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This discussion was created from comments split from: [PC] Epic Dungeon Party Composition Problematics.
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Look at this from this point: none of the new content from mod10 is adressed for low or mid-tier players. Nothing.
Everything new is considered endgame now. As a casual you are stuck with etos and CN until you will vomit or quit your job to grind your HAMSTER. I know that now mid-tier players can (and should be able) to complete MSP or FBI. But it's 6 mods from then already (if you count 10.5 or 12.5 as well).
The only new thing not-endgame people got is the Merchant Princes Folly. And that's it during the course of previous mods. You could also count NSVA, but there was almost no point to complete it, since you couldn't complete your mod10 weapons upgrade by running it.
Overall I could agree that not all the content should be for everyone. But with so little content released every mod (1 dungeon/trial) I can't agree. Look at how fast people are bored with running dong, craddle or cr. And now put yourself in the shoes of people who are damned to run CN, etos other old dungeons every day, every mod.
There is too much "oh new dungeon, whatever, I will never run it" content right now. I find this a paradox that this game tries to be casual-friendly yet every new content they release seems to say the opposite.
Don't get me wrong - I don't have problems with getting into parties. I have two near BiS toons (HR and GF) and it doesn't affect me so much. But I see my guildies having problems, I'm trying to help them but there's not much fun in being dragged through the dungeon, knowing that you contribute minimum to your party. The other part is I don't have so much time to help all of them since I play casually as well.
Sorry for my long response. I hope you'll understand the vibe. Let's not forget that there are tons of other people out there. Forums is just the small community of the playerbase overall.
Thanks, and keep up the great work!
Ravenloft has made it easier than ever for new players/characters to catch up. (I myself took a lv 70 alt that only finished Blackdagger Ruins and had gear from there through Barovian intro and managed to clear it). You can instantly get pretty good or even BiS primary gear in a couple hours just by tagging along with a friend on some hunts.
The dungeons eventually end up getting easy enough after a mod or two to the point that they're considered pretty easy. So, if one wants to be able to immediately play the newest/end'est' stuff, it can expected to need work.
I do wish the composition didn't matter as much as it does though.
You have to admit that not introducing any content for mid-tier players for such a long time is not a good solution.
And let's be real - it's not about the gear. If it would be - no one (or at least lot less) would be raising this issue. You can have top gear and still fall during craddle run.
Also - Barovia doesn't give you bondings, companions or weapon enchantment which are the most important from all of the gear. So I disagree that you can easily "catch up" by getting better armor. But that's not my point.
I'm talking about none of the new content being good for casuals. They got nothing except for Folly in the last 1-1.5 year.
I don't blame players for trying to do things like one phasing, that is just how it goes. Ultimately, Cryptic takes on the role of the Dungeon Master and should look back to what Gygax wrote about avoiding Monte Hall campaigns, in terms of power creep not specifically treasure.
The solution isn't content that is specifically harder but reining in player power so that content isn't trivialized.
The whole MMO premise is you get harder stuff, as you get better, and repetitive grinding. Cryptic breaks it to cater to the casual playerbase by introducing catch-up mechanics. One intro quest into borovia, a bit grinding for bondings, etc.. and you can go into FBI. Tomb is now easier than ever, due to the same power creep, and reaching a higher IL is easier than ever when free gear, easy to get seals, and hunts give you the same gear as everyone grindded for a mod or two ago.
People whine about 'meta', but forget that the meta, or lets call it 'getting your group composition to compensate for lack of skill (and it's not a shame, nor great pride to be great in an MMO), not great build, and/or lack of gear' enables a wider participation.
Now, this is interesting.
I thought about several ways to address this, and wanted to write those several ways, but at the end picked and wrote only the the easiest:
"Another point I'd like to address is one of perspective, namely the perspective of the players who do not want to improve, adapt, or invest the minimum like reading a guide to event or a dungeon (There is one in-game too btw).
Folks that usually play alone, the "It works for me" crowd. When you tell people with a problem that there is no problem or that *they* are the problem, even if you truly believe that, it comes across as out of touch, entitled, spoiled, trolling, or even full-blown gaslighting. I think a lot of you probably do mean well, but it comes across really badly. People are *actually* having problems. People are frustrated, not everyone wan't to run the same mind-numbing thing over and over for 0 reward, not everyone likes to log-in and like always find nothing interesting to do (and that doesn't mean they deserve to be excluded), and people who made friends and now login more because of those and not because the game has any interesting content shouldn't be barred from any possibility of content."
