Delay Mod 16

lordnagy · November 2018

AND FIX AS MANY BUGS AS YOU CAN IN THE GAME!!!

I’ll gladly wait. I hate going to heroics only to see an empty area...

mindache · November 2018

While I think that 3 months is a reasonable time to release a new module, I too would appreciate if the devs slowed down a bit if necessary and focused on the bugs instead, class balance, bringing old content back, as well as low priority things like achievement fix etc. If you still think that you have to come up with something new and give the design department some work, release a new class or race.

adinosii · November 2018

It is not going to get delayed, but there will be a bit of a scramble to fix the most serious issues that either crop up after release or do not get fixed in time. We will get some bugfix-focused updates in the weeks following the release

Now, mod 15 is a bit light on content, and while there have been some bugs in the campaign, they are not too bad - most of the bugs are related to the Crafting redesign....and the number of known bugs remaining right now is, well a bit worrysome. We will probably get a new Preview build on Friday, and that will be what goes live, unless some catastrophic bug is found over the weekend. I fully expect there to be some issues in that build and I am also worried about some of the things that we have not been able to test on Preview - VIP teleport to the workshop and VIP profession vendor, for example.

I am also going to be careful and avoid some things that caused issues with previous Preview builds - for example, I am going to make sure all 9 profession task slots are empty on all my characters before the update.

ecrana · November 2018

They're not going to delay anything over bugs. It's not their MO.

Geez, first a cry to delay M15 or at the least the delay of the new professions system. And now a call to delay a mod that hasn't even been announced.

Let's be serious. This is their business model. Release glitchy mess. Slowly fix glitchy mess.

lordnagy · November 2018

Fix glitchy mess?

Heroics from EE are still broken! How long ago was that released? Heroics in Barovia are broken...

Multiple powers and feats...

Pumpkins!!! Same problem I encountered THREE YEARS AGO.

I just can’t recommend this game anymore. At least not in it’s current state.

arazith07 · November 2018

Mod 16 should not be delayed, mainly because it supposedly is the second half of their major class rework/balancing and we all should see the full effect and bugs that might occur. Afterward, yes please focus on bugs similar to bugotober last year.

ecrana · November 2018

Valid point about M16 being the second class ~~nerf~~ balance pass.

At this point M16 had better deliver one fantastic mod full of wonderfully balanced classes, new features, bigger QoL improvements, surprises we weren't expecting, etc etc.

Because at this point it's a safe guess that most will be disappointed by the scope/size of M15 and will be bored of it rather quickly leaving a large gap of time for a new mod to drop.

Harder versions of dungeons are nice but are they still the same dungeons at the end of the day.

littledanger · November 2018

I believe it's been mentioned before. Cryptic/PWE/whoever is contractually obligated to release "x" amount of modules/updates per year. Soooo, any delay to fix stuff will probably never happen. I personally would be completely fine with a mod or two of nothing but real fixes in this game.

mebengalsfan · November 2018

I say skip releasing mod 15 on consoles and go right to mod 16.

As for mod 16 being held back, how about asking the devs to include additional bug fixes in mod 16 vs. asking them to skip mod 16. That would be the better solution.

silverkelt · November 2018

I wouldnt mind not seeing any more campaigns for a year.. mods they can release anytime they want, as long as they are not gated and have campaigns.

They frankly should only do one campaign a year.. otherwise you get things like mod 15.. which isnt good, just because they feel the need to do one, doesnt mean they should.

If they want to do once a year campaign, but release mods every 3-6 months in between that would be preferable imo.

But what we will probably get is yet another campaign, new weapons, new comp to finish said campaign faster, and a new enchant to sell of some sort.

blah..

mebengalsfan · November 2018

silverkelt said:
I wouldnt mind not seeing any more campaigns for a year.. mods they can release anytime they want, as long as they are not gated and have campaigns.

They frankly should only do one campaign a year.. otherwise you get things like mod 15.. which isnt good, just because they feel the need to do one, doesnt mean they should.

If they want to do once a year campaign, but release mods every 3-6 months in between that would be preferable imo.

But what we will probably get is yet another campaign, new weapons, new comp to finish said campaign faster, and a new enchant to sell of some sort.

blah..

Don't forget the new LB to go with the new mod.

groo · January 2019

I know this is an old thread, but it refers to mod 16, so is still relevant. Looking through the posts, I get a general impression that people would rather wait for new content in place of having as many bugs irradiated as possible. I don't think you can argue with that logic as at best bugs can just put a tarnish on your enjoyment of the game and at worst they can severely impact on playability.

However, as with any commercial venture, financial pressures always win out. No matter how skilled or enthusiastic individuals within a company might be, as a company, there is always a desire or need to make more money. Lets face it why else would you set a company up? It's one of the reasons indie games developed by individuals or independent groups are often more innovative than commercial offerings; because the primary goal is to make a good game rather than make a bunch of cash (although that usually ends up being the secondary goal if a game proves to be popular).

