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Building on a Foundation of Fairness
ironzerg79
Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,942 Arc User
Here's the root of my frustration, and I feel like it's shared by a lot of players, but voiced in many different ways.
Right now things just don't seem FAIR for players for various reasons. And it's incredibly frustrating.
I love the world Neverwinter has laid out for us. It's very close to the lore, and (especially if you're a fan of the RA Salvatore Books) it's extremely well done. It definitely FEELS like a D&D world.
The combat is excellent. It's just fun for me. For some crazy reason, casting Steal Time or Disintegrate feels just as fun the billionth time I've hit that button as the first. And no matter how many times it happens, seeing something fade to green dust when they're killed with Disintegrate (exactly the way they're suppose to die according to the D&D spell), still makes me smile.
And I know there's a lot of balance issues out there, but for the most part, all the classes feel very distinct and play very differently from each other. I think they were very thoughtful and creative with each class, and that feels really, really good.
But then we have to deal with the Dungeon Master. And it seems like he's "one of those" that we've all dealt with at one point or another. He's the DM that can take an amazing game, but guard it so jealously that it's just not fun for the players. He's the guy who's crazy stingy with the experience, or is adamant that even the weakest of magical weapons should be an epic journey to acquire, and you should be literally kissing his feet when he "graces" you with a treasure reward.
And I don't think there's a single D&D fan here who's enjoyed playing at a table that they didn't think was run fair. Maybe if the game or the company at the table is enjoyable enough, they'll put up with it for a few sessions, or longer...but ultimately the lack of fairness is going to create frustration and resentment, and people are going to get angry or leave.
Or both.
Sound familiar?
It's what I was thinking about when I wrote about letting players hit the RAD cap without struggling. Just like in your D&D handbook, there's guidelines and rules for how much experience an encounter should reward, how much treasure a character should get and what the baseline wealth is per level for characters. These expectations are set by the rules that we all agree are fair and we'll play by.
So much like that 24k/day limit...why be so stingy about letting players hit that? If the DM has decided that for his world, 24k is the target, then let it be the target.
And then use that as the baseline for calculating how fast a character should advance through tiers of wealth.
Make game decisions that assume players are going to hit that 24k/day cap, then calculate your costs off that. Players that don't hit the cap will be slightly behind. Players that are able to benefit from drops and generate wealth via the AH, or exchange Zen for AD will be ahead. But how far ahead people get via other mechanisms doesn't really matter as long as the advancement is fair for the average player.
So now when we look at costs, the DM should ask "Is this fair?"
Let me just tackle one issue, although I feel like this logic could be used for any number of things.
On companion costs: Is it fair that upgrading from white to green takes 300,000 AD? Or (assuming maximum RAD generation) is 13 days of putting ALL your wealth towards upgrading that one companion fair?
500,000 to blue is almost 21 days. To purple is 750,000 another 32 days. And legendary is 42 more days. All together, that's 108 days straight of maxing out your RAD limit to get ONE companion to Legendary. Is that really fair to players? Especially when we think that you'll have 5 active companions (not all of which need to be Legendary), plus the churn of new companions being introduced.
But going back to White to Green, you also have to think about WHEN would a player reasonably being upgrading these companions as they journey through Neverwinter.
White to Green is a heroic tier upgrade, in my mind. Most people probably get their first white companion to max rank pretty early on in their career. But at low levels they're also generating less AD, so basing that upgrade cost against a level 70 income isn't fair. White to Green should be cheap, very cheap...even at low levels spending AD is a big decision, but you also want to give players a taste for the extra power that comes from upgrading companions. Which is FUN...seeing your companion get stronger, which makes you stronger as well, is a FUN thing.
And then look at Green to Blue. This is a paragon tier upgrade in my mind. Again, you're a little stronger, maybe AD generation is better...and maybe you have a better handle on what you're actually doing with a toon. So this needs to be a little more of a cost, to make you think about it, but not so much that it would cripple your toon to spend all your carefully guarded AD to upgrade. But being able to do this as you work your way into the later levels reinforces companions as a viable tool of advancement for your character.
