All Geared Up... And Nowhere To Go.

aimeesellers

Ok... I started playing NW in Mod 2. In that time, I have manged to level and gear up 2 of my characters to what I would refer to as either Legendary or Mythic status. All my artifacts are Mythic, all my artifact gear is Legendary. I have the best armor, the beat weapons, the best companions you can get in the game... and I am not alone.

More and more players are reaching these levels and more, every day. Yet we have no content which is enough to challenge us. The stronghold boons alone put every character in the guilds that have them in a level far above the difficulty of the current dungeons and skirmishes. The new companions, the new armors... all do the same. Cryptic has given us the abilty to obtain these things... and failed to give us anything worthwhile to do once we have them.

I have said it before... and I will keep saying it. We need Legendary and Mythic level dungeons and skirmishes in order to make these things worthwhile. The guilds have made running Tier 1's pointless. With the boons you have and the guild gear you can get, there is no reason to run them for gear any more. Salvage maybe... but they can all be done in sleep mode. Tier 2's are becoming the same way. You can get better gear by running demonic HE's or just buying the Dusk armor with TB's than you can by running Tier 2 dungeons. The entire Alliance class of gear has become nothing but salvage for most players.

So how can this be fixed? Start off by making the value of the gear that drops equal to the difficulty of the dungeon. Why would anyone run eGWD when they can get the same gear in eToS... and eToS is not nearly as difficult. The only reason for us to do it... is eToS is boring at our current gear levels. At least eGWD offers "some" challenge.

Second... when (and if) new dungeons and skirmishes are added... they either need to be available in both Epic and Legendary/Mythic versions, or... just make a few that are Legendary and Mythic only.

So what would a Legendary/Mythic dungeon look like? 3000 / 3500 item level to get in the door. Rewards worth getting based on the difficulty. Monsters and Bosses that are near unbeatable... requiring variation of tactics, balanced parties.

I find it hard to fathom, that we have been given the ability to be this powerful simply by playing the game... and now that we are... we are limited in what we can do that has any degree of difficulty. Dragonflight runs in the guild now easily take on and defeat 3 at a time... 4 if we have the right players and numbers. Tiamat has and continues to be a joke. Demogorgon can be beaten at gold level repeatedly as long as the other team isnt totally clueless. By the way.... the fact that demogorgon is beaten even if you totally fail the run... is a bit ridiculous.

With all of this said... I know I am shouting into deaf ears. Myself and many members of this community have been saying all of this over and over and over again. We get no response... no replies... and nothing is ever done about it. So why do I keep shouting? If I had more to do in the game... maybe I wouldnt be.

kiraskytower

I second everything @aimeesellers has said here. I know there is a desire at Cryptic not to make new content exclude part of the player base ... which has led to relatively easy content with low item levels for entry. Much like they did in Mod 8 with Demogorgon we need multiple levels of end game content. Call them normal and epic or epic and legendary the names don't matter. What does matter is that we have something challenging for those at the 2.5K ... 3K .. 3.5K+ marks.

wylonus

there is a topic about dungeon difficulty on NW's feedback pages.

aimeesellers

wylonus said:

there is a topic about dungeon difficulty on NW's feedback pages.

There have been many

putzboy78

temporary players are more profitable with a short term focus. They pay just as much to get all the goodies but do not stick around to be a burden on the system. That is the attraction of an all inclusive model

That said you would assume that marketing the game would be better so they continually bring in new traffic. I felt like Mod 1 and 2 were marketed real well. They tried marketing mod 3 but was out shined by a popular subscription modeled game that was released at the same time (and has since gone F2P but is still terrible). Since then I feel the market has been sub-par but in all fairness those modules have added very little in the way of content they could really market

xveganrox

This is just a symptom of the bigger problem which is an overall lack of dungeon/skirmish content. If they would release the old dungeons with IL 2000, 2400, 2800, and even 3200 requirements it would solve this problem.