This doesn't mean that I suggest that all new content should be so hard that only few can do it, NW is not as hard-core MMO like some others, and there is some sweet spot, but I think the counter argument is clear.
Why is that?
This is only a small subset of the player base, do a guild search, there are more players in SH20 guilds than not in one.
Look at the power creep, even players who do not run anything at all, but do campaigns and slowly upgrade their char are above that.
Now with seals dropping from everywhere.. and new hunts, and even more boons, and enchants are significantly easier to upgrade to rank 10+ why we need to adjust the end-game content for a players starting point.
But lets look:
And 13k has plenty of things they can run, from easier T1,T2, ToS, CN, to harder FBI. Long ago 13k was the end-game for FBI, and that was with lower base damage weapons, and half working weapon enchants (for some classes).
The 13k players has where to progress at their speed, they want easier, they have options, they want harder there are options.
13k Support can do tomb if built normally, DPS will need that 'meta' group and know what they are doing, so lets say no.
Now here there are really several things:
1. Like above, reverse it an apply to the other side. -- Solo players think that the way they play is the normal way. -- Players who refuse to change builds or adapt, etc.. loose their perspective, sometimes destructively.. Walking at the rich neighborhoods and saying "The world is unfair".. I don't want to type and you get the idea.
Unlike the real world, in NW we all start at the same point, stranded at the beach with private Wilfred (?)
2. You either have skewed view or you hyperbole, I don't know which one, but I'll bet on the first. While you are correct, there are people who are asked to parties out of the game, or just as they login. Chased and coerced. You somehow apply that to everyone who is geared.
You think that when I login, I suddenly have hoards of people chasing me?! I think something is broken with the guild leadership thing, as it doesn't work as you describe.
It is true that there are people with massive friends lists, or closer groups, it is true that support players kidnapped, but the regular mediocre DPS player?
Some make our own groups, others, look for groups in the channels. ofc the third option is to go and post on the forums to make content trivial.
3. You think that most guilds are homogeneous in their play level, this is not true to the level you imply. Some are, especially on consoles, where guilds dictate a lot of the grouping, but it is not universally applicable, and especially not on PC.
4. So to supplement the points above, in general, some objectivity will not harm anyone. Nor having issues or disagreeing justifies the levels of self serving ideas that will harm large portion of the player base.
I think we can agree that perspective is subjective by it's nature, and indeed puging once in blue moon or taking some of the most skilled players that left in the game to a 20 min stroll in CR is not an indicator of much. But it goes both ways, insulation, etc.... Ofc, there is stupidity everywhere, and some only want to serve their narrow interests even if it will screw over everyone else. This is unfortunately (for you), is your choice.
Unlike the real world, as I've said, NW is closer to equal opportunity, and it's up to you if you choose to progress, grind, improve, form parties, join channels, and do what needs to be done, or not. off course no one should be forced to do things they do not enjoy, but on the other hand people can't expect the game be changed to a different category altogether because they do not like to handle fundamental aspects of MMOs.
As I've said before, people who are progressing, always have something to do, like the end-game of few mods ago.
Yeah, I felt the reward structure from SVA was much closer to ideal, while the difficulty split of Demo was much closer to ideal. Really though, I'd be happy to see the reward split being even wider than what SVA had. The recent hunt cards concept is also interesting. The ingredients are there for a really good tiered content system, I would just like to see them brought together and done well.
Of course. I've suggested some of them repeatedly myself. That wasn't the point. The point is to redirect the focus of this discussion to the true root of the problem. It isn't that dungeons are too hard or not hard enough. The root of the problem is that there is an OUTRAGEOUSLY wide swing in group effectiveness. Being able to one-rotate a dungeon boss should be laughably impossible. People are already doing so much damage they are causing data-type overflows on the damage counter. How many HP would a boss need to be hard for groups at that level? 1 trillion? 2 trillion? 5? No, the problem is that group strength can become way, WAY too magnified, not that dungeons aren't hard enough. If people want harder content, then they should really welcome reeling back the out of control power magnification we have today. That's the only way to address it without making a ridiculous situation even more ridiculous.