I read in one of the posts that Cryptic/Perfect World are contractually obliged to release new content every three months and that is where it seems to me that they have shot themselves in the foot. I have been a coder for a number of years and I can say that regardless of any theories or ideals behind software development, in the commercial world releasing software to schedule that is completely bug free is almost unheard of. You only need to look at Microsoft or Apple to see that. Both companies have a high levels of available resource, intelligence and finance and yet can you name a product that either has released that has been completely issue free right from the very beginning (I am by no means saying that either of these companies release sub-par products, I am only using them as an example of how difficult it really is to release the perfect product in the commercial world)?

The issue in this case is that if there is a push to release new game content every three months, then that release will inevitably have some bugs in it. That is just a reality. But then, it is going to be a push for a company the size of Cryptic to be able to fix all the bugs AND produce new content AND provide meaningful testing within the next three month period. The result is that you just end up with new content with associated new bugs dropped on top of a certain number of existing bugs carried over from the last release. As time goes by, the number of bugs in the game can only ever increase rather than become less. The only logical outcome of this in the real world is that at some point, the company will have accept the game is never going be completely bug free and the only approach then is to prioritise the bugs and inevitably some bugs will just be considered to be liveable with and never get fixed.

To be fair, this is not unusual in any software company where development and marketing often clash in terms of priority. Development will often want to stop pushing forwards and spend some time getting things right. Marketing, on the other hand, always want something new to push out to the public in order to keep the company looking fresh and people spending money on their products. This isn't a slight on any department involved it is just the way that business works in the real world.

Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there. The point I was trying to make is that three month releases sound like a business decision based on theoretical deliverables rather than on practical experience. I agree with one of the posts here that releases of new campaigns or major content should be spaced out more and that short term releases should be pretty much bug fixes and urgent updates. Of course this is unlikely to ever happen, but Cryptic/Perfect World should really take into consideration that any unrealistic approach to business might look ok in the short term, but ultimately, if it isn't working for the customer, can only have a negative impact on the reputation of the company in the long term.

kreatyve · January 2019

groo#6243 said:
I know this is an old thread, but it refers to mod 16, so is still relevant. Looking through the posts, I get a general impression that people would rather wait for new content in place of having as many bugs irradiated as possible. I don't think you can argue with that logic as at best bugs can just put a tarnish on your enjoyment of the game and at worst they can severely impact on playability.

However, as with any commercial venture, financial pressures always win out. No matter how skilled or enthusiastic individuals within a company might be, as a company, there is always a desire or need to make more money. Lets face it why else would you set a company up? It's one of the reasons indie games developed by individuals or independent groups are often more innovative than commercial offerings; because the primary goal is to make a good game rather than make a bunch of cash (although that usually ends up being the secondary goal if a game proves to be popular).

I read in one of the posts that Cryptic/Perfect World are contractually obliged to release new content every three months and that is where it seems to me that they have shot themselves in the foot. I have been a coder for a number of years and I can say that regardless of any theories or ideals behind software development, in the commercial world releasing software to schedule that is completely bug free is almost unheard of. You only need to look at Microsoft or Apple to see that. Both companies have a high levels of available resource, intelligence and finance and yet can you name a product that either has released that has been completely issue free right from the very beginning (I am by no means saying that either of these companies release sub-par products, I am only using them as an example of how difficult it really is to release the perfect product in the commercial world)?

The issue in this case is that if there is a push to release new game content every three months, then that release will inevitably have some bugs in it. That is just a reality. But then, it is going to be a push for a company the size of Cryptic to be able to fix all the bugs AND produce new content AND provide meaningful testing within the next three month period. The result is that you just end up with new content with associated new bugs dropped on top of a certain number of existing bugs carried over from the last release. As time goes by, the number of bugs in the game can only ever increase rather than become less. The only logical outcome of this in the real world is that at some point, the company will have accept the game is never going be completely bug free and the only approach then is to prioritise the bugs and inevitably some bugs will just be considered to be liveable with and never get fixed.

To be fair, this is not unusual in any software company where development and marketing often clash in terms of priority. Development will often want to stop pushing forwards and spend some time getting things right. Marketing, on the other hand, always want something new to push out to the public in order to keep the company looking fresh and people spending money on their products. This isn't a slight on any department involved it is just the way that business works in the real world.

Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there. The point I was trying to make is that three month releases sound like a business decision based on theoretical deliverables rather than on practical experience. I agree with one of the posts here that releases of new campaigns or major content should be spaced out more and that short term releases should be pretty much bug fixes and urgent updates. Of course this is unlikely to ever happen, but Cryptic/Perfect World should really take into consideration that any unrealistic approach to business might look ok in the short term, but ultimately, if it isn't working for the customer, can only have a negative impact on the reputation of the company in the long term.

I would say that the "3 month" contract is a myth, given the fact that Mod 15 released nearly 3 months ago and there is 0 public information on Mod 16. There are a lot of rumors, but if it were going to launch next month, everyone would know what's coming - it's not even on preview yet though.