A secondary problem is that guild boons are just ridiculous, there's no way to balance for that. +20,000 main stat points is the maximum difference between a guild player and a non-guild player, and an IL 3200 character with that boost is going to be significantly stronger than an IL 3200 character without it.

glubtal

aimeesellers said:

So what would a Legendary/Mythic dungeon look like? 3000 / 3500 item level to get in the door. Rewards worth getting based on the difficulty. Monsters and Bosses that are near unbeatable... requiring variation of tactics, balanced parties.

But, but...after 2 weeks you'll have even better equipment, making those new dungeons just as bored and start complaining here again. I just dont think its worth Cryptics efford to make you 2-3% of the community happy for a little month, when theres so many other issues they can look into. Like class ballancing, bug repairing, new mod, new class, you name it...

ryoshinette

Prolly i would repeat myself, but.
Everything was ruined because of rafination system. There is only one value: RP. You can't earn AD running dungeons.
This is not Dungeons and Dragons. It's a dragons and deamons.

Few attempts to fix pvp: IWD was a nice idea, unfortunatelly ruined by lagz and pets. SH pvp was even more exciting ! Now - it's unplayable content without any point if you got pvp set. It's a lag fest and broken interactions with auras/companions etc makes this unplayable. We even can't arrange guild vs guild event. Lobby?

Extreme stupid idea of guild boons. Money and resource sink without den, just to be insulted if you are using drains rank 2.
Forcing us to go Sharandar/dread ring over and over just for guild needs - O.o

New module? Just another boring running to get a RING the precious one. Good that thanks to Sophi ring of nature was blocked. TBH all of them should never appear in NWO.

And many others.
So now - loging to use free key and play one match, hoping I wont get 1k ilvl in my or opposite team. Both situations are just pathetic.

Then go to real MMO.
Have fun, If you can find some.

putzboy78

you say implementing new dungeons is easy but its not. for a new dungeon to be succesfull it needs rewards. So then they invent another currency for another gear. Then all the 4k people become 5k people asking for a 4k+ dungeon. It never ends

The only solution is to invest in new content which will not be happening to any great degree. That is why there is effort to recycle old content in new ways. It's a cheap implementation but it will not ultimately keep up with what the players want.

I will say the developers have been doing well with making companions viable again, vip has been a great success, RP is way cheaper than ever. The only major complaints i have is the limited content (that doesn't reflect on developers and is more about corporate investment) and those M8 rings that are a disaster.

silverkelt

I would like some data from cryptic (which of course they will not release)

the data request should be top i level per account..

Some median and averages on data and averages per class and average play times.

I would find this very interesting.

My contention is that on average, those players who play every day AT LEAST have a 2.5k i level toon +.

I dont care about those players playing less then 5 hours a week.. thats just super casual and they will never really get anywhere in game, so they cant cater to those players.. they already have a TON of easy content to slog through.

BTW.. eventually everyone in game will have more then enough to slam through all content, you will eventually regret opposing some harder stuff.

I WOULD make a t1/t2/t3 dungeon for every DD.. and scale rewards.

This is a must.

I found it very frustrating in 2013 when i joined the game. It took me originally a year to get a perfect enchant or two.. but of course we were talking about 15-20 million AD for a enchant back then..

Having r8s were GOOD back then.. Having greater artifacts were GOOD back then.

This is now the year 2016.. you can make epic artifacts x 4 and have r7s in a few weeks.

Its so much cheaper to get to around 2.5k i level then it ever was.

Your crazy to oppose this, even super casuals will eventually grow quickly out of this content.. its very boring and more important..

SUPER unrewarding. Ive never seen a mmo this unrewarding to play.. by stripping all rewards from all content, they make them basically unplayable.

Since they wont release this, you cant prove to me that your right and I cant prove to you I am right.

What I can pass over is the eyeball test, in all the channels i play with, the averages of players has increased in the last 6 months and content is now back to what it was CLOSE to mod 5..

Of course.. REWARDS are less , FAR less then mod 5..

So there are two problems.. 1. how easy everything is and 2. HOW unrewarding it is.