Firstly, most of your re-writing doesn't even make sense, lol
This comment (and the whole "Perspective" section really) was more of a general statement than a specific argument for this thread or a particular person. It's about things I've seen constantly over the years, and much more recently, where it seems everything is thought about and written from the perspective of the BIS social butterfly that plays for 4+ hours every day. But then, when anyone talks about challenges and problems related to not being that, the response is usually a marginally more polite version of "Git gud, scrub!" or "Git sum friendz, lolwtf!"
I know, and like I said early on, I sometimes struggle with my own advice. This was something I have a good deal of RL experience with though, so I thought it would give people something to consider about their own situation.
Yes, it is a choice, and I've made it. I've made the same choice to not participate in PvP anymore because it's turned into an all out dumpster fire I hope PvE can be spared from. For Dungeons, I find the rat-race, forced compromise, and begging to be incredibly stressful, and am much happier since I let it go. I wish things were another way, but life is too short. I have an additional strike against me regarding "you-know-what", which you'd call a "fundamental aspect of MMOs" that makes the grind nigh insurmountable without grinding AD solely for hours a day for a year or dropping a couple grand in cash. On top of that, I would then be faced with the choice of putting those resources into a character I want to play but that I know no one else really wants to play with, or a character others do want to play with, but I don't really want to play. It truly feels like a no win situation with all paths leading to un-fun.
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There was another bit about coming here to complain and take fun away from others, but I can't find it at the moment. I'm not sure if it was even directed at me. I know the OP could be fairly accused of this, but have I specifically suggested anything that would rob the fun from others? I'm not asking as a challenge, it just wasn't my intention and was wondering if anything came across that way.
Although, those item should not be allowed to be access by the hardcore player only. Instead of using hardcore dungeon difficulty to bar a portion of player from content, Dungeon difficulty option should be introduced to allow player of all type, may it be hardcore or casuals, to access of the dungeon. Next, the latest item should be rewarded based on the difficulty of the dungeon with almost less that 1% chance for normal dungeon and around 10% chance for the hardcore dungeon. That would make casuals to choose to grind for them or they could choose to up the dungeon difficulty and work for it with harder content. While hardcore player would have most likely to get them by playing in the hardest hardcore difficulty. And to satisfy those hardcore player, the hardest difficulty setting is to be like Hell.
Making normal versions of the dungeons again is acceptable though.
Despite not being the same in the perspective of thinking, they are still player that plays a part in the game survival. We cant judge them anyway as we are not in their shoes or experiencing what they experience or wanting what they wants. All we need to do is to respect each other opinion and work towards co-existing. The game need player to survive. Be it casuals, free to play, pay2win, hardcore, player with elitism attitude, solo player, roleplayer etc. Any genuine player but bots are needed in this game to prolong its lifespan. Unless, of course, if u want the game to be a ghost town fill with a single group of like minded people, then keep discriminating other and ignore all their plea.
You can claim equally about the "spoiled, trolling, gaslighting" on any perspective and it wont make it valid or not. In some way It's appeal to emotions / argumentum ad passiones and yet has validity on all sides of the perspectives as we are discussing the enjoyment of the game.
Now to the topic, apply all you've said above to your perspective, whatever it may be, and to the OP one - to make content easy enough so it's playabale without tank and healer and consider if it's not bullying people that are not of the same perspective.
There is even a sentence after it:
"This doesn't mean that I suggest that all new content should be so hard that only few can do it, NW is not as hard-core MMO like some others, and there is some sweet spot, but I think the counter argument is clear."
The point here is that the same type of argument will work on all sides, and so is yours as you wrote it. I can rewrite it in the same way to make it valid as opposing argument. The first paragraph. And as such, my point is that you too, do what you preach, and respect the opposing opinion and their plea, unless you want the same ghost town of your choosing, e.g. mod 5 when most just quit the game.
As I've said, people make the mistake of grouping others and themselves into camps in this argument instead of considering the benefit of the game. You probably think that because I've counter argue a point, I must be doing 15 minute tombs and 25 minutes CRs all day with my elite buddies. Unfortunately/Fortunately, I do not.
Why would anyone buy ZEN?
If there is access to all content all the time without any need for progress. What I need that loot for if I don't have anything to unlock with it. How you can have equal chance of completing something, if people have such disparity in their investment in the game. What will be the incentive to invest more money/time in this model ?