Then Epic and Legendary upgrades? Those are end-game upgrades. The DM should hope and expect that players are reaching for Epic companion upgrades at level 70. Legendary should be rare, though...and the expectation is that once players start to plateau a little with gear, they're going to reach for at least one Legendary companion, either as a partner in their adventures or for that extra stat boost of 15%.
So if those are the parameters, we need to ask ourselves "What is fair for players?"
Here's what I think is fair.
White to Green: 5,000 AD
Green to Blue: 50,000 AD
Blue to Epic: 200,000 AD
Epic to Legendary: 400,000 AD
So we see that White to Green is relatively cheap. And so is Green to Blue.
With the changes to AD, 200,000 to go to Purple is an investment, but it's not outrageous.
400,000 to get to Legendary is a longer turn process. Not so expensive that it's crippling and out of reach for the average player, but it's enough that you really have to think about what companion you want to upgrade to Legendary and how important that companion is.
And that's just one issue. I won't bother tackling others in a single post, but I believe the logic could apply to every single AD cost in the game.
In fact, if I was the Dungeon Master here, I'd make a spreadsheet of every single AD cost in the game. I'd put that up against the average expected income, and break it down into what percentage of wealth I feel like my players should (or are) spending their income on. You have numerous sinks...from boons, to enchantments, to companions, mounts and even Stronghold upgrades.
And then I would ask myself, "What is FAIR for players, given how I expect people to spend their wealth?"
In the world of D&D, fair and fun go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.
Right now things just don't seem FAIR for players for various reasons. And it's incredibly frustrating.
I love the world Neverwinter has laid out for us. It's very close to the lore, and (especially if you're a fan of the RA Salvatore Books) it's extremely well done. It definitely FEELS like a D&D world.
The combat is excellent. It's just fun for me. For some crazy reason, casting Steal Time or Disintegrate feels just as fun the billionth time I've hit that button as the first. And no matter how many times it happens, seeing something fade to green dust when they're killed with Disintegrate (exactly the way they're suppose to die according to the D&D spell), still makes me smile.
And I know there's a lot of balance issues out there, but for the most part, all the classes feel very distinct and play very differently from each other. I think they were very thoughtful and creative with each class, and that feels really, really good.
But then we have to deal with the Dungeon Master. And it seems like he's "one of those" that we've all dealt with at one point or another. He's the DM that can take an amazing game, but guard it so jealously that it's just not fun for the players. He's the guy who's crazy stingy with the experience, or is adamant that even the weakest of magical weapons should be an epic journey to acquire, and you should be literally kissing his feet when he "graces" you with a treasure reward.
And I don't think there's a single D&D fan here who's enjoyed playing at a table that they didn't think was run fair. Maybe if the game or the company at the table is enjoyable enough, they'll put up with it for a few sessions, or longer...but ultimately the lack of fairness is going to create frustration and resentment, and people are going to get angry or leave.
Or both.
Sound familiar?
It's what I was thinking about when I wrote about letting players hit the RAD cap without struggling. Just like in your D&D handbook, there's guidelines and rules for how much experience an encounter should reward, how much treasure a character should get and what the baseline wealth is per level for characters. These expectations are set by the rules that we all agree are fair and we'll play by.
So much like that 24k/day limit...why be so stingy about letting players hit that? If the DM has decided that for his world, 24k is the target, then let it be the target.
And then use that as the baseline for calculating how fast a character should advance through tiers of wealth.
Make game decisions that assume players are going to hit that 24k/day cap, then calculate your costs off that. Players that don't hit the cap will be slightly behind. Players that are able to benefit from drops and generate wealth via the AH, or exchange Zen for AD will be ahead. But how far ahead people get via other mechanisms doesn't really matter as long as the advancement is fair for the average player.
So now when we look at costs, the DM should ask "Is this fair?"
Let me just tackle one issue, although I feel like this logic could be used for any number of things.