They should fix both.. really they have to fix #2 at least.

wentris

Game I played previously solved it this way:
Lets assume there are 3 kinds of players: [H]ardcore ones, [A]verage ones, [C]asual ones (which includes new players, who may turn to [A] or [H] after some time). If I had to choose iLvL to describe them (which I dont really like) it would be 3.5k-4k+ for [H], 2.5k-3.5k for [A] and [C] below 2.5k.
There were also 3 difficulties for fresh content:

• Easy - like normal ToS. [H] and [A] just run through it not paying attention to anything. [C] may need to pay some attention, but generally shouldnt struggle to complete it.
  
• Normal - A bit harder than current T2s, even if you removed tactics like Bubble + Virt DC. To complete it its required to figure some boss mechanics, but definitely not rocket science. [H] may need to pay some attention, but generally shouldnt struggle to complete it, [A] is required to put some effort to complete it. For [C] its probably impossible, unless carried by [H] or [A].
  
• Hard - A lot harder than any content currently available in the game. There are complex boss mechanics which require cooperation between multiple players, as well as tactics required for individual players - it is possible that bad move of 1 person causes wipe of whole party. These mechanics arent explained by videos - like on Demogorgon - players have to figure out whats happening by themselves. It may and probably will take multiple battles to understand whats happening. DPS classes are 1 shot by basically anything which can be evaded by them and moderately to heavily injured by things that are inevitable. Tanks are under heavy fire and require constant attention of healer(s), they cant survive on their own for more than few seconds. Healers are pretty tanky compared to DPS classes and can take some hits (thats because they are 1st target of any attack of freshly spawned mobs), but tanks/controllers need to help them quickly, especially that attacked healer cant heal anybody except of himself. [H] have their challenge, for [A] its almost impossible, unless carried by [H] and even then requires some knowledge of boss mechanics, for [C] this difficulty is completely out of their league.
  

However, when new module came the most new dungeon was like above one, but previous dungeon changed to:

• Easy - nobody runs it anymore, unless for some special purpose.
  
• Normal - [A] may need to pay some attention, but not really hard for them anymore. For [C] its now possible, but requires some challenge. [H] dont pay attention about it anymore.
  
• Hard - [H] can farm it now when they want some break from new dungeon Hard mode, since some items are still valuable. [A] have a challenge, but should manage to complete it after some wipes. For [C] its still impossible, unless carried.
  

In old game the damage was mostly controlled by character level to mobs/bosses level. Each module increased max lvl by few levels, which made huge change in damage dealt/received in older content. Here devs are free to choose whatever they want to control it. The gear was BoE and it was still possible to unbind it via IS - not suggested for Neverwinter, especially that there dropping an item was 1 thing, but enhancing it was another one, there were various ways you could do it in. BoE would be amazing, though. Now, in its current form new gear makes old one obsolete, since its usually easy to get it. Even if you still cant drop +5 rings from Demo/Skirmishes, +4 ones are already improvement to previous rings, especially since they are going to have 2 slots in upcoming patch. In that game new gear was so hard to get BiS gear that many [C] and [A] chose its much cheaper and easier to get replacement from previous chapter. And since [H] didnt care to farm that gear anymore (edit: when I mentioned earlier that [H] can farm it in breaks from challenge I meant something else, than farming gear for sale, I just dont want to go too deep into itemization system of that game) [A] and some stronger [C] had a place to run and become richer. Those were golden times of that game and if nothing changed I would probably still play it, but then some poor management decisions happened - I believe they wanted to get more income than they really could get and some real life stuff that made me busy made me abandon that game.

The disadvantage of this system was a gap between [A] and [H]. It was quite easy to become [A] from [C], but there was a wall above that - the real money cost is one thing, but willingness to learn to cooperate, master class build and skills and sacrifice time to develop tactics required quite a lot of effort - too much for nature of Neverwinter, however that was mainly because of dungeons length - even with perfect party that melts (as for that game standards) through dungeon full run last 2 hours - dungeons in Neverwinter are much shorter and thats good, 30 minutes (in strong party) dungeons can require effort too. The paywall was controlled through some IS stuff and could look otherwise in Neverwinter. Especially that it is already a lot cheaper to be BiS here.