Also you skipped one crucial aspect of MMOs, and it's the community one, a healthy mix of players can/should help each other, and as such, if we take a social scope as a guild, even the most casual players have been to tomb, cradle, and most at least once to CR even if some needs to be dragged there by their ears.
The incentive to invest in this model is to keep player in the game. Like I said before, the more player are in the game the more social interaction. The more happy a player is, the more confidence player has with the game, And the more confidence they had, the more likely they spend money on zen and thus the longer the lifespan. Its a psychological thing when someone joins an empty world the 1st though would be is this game dying? and they left. The greater the population, the more likely its gonna survive.
Oh and for the last part, its not just people with guild that need to get to enjoy the content. Guild less player or PUG needs to be taken care off too. They are part of the community even they prefer their hermit moments. They are usually the 1st person that gets to interact with new players. So they should not be force to join guild to enjoy the content either.
Second, if there is nothing to unlock, you don't actually need loot. If I will know for sure that the next mod content will be available for me, as I am, then the reason to progress is greatly diminished. Even right now, personally, I and many others do not chase BiS, but only enough to be in a good place when new content comes.
RPGs as a model, 'force' you to progress, more so even the P&P D&D was based on "Kill stuff, get XP & loot, become stronger, get harder things to kill"
This what makes RPGs so addictive, and what makes the whole thing work. It can be subtle and hidden or it can be blatant, but it is there.
I've linked it before, I'll link again:
From my observation, and as subjective as it is, the first great exodus from the game was in mod 5. When almost everyone could solo almost everything.
I don't agree that people will pay more out of confidence, than to catch up.
The element of RPG is still there. People still need progression to beat harder content for better rewards/challenge. Yeah, problem with mod 5 is they don't have real difficulty for hardcore player. Giving multi difficulty option will satisfy all parties.
And this scenario we have atm with bavoria. Just hit level 70, go to bavoria and get a full armor/weapen set for free and for not doing anything for it. But what i see since them A LOT in zonechat "can anyone help me for small hes? Can anyone help me for weeklys/dailies? Can anyone help me for my huntquest? etc.."
I think this must be the worst scenario ever for a dev:
- make mobs/bosses so everyone can kill them. No matter if they casuals, hardcore players, so called elitiests, pugs, players with bad hardware, players with lousy internet, lazy players, players who only play 15 minutes per day etc...etc..
An impossible task, i guess and this game would be boring as hell.
So, let me take this moment to ask you a question, do you want a field athlete to perform complex medical surgery on you, or a qualified surgeon? You want the surgeon, right? Congratulations, that makes you an elitist. Furthermore, by "tiering" players as you have, you are acknowledging that not everyone is equal (Reference 1). The fact of the matter is, that everyone is good and bad at different things, elitism is the ideology that the people best equipped for dealing with a task, should be the ones who govern how that task is done and yep, I will fully agree with this. I don’t want a janitor flying the aeroplane I am flying in thank you very much, I want a pilot, or in the case of Neverwinter, you want the best developers working on the game. Or alternatively, I would rather the developers listen to the feedback of people who test the game mechanics, then the words of the people who think the orientation of enemies, effects how much a weapon enchant increases their dps.
I admit there are class balance issues, I have never said otherwise, what I have said is that I do not agree with the idea that the game should be so easy so that any class combination should be able to beat it. I will, for the third time, link to a thread outlining how I would go about addressing balancing issues as well as other things.
If there are 2 versions of the same piece of content, one easy and one hard, if the time vs ad ratio for the easy one is better, that will be the only one that people run and if the hard version is better, the people who cannot run it will complain like you are complaining right now. It also takes away part of what makes the content “exclusive” for those players.
For the subset of players that does like to min max and improve themselves, if the game is so easy that everything is possible with every combination, the game becomes uninteresting. If Neverwinter reaches that state again, I will just quit the game. Difficulty brings about exclusivity. If something is only challenging for the worst players, that means it is easy for everyone else. If something is challenging to the best players, it means that everyone else who is not that good cannot run it. It is as simple as that. For there to be any possibility of challenge, there also needs to be the possibility to fail.