That being said, I agree with the rest of what you have said. I'm hoping they at least fix some of the more major bugs with mod 16.

silverkelt · January 2019

I dont want to see new mods every three months anyways.. prefer 6 months or even more. If they are always going to do campaign with them.. Its boring for anyone playing one class, but even if you play 2-3 or more.. campaigns are a bog. 5-6 months should be the goal, not 3.. jeepers, barely get into anything in 3 months on a normal mod. Yes this mod was different becuase it was a low level one that people blow through in 20 mins... but Im still grinding on my mains, because i will not run jims basement or the skirmish ad nasuem.

If you look at the list of release dates, they are all over the board anyways , average time of release is 4.41 months, with the longest wait was between chult and ravenloft at 8.17 months , standard lately is between 5-6 months. Shortest wait between was release of game and mod 1, 2.1 months and second shortest was between tomb of annihilation and sword of chult. at 3.03 months. Right now its been 58 days as of today 1/29/19, if standard lately holds true, its probably going to be sometime in end of march /april, not February.

Module # Name Release Date Time between in days Per month
1 Fury of the Feywild 8/22/2013 63 days 2.10
2 Shadowmantle 12/5/2013 105 days 3.50
3 Curse of Icewind Dale 5/13/2014 159 days 5.30
4 Tyranny of Dragons 8/14/2014 93 days 3.10
5 Rise of Tiamat 11/18/2014 96 days 3.20
6 Elemental Evil 4/7/2015 140 days 4.67
7 Strongholds 8/11/2015 126 days 4.20
8 Underdark 11/17/2015 98 days 3.27
9 The Maze Engine 3/15/2016 119 days 3.97
10 Storm King's Thunder 8/16/2016 154 days 5.13
11 The Cloaked Ascendancy 2/21/2017 189 days 6.30
12 Tomb of Annihilation 7/25/2017 154 days 5.13
13 Swords of Chult 10/24/2017 91 days 3.03
14 Ravenloft 6/26/2018 245 days 8.17
15 The Heart of Fire 11/26/2018 153 days 5.10
Avererage between 4.41

mebengalsfan · January 2019

kreatyve said:

groo#6243 said:
I know this is an old thread, but it refers to mod 16, so is still relevant. Looking through the posts, I get a general impression that people would rather wait for new content in place of having as many bugs irradiated as possible. I don't think you can argue with that logic as at best bugs can just put a tarnish on your enjoyment of the game and at worst they can severely impact on playability.

However, as with any commercial venture, financial pressures always win out. No matter how skilled or enthusiastic individuals within a company might be, as a company, there is always a desire or need to make more money. Lets face it why else would you set a company up? It's one of the reasons indie games developed by individuals or independent groups are often more innovative than commercial offerings; because the primary goal is to make a good game rather than make a bunch of cash (although that usually ends up being the secondary goal if a game proves to be popular).

I read in one of the posts that Cryptic/Perfect World are contractually obliged to release new content every three months and that is where it seems to me that they have shot themselves in the foot. I have been a coder for a number of years and I can say that regardless of any theories or ideals behind software development, in the commercial world releasing software to schedule that is completely bug free is almost unheard of. You only need to look at Microsoft or Apple to see that. Both companies have a high levels of available resource, intelligence and finance and yet can you name a product that either has released that has been completely issue free right from the very beginning (I am by no means saying that either of these companies release sub-par products, I am only using them as an example of how difficult it really is to release the perfect product in the commercial world)?

The issue in this case is that if there is a push to release new game content every three months, then that release will inevitably have some bugs in it. That is just a reality. But then, it is going to be a push for a company the size of Cryptic to be able to fix all the bugs AND produce new content AND provide meaningful testing within the next three month period. The result is that you just end up with new content with associated new bugs dropped on top of a certain number of existing bugs carried over from the last release. As time goes by, the number of bugs in the game can only ever increase rather than become less. The only logical outcome of this in the real world is that at some point, the company will have accept the game is never going be completely bug free and the only approach then is to prioritise the bugs and inevitably some bugs will just be considered to be liveable with and never get fixed.

To be fair, this is not unusual in any software company where development and marketing often clash in terms of priority. Development will often want to stop pushing forwards and spend some time getting things right. Marketing, on the other hand, always want something new to push out to the public in order to keep the company looking fresh and people spending money on their products. This isn't a slight on any department involved it is just the way that business works in the real world.

Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there. The point I was trying to make is that three month releases sound like a business decision based on theoretical deliverables rather than on practical experience. I agree with one of the posts here that releases of new campaigns or major content should be spaced out more and that short term releases should be pretty much bug fixes and urgent updates. Of course this is unlikely to ever happen, but Cryptic/Perfect World should really take into consideration that any unrealistic approach to business might look ok in the short term, but ultimately, if it isn't working for the customer, can only have a negative impact on the reputation of the company in the long term.
I would say that the "3 month" contract is a myth, given the fact that Mod 15 released nearly 3 months ago and there is 0 public information on Mod 16. There are a lot of rumors, but if it were going to launch next month, everyone would know what's coming - it's not even on preview yet though.