Also, remember that if they release 3k+ dungeons they are meant to be fun for 3k+ players and a goal to be achieved by lesser geared ones. As somebody said, right now its pay to be bored.

adinosii

A year ago I had what could be considered "high-end gear", and most of the content was annoyingly easy. I left the game for various reasons and only returned fairly recently. Now, after returning and leveling up from 60 to 70, I bought some blue AH gear and you know what - at that point the difficulty of the content was quite appropriate. Some of the solo content was actually challenging, which was a big change for me.

Now my gear has improved, and the difference is very noticeable - when I first hit 70 in my blue gear, I could not even solo the
easiest HEs in the SH area - now they are trivial. I still have a long way to go - one of my artifacts and my off-hand are still green for example - I am currently waiting for the next 2xRP event and at that point I will be in the 3K+ TiL category, and will probably be back in the situation of finding the content annoyingly easy again.

The bottom line: Things become too easy too quickly.

revan06100

I would say the fastest state is, to get 2.5/3k IL from a fresh 70.
I'm myself a GWF with 3.8k IL, and i agree with what have been said above about difficulty, Tier 1 are too easy.
However, i don't agree about the T2's, The tier 2 dungeons ( ETOS non included ) are too easy for one reason : OP Tanks and their bubble, along with a dc ( perma bubble build), there is just no point doing it, and that, no matter how geared the other players in the group are, cause you will get permanently invincible.
Have you try running ECC or EGWD with just a GF and a DC ? no, i mean, DC's heals are just no powerful enough to keep you alive even compare to an OP Devo, and the GF, with no way of healing, or adding temporary HP to themselves, will die quickly, except maybe if his IL get passed 4k.
But let's be honnest, is it not normal for a 4k IL player to find 2k Dungeons to easy? I mean, if you have this IL, why do you run dungeons except for upgrading your SH or salvaging ? You can't except to find challenge in these.
Secondly, how many players have reached 4k yet? 3k, ok, with farming, its not unreachable, but someone with 4k gs, has either paid quiet a lot, or played his toon since Beta.
So the problem is, a lack of content, it gets too boring to run the same 4/5 dungeons all the time, we need the old ones back, and not in a year, in the next few months at least... otherwise Neverwinter will go down.
Then, the OP problem, with this bubble thing, it's just overpowered, and GF/DC, have just become broken classes.
Some work need to be done on balancing, specially for GF and DC's, then maybe Nerf the bubble, to keep some challenge in dungeons and even PVP.

urabask

revan06100 said:

I would say the fastest state is, to get 2.5/3k IL from a fresh 70.
I'm myself a GWF with 3.8k IL, and i agree with what have been said above about difficulty, Tier 1 are too easy.
However, i don't agree about the T2's, The tier 2 dungeons ( ETOS non included ) are too easy for one reason : OP Tanks and their bubble, along with a dc ( perma bubble build), there is just no point doing it, and that, no matter how geared the other players in the group are, cause you will get permanently invincible.
Have you try running ECC or EGWD with just a GF and a DC ? no, i mean, DC's heals are just no powerful enough to keep you alive even compare to an OP Devo, and the GF, with no way of healing, or adding temporary HP to themselves, will die quickly, except maybe if his IL get passed 4k.
But let's be honnest, is it not normal for a 4k IL player to find 2k Dungeons to easy? I mean, if you have this IL, why do you run dungeons except for upgrading your SH or salvaging ? You can't except to find challenge in these.
Secondly, how many players have reached 4k yet? 3k, ok, with farming, its not unreachable, but someone with 4k gs, has either paid quiet a lot, or played his toon since Beta.
So the problem is, a lack of content, it gets too boring to run the same 4/5 dungeons all the time, we need the old ones back, and not in a year, in the next few months at least... otherwise Neverwinter will go down.
Then, the OP problem, with this bubble thing, it's just overpowered, and GF/DC, have just become broken classes.
Some work need to be done on balancing, specially for GF and DC's, then maybe Nerf the bubble, to keep some challenge in dungeons and even PVP.