Now, as far as putting myself into someone else’s shoes, I will use Path of Exile as an example here. The hardest content in the game (Uber Elder) is so difficult I would say only 200-300 people can complete it. For reference, the size of that game is much bigger then Neverwinter, in 3-month leagues (ladders that are reset every 3 leagues) you see over 15000 people on each ladder (the ladder only displays the top 15000). Those 15000 players are all in excess of level 93, which, considering the way that game works, means you could estimate a much, much bigger active player base. So here you have a piece of content designed for 0.01% of the population. I have not done it, I have done everything else and I fall somewhere in the top 1000. I have no issues with content existing that I cannot complete, it is simply content that is designed for someone else.
In the same way, hunts may as well not exist for me. You may argue that it is unfair that a better player can do more content, but for the better player, the easier content doesn’t exist. Hunts do not exist for me and if dungeons are like that, they would not exist either. At the end of the day, we are not all equal, saying all people are equal is like saying all numbers are equal, it is a lie. If saying this makes me an elitist, then so be it, I will be an elitist and proud of it. Furthermore, if I am weaker in a field then someone else in a particular area, I want them to beat me over the head with the stick of knowledge and have them lead the way, rather then have people following me. I would rather someone else chose for something then me because they are better at it then me, then be chosen in their place because of this “equality complex.” As a result of this, content should not be equally difficult or accessible.
Anyway, if content difficulty is your concern, I already answered u with difficulty option. If its about the AD ratio/reward/loot drop, I already told trevor regarding it. Just refer to the above as my answer remain the same.
Nobody says about easy content. U could pick higher difficulty content if you are seeking challenge. U could do what u do with the current content as the difficulty is still there. Whats better is the developer could add in a few more tier which could make the difficulty to be harder than the current. Like normal, hard, epic, legendary 1,2,3,4,5 etc. Its all the adjustment on the scaling of mob levels. Its all depends on how the developer gonna do about it to satisfy the hardcore player like u. While, at the same time, easier option are also available for more casuals player. So I don't see any problem there, I mean u play your thing and the casual play theirs.
I have never played Path of Exile so I cant comment. If u think its a great idea, sure u can suggest it in the forum. U can even suggest that type of difficulty here as long as the difficulty option system is implement to protect those player that have different difficulty preference.
And I wish to makes things clear that the difficulty option I meant does not mean just SVA and mSVA version. What I mean is when u pick Temple of spider for example, your are given the option to select, normal, hard, elite, epic, Legendary 1,2,3 up to what ever the developer wants the dungeon to scale. So casuals that prefer walk in the park gets to choose normal. Player that want the hardest content that they don't even know they can beat could choose like Legendary 8 or 10. Drop rate/rewards/Rad, scale with the difficulty level. So if u want your path of exile difficulty to be in this system, sure, its all depends on the developer to put it in Legendary 1 or legendary 10 and how they want the difficulty to spread out. So I don't see problem with u getting deny because the content being too easy in this scenario. This system allows u to be elitist and do your elitist thing without the need to deny any content from anyone. I hope u get my idea, else the is little room for us to keep talking.
Other content in the game literally does not exist to me. By taking that away from me, you are taking all the content out of the game, it will be as if the game ceases to exist. In Path of Exile, in hardcore, if your character dies in a league it is migrated to the standard league. Whilst this may not at first sound like "permanent death" to you, since you can still play the game in the standard league and the mechanics are the same, to the hardcore player it is the same as if their character is deleted. What the hardcore player does is because they are no longer in their league of choice, they delete the character and start over. The reason I mention this is because it illustrates this mindset to you, the idea that some people play the game a different way.
Once again, to use another comparison from PoE, how endgame works there is there are 16 tiers of maps (their version of dungeons), then 6 or so mega bosses. Most players won't make it past tier 10, the point being, content is exclusive. Having exclusive, hard content is good because:
1) It caters to the players that want that kind of content.
2) It gives players a reason to give better, progress. By having a piece of content gated behind something difficult, it encourages you to learn and get better. By having an easy version of everything, it encourages mediocrity since there is nothing to get better and "look forward to."
3) It promotes spending on the game. If you don't need to get better to experience newer content, you are less likely to spend then if your character is unable to complete all the content without some improvement.
4) It is good for game longevity. Having somewhere to move "forward" to means you have somewhere to go. The only things that stagnate are dead.