That being said, I agree with the rest of what you have said. I'm hoping they at least fix some of the more major bugs with mod 16.

In prior years the devs were trying to release content every 3 month. Going forward as of mod 13 they will release content as they see fit. With that said, I think mod 16 will be released within the next week or two for testing. That means another month at minimum before we see mod 16; if not it will be 2-3 more months before mod 16 is launched.

kreatyve · January 2019

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

kreatyve said:

groo#6243 said:
I know this is an old thread, but it refers to mod 16, so is still relevant. Looking through the posts, I get a general impression that people would rather wait for new content in place of having as many bugs irradiated as possible. I don't think you can argue with that logic as at best bugs can just put a tarnish on your enjoyment of the game and at worst they can severely impact on playability.

However, as with any commercial venture, financial pressures always win out. No matter how skilled or enthusiastic individuals within a company might be, as a company, there is always a desire or need to make more money. Lets face it why else would you set a company up? It's one of the reasons indie games developed by individuals or independent groups are often more innovative than commercial offerings; because the primary goal is to make a good game rather than make a bunch of cash (although that usually ends up being the secondary goal if a game proves to be popular).

I read in one of the posts that Cryptic/Perfect World are contractually obliged to release new content every three months and that is where it seems to me that they have shot themselves in the foot. I have been a coder for a number of years and I can say that regardless of any theories or ideals behind software development, in the commercial world releasing software to schedule that is completely bug free is almost unheard of. You only need to look at Microsoft or Apple to see that. Both companies have a high levels of available resource, intelligence and finance and yet can you name a product that either has released that has been completely issue free right from the very beginning (I am by no means saying that either of these companies release sub-par products, I am only using them as an example of how difficult it really is to release the perfect product in the commercial world)?

The issue in this case is that if there is a push to release new game content every three months, then that release will inevitably have some bugs in it. That is just a reality. But then, it is going to be a push for a company the size of Cryptic to be able to fix all the bugs AND produce new content AND provide meaningful testing within the next three month period. The result is that you just end up with new content with associated new bugs dropped on top of a certain number of existing bugs carried over from the last release. As time goes by, the number of bugs in the game can only ever increase rather than become less. The only logical outcome of this in the real world is that at some point, the company will have accept the game is never going be completely bug free and the only approach then is to prioritise the bugs and inevitably some bugs will just be considered to be liveable with and never get fixed.

To be fair, this is not unusual in any software company where development and marketing often clash in terms of priority. Development will often want to stop pushing forwards and spend some time getting things right. Marketing, on the other hand, always want something new to push out to the public in order to keep the company looking fresh and people spending money on their products. This isn't a slight on any department involved it is just the way that business works in the real world.

Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there. The point I was trying to make is that three month releases sound like a business decision based on theoretical deliverables rather than on practical experience. I agree with one of the posts here that releases of new campaigns or major content should be spaced out more and that short term releases should be pretty much bug fixes and urgent updates. Of course this is unlikely to ever happen, but Cryptic/Perfect World should really take into consideration that any unrealistic approach to business might look ok in the short term, but ultimately, if it isn't working for the customer, can only have a negative impact on the reputation of the company in the long term.
I would say that the "3 month" contract is a myth, given the fact that Mod 15 released nearly 3 months ago and there is 0 public information on Mod 16. There are a lot of rumors, but if it were going to launch next month, everyone would know what's coming - it's not even on preview yet though.

That being said, I agree with the rest of what you have said. I'm hoping they at least fix some of the more major bugs with mod 16.
In prior years the devs were trying to release content every 3 month. Going forward as of mod 13 they will release content as they see fit. With that said, I think mod 16 will be released within the next week or two for testing. That means another month at minimum before we see mod 16; if not it will be 2-3 more months before mod 16 is launched.

I don't expect it to hit preview that soon. I can't really say much more on the topic than that for reasons that I hope are obvious. I won't be giving my "guesstimations" for when it will launch until it hits preview, though by then, they might announce the release date.

mebengalsfan · January 2019

kreatyve said:

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

kreatyve said:

groo#6243 said:
I know this is an old thread, but it refers to mod 16, so is still relevant. Looking through the posts, I get a general impression that people would rather wait for new content in place of having as many bugs irradiated as possible. I don't think you can argue with that logic as at best bugs can just put a tarnish on your enjoyment of the game and at worst they can severely impact on playability.

However, as with any commercial venture, financial pressures always win out. No matter how skilled or enthusiastic individuals within a company might be, as a company, there is always a desire or need to make more money. Lets face it why else would you set a company up? It's one of the reasons indie games developed by individuals or independent groups are often more innovative than commercial offerings; because the primary goal is to make a good game rather than make a bunch of cash (although that usually ends up being the secondary goal if a game proves to be popular).