Honestly I prefer a GF+DC. If they're debuffing right you can melt bosses so fast that it makes perma-bubbles seem like a joke.

thefabricant

revan06100 said:

I would say the fastest state is, to get 2.5/3k IL from a fresh 70.
I'm myself a GWF with 3.8k IL, and i agree with what have been said above about difficulty, Tier 1 are too easy.
However, i don't agree about the T2's, The tier 2 dungeons ( ETOS non included ) are too easy for one reason : OP Tanks and their bubble, along with a dc ( perma bubble build), there is just no point doing it, and that, no matter how geared the other players in the group are, cause you will get permanently invincible.
Have you try running ECC or EGWD with just a GF and a DC ? no, i mean, DC's heals are just no powerful enough to keep you alive even compare to an OP Devo, and the GF, with no way of healing, or adding temporary HP to themselves, will die quickly, except maybe if his IL get passed 4k.
But let's be honnest, is it not normal for a 4k IL player to find 2k Dungeons to easy? I mean, if you have this IL, why do you run dungeons except for upgrading your SH or salvaging ? You can't except to find challenge in these.
Secondly, how many players have reached 4k yet? 3k, ok, with farming, its not unreachable, but someone with 4k gs, has either paid quiet a lot, or played his toon since Beta.
So the problem is, a lack of content, it gets too boring to run the same 4/5 dungeons all the time, we need the old ones back, and not in a year, in the next few months at least... otherwise Neverwinter will go down.
Then, the OP problem, with this bubble thing, it's just overpowered, and GF/DC, have just become broken classes.
Some work need to be done on balancing, specially for GF and DC's, then maybe Nerf the bubble, to keep some challenge in dungeons and even PVP.

https://youtu.be/io6daJ98EJY

I don't see what the OP has to do with it. Those dungeons are just easy.

solbergx

I think players should not have the ability to get to those level of IL if there are no dungeons for it!!

Like enchantments rank 9-12, Nobody with current system should be able to use it. If all players had 3K IL as max you wouldn't have overpowered characters, this applies to pvp too!!

oldbaldyone

The problem is, they don't know HOW to make content hard but doable. Mod6, they just cranked the dungeons through the roof and made it so any slip was a 1 shot. That wasn't fun...spending 25 minutes hitting ETOS last boss perfectly wasn't fun, and even less fun if you screwed up one time and wiped. I don't think they know how to make complex mechanics...they barely know how to do phases (VT is a great example, if not simplistic). Then they turned it down because players complained, and here we are, basically back where we were when all these major changes started. Overpowered classes, overpowered people, overpowered set bonuses....and people soloing dungeons for fun.

The other issue is, entitlement. Every player here feels they are entitled to access end game content and end game gear. Thats why when they do attempt to make things harder, people complain that its too hard. They can't STAND the idea of playing the lower level dungeons, because the better shiny toys are in the higher level ones.

Solutions:

Make higher level dungeons, and make them Party only. Put some mechanics in besides 1 hit dead. Should require a coordinate group, but back to this games roots, should not require a trinity party (if you put in dual specs, then Im fine with trinity parties). Make the loot equal to the effort, with equal amounts of BoP/BoA gear, and BoE gear that is a little less good but able to be sold for profit.

Will never happen. At this point, I expect the old dungeons will come back, will be hard (IE 1 shot everyone), and people will complain they can't faceroll through them. Some people will push on and figure it out, but then find the rewards are only a smidge better than other stuff, if better at all (yay, a peridot!...only 1million more runs and I can upgrade my off hand!). No new classes will be released due to dev team shortages, unless they had one that was basically ready and not released. In the end, I think this games hayday is past and they are in "milk the players" mode. I dare them to prove me wrong, cause I want to play...if for no better reason than the amount of time Ive invested.

mrshabok

I'm 2.5k il. I can already complete everything with little difficulty. It's not becuase I'm that good, it's just easy. If I can complete everything at this level, what's the motivation to improve? I've been forced to leave other games because of this. Other than for the sake of completion, there's literally no point to get better gear. That to me is the biggest problem. Get better gear so I can....do what exactly?