do anything to fix it.

DNA3000

KT1 has a youtube post about this issue, and it covers a lot of the perspectives discussed here as well. I think there is one point that he makes that is really insightful, and in line with a lot of the comments here: The problem is not the revive nerf itself. The problem is that content has been tuned based on that revive availability, and then that availability is removed. (The "die now" timers are the most obvious example of this, as they are basically designed to simply require revives to continue fighting.)

This combination puts the everest content out of reach for most players. One reality that people here need to acknowledge is that Kabam is probably okay with that. Most players are F2P. F2P players don't actually need to complete everest content in order to keep playing the game for free. Their rosters will lag behind the spenders, but is that such a big deal? We will still be able to improve our rosters over time. A good F2P player can complete all of the top-level main quests EQs, paragon gauntlets, etc. without any revives beyond the 22 hr events. We won't be able to get valiant titles this month or next, but there will be plenty of F2P players that reach valiant in the next 6-12 months without ever completing the necropolis.

Kabam's calculus here is to make as much money as they can. A strong F2P community helps that effort a lot, but there also need to be spenders to make the math work. If these changes turn off enough of the F2P community that they actually see an impact to their bottom line, then I suspect they will loosen their grip on issues like this. But until then, your complaints are going to fall on deaf ears.

The thing I disagree with here is framing this as a monetization issue. Everyone thinks game designers make things hard so they can sell the means to complete it. But once upon a time there was no microtransactions and no way to sell the means of completion. The modern F2P model is a relatively recent invention. When online games were dominated by subscription supported models, where everyone paid exactly the same amount of money regardless of what they did or how they did it, game designers did literally the exact same things Kabam is doing now. They nerfed excessive resource farms. They tuned challenge content to target different tiers of players. They gated progression accordingly. They made resource economy trade offs to allow players some, but not unlimited resources.

Why did game studios do exactly what Kabam is doing now, in precisely the same way, if monetization was something that literally could not affect their thinking at all?

I also find it interesting how many armchair game designers think it is obvious that "die now timers" are there to require revives. Given how they work, it is obvious that's not what they are there for. That''s like saying the reason why defenders do damage is to require players to use health potions. Here's a thought experiment: suppose revives didn't exist, or were banned in the Necropolis. Do you think the CR timers would disappear completely?

Even a relative scrub like me almost soloed a couple Necropolis fights. How badly are the CR timers designed if they are designed to force players to use revives and often barely work on me?

Drago_von_Drago

Having a source that people can spam over and over isn't an intended aspect of this game.

Are you familiar with battlechips from the arena? Unlimited source of gold and units? Similar constraint of time but otherwise no less farmable than revives in lower act content.

And again, farmed revives are not unlimited. They are constrained by energy and time to run the quests.

Unlimited revives are the problem. I can understand the disappointment of the players who need far more revives to do the content they want than the game allows for without revive farms. But while the game tries to have something for everyone, it does not give everything to everyone. Some things, particularly the highest difficulty challenging content, isn't meant for everyone to do. If you can't do it with what's available, you can't do it. Kabam doesn't see that as a problem, and is not going to do anything to fix it.

Again, farmed revives aren’t unlimited. They are constrained by time and energy. Purchased revives are unlimited. This change does nothing to reduce the possibility of using revives to power through content above your current roster/skill level. It does further monetize that approach.

A revive cap on content would limit powering through.

Morghaxor

A smallish buff to Apothecary would go a long way in this situation. Like maybe make the L2 revive spawn chance a 40-50%?
Or plain add an L1 revive to exploration of lower difficulty.