I read in one of the posts that Cryptic/Perfect World are contractually obliged to release new content every three months and that is where it seems to me that they have shot themselves in the foot. I have been a coder for a number of years and I can say that regardless of any theories or ideals behind software development, in the commercial world releasing software to schedule that is completely bug free is almost unheard of. You only need to look at Microsoft or Apple to see that. Both companies have a high levels of available resource, intelligence and finance and yet can you name a product that either has released that has been completely issue free right from the very beginning (I am by no means saying that either of these companies release sub-par products, I am only using them as an example of how difficult it really is to release the perfect product in the commercial world)?

The issue in this case is that if there is a push to release new game content every three months, then that release will inevitably have some bugs in it. That is just a reality. But then, it is going to be a push for a company the size of Cryptic to be able to fix all the bugs AND produce new content AND provide meaningful testing within the next three month period. The result is that you just end up with new content with associated new bugs dropped on top of a certain number of existing bugs carried over from the last release. As time goes by, the number of bugs in the game can only ever increase rather than become less. The only logical outcome of this in the real world is that at some point, the company will have accept the game is never going be completely bug free and the only approach then is to prioritise the bugs and inevitably some bugs will just be considered to be liveable with and never get fixed.

To be fair, this is not unusual in any software company where development and marketing often clash in terms of priority. Development will often want to stop pushing forwards and spend some time getting things right. Marketing, on the other hand, always want something new to push out to the public in order to keep the company looking fresh and people spending money on their products. This isn't a slight on any department involved it is just the way that business works in the real world.

Sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there. The point I was trying to make is that three month releases sound like a business decision based on theoretical deliverables rather than on practical experience. I agree with one of the posts here that releases of new campaigns or major content should be spaced out more and that short term releases should be pretty much bug fixes and urgent updates. Of course this is unlikely to ever happen, but Cryptic/Perfect World should really take into consideration that any unrealistic approach to business might look ok in the short term, but ultimately, if it isn't working for the customer, can only have a negative impact on the reputation of the company in the long term.
I would say that the "3 month" contract is a myth, given the fact that Mod 15 released nearly 3 months ago and there is 0 public information on Mod 16. There are a lot of rumors, but if it were going to launch next month, everyone would know what's coming - it's not even on preview yet though.

That being said, I agree with the rest of what you have said. I'm hoping they at least fix some of the more major bugs with mod 16.
In prior years the devs were trying to release content every 3 month. Going forward as of mod 13 they will release content as they see fit. With that said, I think mod 16 will be released within the next week or two for testing. That means another month at minimum before we see mod 16; if not it will be 2-3 more months before mod 16 is launched.
I don't expect it to hit preview that soon. I can't really say much more on the topic than that for reasons that I hope are obvious. I won't be giving my "guesstimations" for when it will launch until it hits preview, though by then, they might announce the release date.

like I said it is within the next week or two or a 2 months out. If it is two months out that will hurt game population as many end game players will not have much to do for so long and the longer the wait the more likely end game players will take breaks or leave the game all together. Every 3-6 months for content being released is needed to keep end game players active in busy in the game.

Mod 15 is a let down for new and some what engaging content and zone. For me this is the worst update since I started playing NWO.

groo · January 2019

Ha ha, my mistake for assuming everything on the Internet is true ;-)

What you say is kind of obvious if I'd stopped and thought about it.

heraldfayez · January 2019

i'm just commenting to say 1 thing
please DO NOT call this update that happened a module because what you guys call module 15 is not a module to me and it has 0 intrest or content it dosn't do anything that a module should do
1) class balance had no feedback heard and the main guy behind it all "balanced" left after posting so we didn't have a chance other than what was given to us
2) profession update isn't really major specially for those who had all professions maxed before the new system
3) acq inc was ok but it should've came as half a module and not entire update focused on it
3) the loot table is very lackluster and farming dungeon isn't even worth it anymore after the salvage nerf etc
4) this update called 15 dosn't bring any new dungeon or map and the K-team isn't much of a challenge and rather boring because what's point of gearign a charchter up to BIS status if i'm having it's power reduced to minimum

i could keep on and on and on tbh but makes no difference
PS: you probably missed that i repeated 3) twice

Peace

pitshade · January 2019

Mod 13 was Lost City of Omu and released last January, so about a year ago. Swords of Chult was 12b, the Random Queue and Folly half mod.

mebengalsfan · January 2019

heraldfayez#8520 said:
i'm just commenting to say 1 thing
please DO NOT call this update that happened a module because what you guys call module 15 is not a module to me and it has 0 intrest or content it dosn't do anything that a module should do
1) class balance had no feedback heard and the main guy behind it all "balanced" left after posting so we didn't have a chance other than what was given to us
2) profession update isn't really major specially for those who had all professions maxed before the new system
3) acq inc was ok but it should've came as half a module and not entire update focused on it
3) the loot table is very lackluster and farming dungeon isn't even worth it anymore after the salvage nerf etc
4) this update called 15 dosn't bring any new dungeon or map and the K-team isn't much of a challenge and rather boring because what's point of gearign a charchter up to BIS status if i'm having it's power reduced to minimum

i could keep on and on and on tbh but makes no difference
PS: you probably missed that i repeated 3) twice

Peace

The only part of mod 15 that makes it a module are the boons; everything else is outside of what an end game player would expect in a module to be. Mod 15 was basically for crafters and those wanting to get into crafting. IMO the system is horrible. I like how ESO and a few other games do it. This game crafting system has many bugs causing some of us to not even progress leaving us out of crafting until a fix can land.