On companion costs: Is it fair that upgrading from white to green takes 300,000 AD? Or (assuming maximum RAD generation) is 13 days of putting ALL your wealth towards upgrading that one companion fair?
500,000 to blue is almost 21 days. To purple is 750,000 another 32 days. And legendary is 42 more days. All together, that's 108 days straight of maxing out your RAD limit to get ONE companion to Legendary. Is that really fair to players? Especially when we think that you'll have 5 active companions (not all of which need to be Legendary), plus the churn of new companions being introduced.
But going back to White to Green, you also have to think about WHEN would a player reasonably being upgrading these companions as they journey through Neverwinter.
White to Green is a heroic tier upgrade, in my mind. Most people probably get their first white companion to max rank pretty early on in their career. But at low levels they're also generating less AD, so basing that upgrade cost against a level 70 income isn't fair. White to Green should be cheap, very cheap...even at low levels spending AD is a big decision, but you also want to give players a taste for the extra power that comes from upgrading companions. Which is FUN...seeing your companion get stronger, which makes you stronger as well, is a FUN thing.
And then look at Green to Blue. This is a paragon tier upgrade in my mind. Again, you're a little stronger, maybe AD generation is better...and maybe you have a better handle on what you're actually doing with a toon. So this needs to be a little more of a cost, to make you think about it, but not so much that it would cripple your toon to spend all your carefully guarded AD to upgrade. But being able to do this as you work your way into the later levels reinforces companions as a viable tool of advancement for your character.
Then Epic and Legendary upgrades? Those are end-game upgrades. The DM should hope and expect that players are reaching for Epic companion upgrades at level 70. Legendary should be rare, though...and the expectation is that once players start to plateau a little with gear, they're going to reach for at least one Legendary companion, either as a partner in their adventures or for that extra stat boost of 15%.
So if those are the parameters, we need to ask ourselves "What is fair for players?"
Here's what I think is fair.
White to Green: 5,000 AD
Green to Blue: 50,000 AD
Blue to Epic: 200,000 AD
Epic to Legendary: 400,000 AD
So we see that White to Green is relatively cheap. And so is Green to Blue.
With the changes to AD, 200,000 to go to Purple is an investment, but it's not outrageous.
400,000 to get to Legendary is a longer turn process. Not so expensive that it's crippling and out of reach for the average player, but it's enough that you really have to think about what companion you want to upgrade to Legendary and how important that companion is.
And that's just one issue. I won't bother tackling others in a single post, but I believe the logic could apply to every single AD cost in the game.
In fact, if I was the Dungeon Master here, I'd make a spreadsheet of every single AD cost in the game. I'd put that up against the average expected income, and break it down into what percentage of wealth I feel like my players should (or are) spending their income on. You have numerous sinks...from boons, to enchantments, to companions, mounts and even Stronghold upgrades.
And then I would ask myself, "What is FAIR for players, given how I expect people to spend their wealth?"
In the world of D&D, fair and fun go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.
"Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
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Comments
I'm looking forward to more changes being made to this situation. The sooner the better!
Also for me it's actually much worse than the scenario you put fourth, I have been trying to level characters and earn boons. I often earn far less RAD because I'm running dailies or mining black ice, which only earns me AD If I can glean useful items from the battlefield and sell them, which is bothersome because we have no bag space due to the overly complex binding situation in the game.
I hope they do something pretty quick, luxury items in the game are pretty much out of reach right now, at least for me.
Players shouldn't be expected to need dozens of "mule" characters to support honest progress of a single main character. If someone wants to employ alts to help speed up resource collection on their main character, that's fine.
But the root game should support advancement of a single toon via the resources available to that single toon in a fair and reasonable manner.
Traxus Atheanes GF
Bastiel Atheanes DC
Ellara Atheanes CW
Keira Atheanes TR
Sarasin Atheanes SW
Jerkface McGee HR
-MANTARA- OP
The Treasure type.
This game does not give you that rush you got at the table, or with the old gold box games of when you defeat a monster you get this mound of treasure to go through and either sell, or on rare occasions use.
