Have Alternate Characters Gotten a Sneaky Upgrade thanks to VIP Re-Roll Tokens?

I think we can all agree that the Salvage changes of Module 15 are largely a nerf to player income. Or let’s say they at least drastically change how you reach your [sc name=”astralicon”]100,000 account limit each day and could be perceived as nerf depending on what you were doing. I personally have to say it feels less painful than I thought it would, but I’m also not the kind of player that goes for the limit on each day or session due to time or motivational restrictions. Like I said however the initial shitstorm might not have been warranted as the system is better set up for the future now.

Alt Viability Slowly Diminished

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More than that, it could already help in one particular area right now: Alt viability of VIP accounts. Alternate characters have been in strange places ever since the game’s launch. Early in the game they could be utilized to generate wealth easily. That’s why veterans still have those 50-toon max accounts that they used to run Leadership and invocation cycles with. But the devs slowly moved away from per-character benefits to per-account ones, and “nerfed” alts in the process. Now, alts are always viable in case you like multiple classes and different gameplay, but a lot of incentive to maintain them diminished over the last modules. When random queues were still per character for example, I ran queues with five different toons. Now I only do it on my main for obvious reasons.

Another stealth nerf that the switch to account RAD cap brought was one to VIP keys. Since the incentive to run queues on multiple characters was no longer there, keys piled up on alt characters even more than before. For what type of runs would you use them? Sure, those that absolutely farmed hardcore and ran out of keys on mains on a daily basis could generate extra chests and Salvage with keys on alts, but that’s a scenario not many players actually ran into I assume. Additionally, one key equaled one run and going through all your toons was a significant time investment.

Re-Rolls Generate Multiple Extra Chests per Run

The switch to re-rolls fixes many of these issues. First of all, the time investment per character is only one run, in which you can then spend all your re-rolls to gun for a nice reward. Got something good on your first run? Save the other re-rolls for tomorrow! While doing that you also generate some RADs and RP for your account. It’s sort of a “quality, not quantity” approach that I do like to up the incentive to maintain multiple toons both horizontally (amount) and vertically (item level). The more toons, the more runs and re-rolls. And the better the toons, the better the dungeons and possible loot you can try for.

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This obviously only works if you are a VIP (the daily character rewards include the re-rolls) and run out of re-rolls on your main. But that’s much more likely than running out of keys in the former system. Right now many players are spending as many leftover re-rolls as they can, but long-term alternate characters will become a factor in maximizing your dungeon rewards. The most likely scenario down the road in my opinion will be running all random queues with different characters to be able to use as many re-rolls as possible. So players are going to need at least three toons that can reliably run one of the “Normal”, “Advanced”, and “Expert” queue. After that you can jump on additional alts to generate even more “chest chances” in fast and easy content (Demogorgon, Folly, etc.).

Altoholics Rejoice!

I guess whether or not this sounds like an upgrade to you depends on your daily routine. If Module 15 was an overall nerf to your income, a little added alt viability might not be able to cheer you up. But in case you’re one of those players that likes to mix it up and were struggling to put all your toons to use, then this should be good news. I personally do certainly hope that the devs will continue this path of giving players more options for their alts. The term “options” is key though. We also can’t go back to a system in which the size of the account matters more than its quality. But the way the game developed the last couple mods, re-rolls benefiting altoholics totally makes sense right now.


What’s your take on chest re-rolls and alternate character viability down the road? Share your thoughts on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

4 thoughts on “Have Alternate Characters Gotten a Sneaky Upgrade thanks to VIP Re-Roll Tokens?

  • November 13, 2018 at 7:14 am
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    I’ve had multiple Alts since Mod 2 for Dungeon Delve Hour and the AD from Rhix, and Skirmish Hour, as well as Leadership and extra storage. I played most of them, although I only had 12 up to about Mod 6. Then I played only one to get him back up to strength. Since Mod 8 and BtA gear, I could start playing them all again, although not all on the same day. I have more than twice as many now, as I could salvage gear on any Alt that had 100k 50% AD bonus. And I just rolled another two for the Incentives event. Now that salvage AD has gone, the extra RP means I could probably upgrade more gear on more Alts. Or just make enchants to sell.

    There are still some advantages to having 20 or 30 characters, But I dare not mention them for fear they will get nerfed. Just like most class nerfs seem to come after YouTube videos of 1 rotation ToNG Boss deaths, an HR soloing Castle Never and so on.

    Stay schtum, or the Nerf Hammer Cometh.

    🙂

  • November 13, 2018 at 8:14 am
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    I find the new system and the reaction to it very interesting, personally I’m without a doubt netting more rad from my runs than before, but seing how people have been reacting makes me think that I’ve just been getting very lucky, but that’s not common for me so… I don’t know what to think :/

  • November 15, 2018 at 12:03 am
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    There isn’t a better income from the new system. The ones that want to exaggerate the benefit of the new system completely rely on rerolls to ‘prove’ that they will get greater income. Unfortunately the results just don’t match the hype.

    On RARE occasion you can get 12k in one of the chests, much more normal is 6-9k, and sometimes even less. UEs do drop more often, but aren’t guaranteed. Since they are dropping more often their value has plummeted since the announcement of rerolls at the end of mod 14. Last night I bought 6 UEs at 60k each. Thats 1/3rd their value at the end of mod 14 and 30% less than the AH price of the ultimate marks I needed at the same time. ..so the income potential from those UEs is droping further on a daily basis. Added RP is also touted as an income stream, however the current price for rp is <1AD per RP, which makes that a laughable income stream.

    On top of that, after the initial buildup of keys runs out the income is limited to the number of rerolls you get for VIP, daily queue (haha) and the pitiful sum you get from the end chests. Salvage wasn't limited in this way, if you wanted more income you could put in more time and get more income until sleep took you away. Sure you can run some dungeons with alts, but the time to do that is its own limiter and doesn't scale as well as gathering salvage did.

    To the extent that people follow these suggestion and try queuing with alts to supplement their income makes the already terrible queue system even worse. People can barely finish the dungeons in RAQ, REQ as it is. You can sit for hours in the queue. ..sure the numbers say its only an average of a few minutes, but that only accounts for the time that it takes to land you in FBI with a whole team of people unqualified, unable, and unwilling to finish even the first boss. ..and thats with their mains. Adding a significant population of unmaintained alts to the list just increases the time spent ditching out on those lost cause queue choices.

  • November 16, 2018 at 6:28 am
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    I started this campaign on my two new characters. I had never heard of AI, but it’s actually quite fun!

    Am I right in thinking that I can spam dailies as much as I like, get the max acorns and then leave it for a week?

    Cheers!

    🙂

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