Hope the devs continue to modify crafting in mod 16. For instance needing a guild to master craft is still stupid; that should not be a requirement; what should be is time invested into the crafting profession. Also, characters should be limited to one master crafting profession. This would limit us further and make the market even smaller or encourage us to play alts to have multiple MC professions.

There is many things that could have been done to fix crafting and IMO this attempt is just as bad as what was there before. In fact because of the bugs it is worst as I'm stuck now on 3 characters and I have done everything to advance it and even had friends help me and I'm not able to move forward with crafting. Horrible experience from my view and is why I'm not crafting in this game ATM because I can't. Epic failure.

Devs definitely should always being working towards fixing bugs, CR, crafting, older content, etc... are bugged and needs to be fixed. I don't think mod 16 should be held off until a later date but older bugs and more recent bugs fixes should be included with the next update. Here is to hoping.

micky1p00 · January 2019

The 3 months come from Cryptic retention data. From interviews and streams, they have said that after 3 months without new content there is a more significant population drop (I don't know if it means people that will not return, or some other indicator).
It's an indicator of a player 'attention span' more than anything I guess. Cryptic can mitigate and handle this by events, like the weekly events of double this and double that, or seasonal events, all of that is to maintain population over the 3 months it takes them to make a mod, and more so with mods that are content thin and won't hold interest for even a month and a half (like m15).
Hence the tales of old, and CTA season.

ecrana · January 2019

silverkelt said:
If you look at the list of release dates, they are all over the board anyways , average time of release is 4.41 months, with the longest wait was between chult and ravenloft at 8.17 months , standard lately is between 5-6 months. Shortest wait between was release of game and mod 1, 2.1 months and second shortest was between tomb of annihilation and sword of chult. at 3.03 months. Right now its been 58 days as of today 1/29/19, if standard lately holds true, its probably going to be sometime in end of march /april, not February.

Module # Name Release Date Time between in days Per month
1 Fury of the Feywild 8/22/2013 63 days 2.10
2 Shadowmantle 12/5/2013 105 days 3.50
3 Curse of Icewind Dale 5/13/2014 159 days 5.30
4 Tyranny of Dragons 8/14/2014 93 days 3.10
5 Rise of Tiamat 11/18/2014 96 days 3.20
6 Elemental Evil 4/7/2015 140 days 4.67
7 Strongholds 8/11/2015 126 days 4.20
8 Underdark 11/17/2015 98 days 3.27
9 The Maze Engine 3/15/2016 119 days 3.97
10 Storm King's Thunder 8/16/2016 154 days 5.13
11 The Cloaked Ascendancy 2/21/2017 189 days 6.30
12 Tomb of Annihilation 7/25/2017 154 days 5.13
13 Swords of Chult 10/24/2017 91 days 3.03
14 Ravenloft 6/26/2018 245 days 8.17
15 The Heart of Fire 11/26/2018 153 days 5.10
Avererage between 4.41

Your release dates are incomplete so your conclusion is wrong. That information may be the release date of the full campaigns. But some of those campaigns were broken into multiple mods and those dates are not included in your list. Storm Kings was 3 mods. Cloaked Ascendancy I believe was 2 mods but maybe 3. That one I don't remember exactly.

The Swords campaign was released as 2 separate mods. One part brought us Merchant Prince Folly and the final part brought us Cradle approximately 3 1/2 months apart from each other.

Your list doesn't reflect any of the B modules which would change your estimates completely. It would most likely bring them more in line with a release schedule average closer to 3 1/2 months between mods.

hawkeyel · January 2019

Being they just cleared out all the developer posts .We can be rather sure that they are about to drop the new Mod info on us very soon. Perhaps this Friday. Coming soon lol.

rickcase276 · January 2019

Well too Owlbear server showed back up again last week, when it had been gone since at least the start of December. So that may indicate something is coming too.

feanor70118 · January 2019

I was recently offered a chance to take part in testing mod 16. At first I expressed interest. I thought maybe Cryptic realized that the TOTAL LACK of testing in mod 15 had been a serious problem and they were actually interested in doing better, and perhaps I could contribute to the next mod not being such a disaster. When the time came to submit my NDA, I thought better of it, since absolutely nothing since mod 6 shows that Cryptic listens to players a fraction as much as they should or remotely understands how bad a job they've been doing.