I remember the first(and only) time I got a +3 dwarven throwing hammer in my tabletop game. it was one of the treasures at the end of a long campaign and it was simply some pencil scratchings on a character sheet. 30 years later I still have the sheet. It meant something to me.
In this game I kill a dragon and I get a piece of equipment i have already recieved from other monsters 1000 times. "IF" i have a keys to a chest, even though i am surrounded by millions of gold coins and other treasure.
Obviously you can not give mounds of treasure away from a monster that you are allowed to kill multiple times a day, in an mmo, but this is what you can do.
Create a counter for major end game bosses.
At 50 kills you get a leadership quest that allows you to put together an expidition to go to the lair of the monster you killed and load up on loot.
then you have a rng of decent loot that your expedition finds in the lair and brings back. The better the assets you use , the more you can bring back.
At 100 you offer the next expedition with the chance at even better loot. etc... up to say 1000 kills where it levels out and you need 500 for the same level of loot after that.
Give us that WOW factor. give us a reason to do leadership again. give us that tabletop feeling we all remember and love.
Xtorma.
at that point neverwinter was THE best free to play mmorg, if not the best mmorpg
I feel like if you can dial back in the costs of the game, you can breath new life back into that aspect. Indeed, one of the most exciting feels in an MMO is killing a boss AND having it drop that one piece of perfect loot for your character. I don't know if that feeling exists anymore in Neverwinter. Apart from getting the .01% artifact drop, that need isn't really fulfilled.
I'd love to see some meaningful dungeon drops added back to loot tables, as well.
I don't know how exactly you structure it, but maybe three "tiers" of loot at the top of the gear pyramid.
So you have your "common" epics that are BoE and drop regularly from bosses (although I still like the idea of "if it drops, it's yours" loot). These pieces are the bottom rung of the top of the gear pyramid.
You then have your seal gear, purchased with whatever currency you get from completing dungeons. This gear is your "sure thing" stuff. Run enough dungeons, and even with rotten luck, you still get these.
Then you have your "rare" epics that again drop from bosses. These pieces are exactly like the seal gear, except the non-HP stats are randomized. So it makes gear interesting again.
Like right now, you have Dragonflight armor. Some people like the gear stats, others hate them. For example, is a +recovery +power piece REALLY BiS for a CW? Not really. But what if there was a chance that a piece with the exact same stat allocation could drop from a dragon that randomly had +crit + power? Now that's freaking sweet!
Yeah, you're praying to the god of randomness that you get a drop with the right stat allocation, but that's a carrot to keep running the content if you want to "MAX OUT" your toon perfectly. But while you're doing that, you still get the "sure thing" progress of gear through seals.
Anyway, that's a tangent to the main point of the thread...but it still falls under the broader category of "What can the Dungeon Masters do to make the game feel more fair, fun and rewarding for the players?"
If fact this whole post got me thinking about what as a DM I would do about loot at the end of a gaming session. When little creatures or a small areas were defeated by the adventuring team it was easy for them to pack their spoils in a back pack, on horses, or even pack mules. But it became more of a challenge for them when they would take a dragon down or a large scale area like a castle or something like that. They would have to come up with a way to get as much loot from the bigger area's as possible. They would probably secure the area and then hire some NPC's to help them move the treasure to their base of operations. The other option sometimes was to make the new area their base of operations.
Ok, getting back to Neverwinter. This post also got me thinking about professions and where our raw supplies come from. We assign our assist to "gather" the raw supplies and after a certain time has passed the supplies appear. Now I don't really mind this process, in fact it was one of the reasons I was drawn to Neverwinter in the first place (the top reason being the D&D logo combined with MMO style of play and my favorite campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms). I have played plenty of MMO's where getting the raw supplies sucks up a lot of your free time. In these MMO's I disliked having to choose between adventuring and gathering crafting supplies. This type of crafting process was often cumbersome and loathing for very little return value and is one of the ways Neverwinter was different from other MMO's.