So I say delay mod 16 until:

1) Mastercrafting is fixed with +1 items being fully integrated;
2) Classes are actually balanced in PVE so that all DPS builds do close to equal damage, all damage scales, all powers proc properly, there are no ninja nerfs, no ninja ITCs, no flavors of the month.
3) Bugged dungeon content is fixed.
4) The godawful, boring, tedious and obnoxious mechanics and forced cut scenes of CODG and CR are eliminated.
5) Random queues have realistic public IL gates.
6) PVP is actually balanced. Quick fix: disregard all post-mod 5 boons and mount insignia bonuses and wind the rest of the code back to mod 2 with 1 additional free loadout so that there are entirely different PVP builds and feat trees. Find some way to integrate paladins and warlocks with that and you've got a playable game again. PVP has been a toxic mess for years and it doesn't have to be.
7) There is a functioning QA department that takes player concerns seriously.

gripnir78 · January 2019

Ok my 2 cents then.

First of all Cryptic announced that they stop releasing MODs in separated parts like it was with SKT and Chult. That alone needs to expand waiting times for a new MOD. But thing is that taken together last 2 MODs (if we can call AI a mod) bringed less cantent that Chult alone not to mention SKT. All we got was 1 map 1 dungeon, 1 skirmish + 1 massive overhaul of feature (professions) period (not mentioning any class "balance"

) as its not really a content - new class would be a new content). I put aside if it was fun or not, if its good or bad. Thats really not much content. Last mode if you are not up for crafting is not (imho) really a MOD at all. So there are two ways - or Cryptic is preparing a massive MOD with a lot of changes or game goes into maintance mode. If the latter is correct dont expect much any more.

Any how if any1 of you want any change in this game - try to think like developer - if that change or fix or whatever gona bring company a profit or more customers? If answer is yes a change or fix is worth considerations, if it wont its not a priority or it is not even taken into consideration. Its not a coincidance that for example Malabog gates was fixed recently or ELOL cut scene is skippable after few years of asking. All those things was possible as oportunity showed up doing other things - not specially to fix them.

It is always a strugle - within limited time and resources you need to create a new content to keep game fresh and keep players interested or fix any bugs witch are not gamebreaking, guess what wins every time....

And last word about crafting some of you complain that much - I am a crafter for a long time, lot of my guildies as well. And belive it or not -now its way easier to became mastercrafter than ever before. Just look at AH - before MOD 15 most of items came from few well known crafters witch was able to make any item. Now you have tens of them not to mention another bunch of peoples having one or two MC on level 5. New event witch bring another oportunity to get Forgehammer of Gond (character bound - so its gona drop a lot

) will make it easy for many others. I am not saying its perfect system - far from it - but it definietly made it possible for many new players

silverkelt · January 2019

I really doubt pvp will ever be balanced, unless everyone agrees to go with basic set ups and equipment, artifact, boons are not valid in pvp..

What is balanced in pve? Most classes work well enough.. except maybe poor tr... jeepers that class.

anyways.. my biggest complaint in game has little to do with alot of you are talking about.. its simply, running content is meaningless, there is simply no reason to run any content.. nothing is worth anything.

Loot is worthless.. selling rp is worthless. its down to a small handful of items less then 5.. worth 100k and ues stones. Rerolls destroyed what little marked there was for randomized drops.. because everyone rolls until they get something usually..

thats it.. thats all there is in the game to run content for. Removal of salvage even made a quick 2k ad turn gone selling blue salvage to people. I used to make.. say 20-30k a week on blue salvages at least.. minimum. Now gone.

Bavoria destroyed salvage values , because instead of having a token system that you can select and choose, they did randomized rng on armor.. and so people were getting 50-60 epics at a time.. couldn't use 99% of it and salvaging.. then repeating every few days.. stupid.. Even without cheating, people were farming this for 200-400k in rough salvage week.. complete joke of a system, while i think HUNTS in bavoria are soooo much better then in omu/chult.. they shouldve went with a token system.. so we could make our our own setups and not this randomized junk system.. now that they pulled salvage its also meaningless.. they shouldve make tokens + like 1000 ad per run or something.. not what they did instead.

Now that they forced themselves into removing salvage.. it just devalues runs even further.. changes to rp system.. even further.. getting 20 opals.. biggie deal.. like 10k in ad.

So if your super duper lucky and pull like a brilliant diamond or a rare cward or other rare item actually worth anything.. people spam cn, hoping for a 200k shard, or maybe farm ues stones.. thats it. Even hati farming is a thing again.. as its one of the RARE items that are worth anything at all.
'
I was farming something in particular for professions lately .. and i guess the word spread a bit too far.. as people hopping on it and it went from like 15k a item down to 6k a item.. so this particular item which i wont speak of , because value already is too low.. takes per se 10 to get every 1.5 - 2 hours.. now is pretty pointless.. you can sit around 3-4 hours of straight farming and earn maybe 100k .. really boring.

I used to run content to earn stuff.. now i run a few a week to keep up my ad backlog.. and screw the rest.. whats the point.

This cannot be the way the meant the game to turn out.. something is wrong.. the only value at all in game, is basically working at either selling profession stuff, or selling stuff to profession poeple..

how is this a mmo? its not.. its not working .

REGARDLESS of anything else they do.. content should drop things people can earn AD with.. and right now its not.

REROLL system sucks.. as it just further pushes everything down in value.