So where is this going? I remember Scott saying when he was first introduced us something about a crafting profession that could do dungeon spelunking. Well, what if after we complete a dungeon we could send our crafting assets in to secure the area and then pillage it for it resources? So here is my idea in all its glory, the leadership assets secure the area and the rest of our assets could come in and pillage it! The reward would be determined by the dungeon, the assets used, and the quality of the assets used.
I wouldn't want to change the whole crafting system because like I said I don't mind how we gather our raw components in Neverwinter. But what if, for instance, we completed ELOL and then we send our assets in and as a major(purple) reward they find a dragons egg and then a bunch of (minor blue and green) crafting components.
Imagine the possibilities! I know something like this would require a lot of programing and there is always a lot for the Dev team to do, but if it was possible it would be interesting and bring a whole new dimension to doing dungeons and crafting. Anyway its a long shot but you all got me thinking, back to the topic
Simply enough, have profession assets drop from bosses and/or monsters that can be used in tasks to reap more rewards from doing dungeons. For example, have the last boss in ToS drop an item needed for the "Raid a secret Drow Cache" task that rewards a bunch of extra loot for the player.
Npc: "Go run this dungeon a mind numbingly amounts of times would you? I'll give you this coinage of something or other that you can trade with a vendor to get some gear......"
Never mind, how did the vendor get the gear in the first place...never mind, why the heck did he want this silly currency in the second place...how about the "premise" inherent in that logic? You are killing a "boss" umpteen amounts of time for the coin to get the gear to kill the boss....HUH?
Is there some mysterious, "resurrect the bosses of the NW universe" society we don't know about? They wait for you to kill the boss. so they can resurrect the boss, so you can kill the boss, to thereby get the coins they planted on the bosses body for you to loot to get the gear they make?
Yes, yes I know..we are killing the boss umpteen times anyway, but the overt admissions of the npc that we have to kill the boss umpteen times....that's the fantasy killer!
What was wrong with the, kill the big bad boss that all the adventurers before your badassiness came along got killed by model? Why not the kill IT then loot his hoard left over from all his wicked ill gotten gains? Why not the "comb through the hoard" feel to the conclusion? There is a mountain of gold and gems here...lets filter through and pick the best, I can't lug all this stuff the 10 leagues home...such a pity.
They have made it a "job" to kill the boss rather than a quest! Some NPC is actually paying you to kill the boss for coin! Not because it's the "right thing to do" and then loot their hoard to get paid.
It's a great feeling to see, even if you fail the roll, epic/rare gear from the end fight, if you didn't get the gear on a need roll, oh well, there still is all this loot over here. Better luck next time! Now its "oh look, a R5 enchant and some vendor trash......Oh well the Npc gives coins out...." Bleh, simply BLEH!
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While I'm not stumping for WoW (I hate that game), they did do 1 thing good, on the quest arc when you run a long drawn out dungeon (after doing the pre-requisite quests), there is a "something of something" gear drop that everyone gets for their efforts, no RGN for it. They then go trade that for the class specific gear they need.
You go to all the effort to do the run up quests for the conclusion dungeon, then you are for sure getting a gear that you need not roll on, and it's going to "fit" your class. That's the best of both worlds, you work hard and work towards some goal, and when you get through with the boss you feel like you did something epic, and there is no let down of a bad roll. YAY!
With the old system using 7 toons could at best (because im lazy) farm about between 50k-80k a day depending if I remembered to take rinx quests, ran during event times and ran more then 1 dungeon. I only ran 2 mains and had 5 farmers.
With the new system Im basically down to maxing out the refining limit on 1 toon and getting about half that on the other toon and the 5 farmers are pretty much worthless to me in terms of AD.
And yet all the AD sinks except for the marks are still at the old system prices and even some of those were still pretty ridiculously high with the old system.
Im sure im missing some but let list all the stuff we are pretty much expected to spend our ADs on.
Sharandar campaign.
Dread ring campaign.
Ice wind dale campaign.
Tyranny of dragons campaign.
Stronghold campaign. (lets call it what it is)
Marks.
Then there are the things that aren't a must have but most players would like to do if they could afford to do so.
Companion upgrade.
Mount upgrade.
Changing artifact power.
Crafting armor kits.
Crafting epic gear.
Buy zen from the zax.
Transmuting gear.
Then finally there is all the junk low level gear you can buy with AD from the npcs in the market which honestly, even if you somehow have enough AD to actually buy any of those items, who in their right mind would ever spend AD for such poor quality gear that you will no doubt be changing within a day or two at such low levels.
Then we have the absolutely mind boggling prices of the wondrous bazaar. 125AD for a greater scroll of identification? Seriously? Who is ever that desperate to identify a piece of gear that they are going to spend that much for a scroll?
500AD for a 3 pack of party popper? NWO fireworks suck... even at 1AD for 3 im not sure I'd waste AD on them.
450k AD for the full turmian set? RIght now for 400k I can buy 1k zen from the zax and get an outfit from the zen store and save 50k AD.
12.5k AD for a Cube of augmentation. Well since you need 4 for each try that 50k ADs for each try.
I'll stop there because we all know the prices are insane.
Right now virtually all AD prices in game need to slashed in half just to make them remotely fair with the recent reduction in our ability to earn/make ADs.
Another great idea for your "Suggestion of the Week series", we will all agree with it, say its a great idea and it will never be implemented.
However, assuming it will be implemented, here is my feedback on it:
I personally would like to see epic and interesting loot in dungeons, loot that gives me a wow factor. Bear in mind, I have farmed elol enough to get 16 horn drops and even then, I don't get that "wow" when I see it drop, because of how much effort I put into it, I feel like its just a case of, "you better drop horn" which is not the way its supposed to be. I feel like rewards of that tier are given out too sparsely and for the wrong reason. I would prefer if amazing tiers of loot were given out for non soloable content that was challenging, but given out more frequently, rather then given out once every 200 elol runs when the game is feeling generous. It is fine if a drop like that will never be made available for people who can't run t2's, because they would likely have never have got it from mass farming elol anyhow, the people that don't run t2's are also the people who don't do 8 minute elol runs for hours to get salvage stuff.
Ultimately, I remember in mod 4 at the start where I got the very first piece of the accursed diabolist SW set that hit the auction, it was the helmet from SP and I remember the , "OMG I am RICH!!!" feeling I had when I won the roll that could have gone 5 ways in the group I was in. You just don't get that level of hype and excitement anymore from drops, when that happened, I was so excited, I posted it for 8 million AD on the auction house and got a sale and I still remember that fondly to this day. Now, I am not suggesting making stuff like that happen all the time, but to just add that wow factor back into the game, because as it stands, unless I get lucky in a lockbox, there is nothing in this game that can drop anywhere that will give me that excitement and that feels sad.
they should work so that you play an alt when you want smth different, so you dont feel forced to have them for professions/invoking, so you dont have to spend so much time on upkeep(professions/invoking) make it easier to gear alts, the acc bound armor helps, but armor isnt the issue, its the nicest part to farm, the real problem is everything that has RP, pets mounts etc.
Something has to give, and that something is the Devs.
The 'carrot on a stick' concept is important to keep players invested for the long term, but many players will drop out if that stick is pushed so far ahead that they don't deem it feasible to even get sight of it. At that point, many will just not bother in the first place once they come to that realization. I like to think that MMO players do have more resilience when it comes to tolerating the grind to progress, but that isn't a bottomless resource for any player either.
<CO docs> .: Petco :. // Base DPS Sheet (needs revision) // PSA on Power Activation Delay
- Themed Tanks // Misc Build Dump // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (stat data)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
- Will player feedback be considered for any AD changes?
- What AD changes are planed right now?
- When are those changes coming?
The players can write down all the good ideas, suggestions and feedback about AD changes over and over again in this or any other threads... but what is it good for, without any feedback from the Devs?
Again, it would really help to get some more current (?) informations from the Devs on the AD changes.