Thanks cryptic for HAMSTER up your game so much.

silverkelt · January 2019

ecrana#2080 said:

silverkelt said:
If you look at the list of release dates, they are all over the board anyways , average time of release is 4.41 months, with the longest wait was between chult and ravenloft at 8.17 months , standard lately is between 5-6 months. Shortest wait between was release of game and mod 1, 2.1 months and second shortest was between tomb of annihilation and sword of chult. at 3.03 months. Right now its been 58 days as of today 1/29/19, if standard lately holds true, its probably going to be sometime in end of march /april, not February.

Module # Name Release Date Time between in days Per month
1 Fury of the Feywild 8/22/2013 63 days 2.10
2 Shadowmantle 12/5/2013 105 days 3.50
3 Curse of Icewind Dale 5/13/2014 159 days 5.30
4 Tyranny of Dragons 8/14/2014 93 days 3.10
5 Rise of Tiamat 11/18/2014 96 days 3.20
6 Elemental Evil 4/7/2015 140 days 4.67
7 Strongholds 8/11/2015 126 days 4.20
8 Underdark 11/17/2015 98 days 3.27
9 The Maze Engine 3/15/2016 119 days 3.97
10 Storm King's Thunder 8/16/2016 154 days 5.13
11 The Cloaked Ascendancy 2/21/2017 189 days 6.30
12 Tomb of Annihilation 7/25/2017 154 days 5.13
13 Swords of Chult 10/24/2017 91 days 3.03
14 Ravenloft 6/26/2018 245 days 8.17
15 The Heart of Fire 11/26/2018 153 days 5.10
Avererage between 4.41

Your release dates are incomplete so your conclusion is wrong. That information may be the release date of the full campaigns. But some of those campaigns were broken into multiple mods and those dates are not included in your list. Storm Kings was 3 mods. Cloaked Ascendancy I believe was 2 mods but maybe 3. That one I don't remember exactly.

The Swords campaign was released as 2 separate mods. One part brought us Merchant Prince Folly and the final part brought us Cradle approximately 3 1/2 months apart from each other.

Your list doesn't reflect any of the B modules which would change your estimates completely. It would most likely bring them more in line with a release schedule average closer to 3 1/2 months between mods.

I will grant you some of that.. But not all of it, Folly was in Swords campaign, Omu was added in Feb. I do not remember anything else added to the Cloaked Ascendancy? It was a fairly basic map and a catch up feature for weapons with some random lairs to do? What else was added?

I would say there still was a upwards trend in releasing.. even if you take that into consideration.

adinosii · January 2019

The thing is - yes, the developers probably have a target release date set internally, Maybe it is fixed, maybe it is flexible - I have no idea, The only people who know are either Cryptic employees or under a NDA and are not talking. Well, I guess the people at WotC are also informed about the release schedule, as they have to approve the content, but it's the same thing - those who know are not talking.

People can speculate all they want, but there is next to no public information available - only that nothing has been said yet, some vague comments that mod 16 would bring something "big", and another statement that they would not be releasing main modules alternating with minor ones. We also know that new modules have traditionally been released on Preview maybe 4-6 weeks before going live, and there is nothing there yet.

Based on this information and nothing else, I would guess end of March at the earliest - but again, that's just a guess, based on the (very limited) information above.

Edit: I just saw the comment by @feanor70118 about being invited to a (closed) test. Now, I am aware of one closed test like that before - in mod 9, which ran for a month before it it was placed on Preview for open testing. I have no idea whether it will follow the same schedule this time..

And yes, one final note - it seems that for some modules the release date has been synchronized with new material being released by WotC. I have no information about what WotC is planning, nor do I have any information about areas or themes in Mod 16, or whether it will tie into some WotC releases, but if you like speculating, you should follow WotC as well.

Edit: I just looked at the calendar. One "rule" is that new modules never get released in the middle of events, right? Day of the Dungeon Master runs until 4/4. The next Tuesday after that is April 9th, so based on the reasoning above, and public information only, I would bet on that date.

feanor70118 · January 2019

silverkelt said:
I really doubt pvp will ever be balanced, unless everyone agrees to go with basic set ups and equipment, artifact, boons are not valid in pvp..

What is balanced in pve? Most classes work well enough.. except maybe poor tr... jeepers that class.

anyways.. my biggest complaint in game has little to do with alot of you are talking about.. its simply, running content is meaningless, there is simply no reason to run any content.. nothing is worth anything.

Loot is worthless.. selling rp is worthless. its down to a small handful of items less then 5.. worth 100k and ues stones. Rerolls destroyed what little marked there was for randomized drops.. because everyone rolls until they get something usually..

thats it.. thats all there is in the game to run content for. Removal of salvage even made a quick 2k ad turn gone selling blue salvage to people. I used to make.. say 20-30k a week on blue salvages at least.. minimum. Now gone.

Bavoria destroyed salvage values , because instead of having a token system that you can select and choose, they did randomized rng on armor.. and so people were getting 50-60 epics at a time.. couldn't use 99% of it and salvaging.. then repeating every few days.. stupid.. Even without cheating, people were farming this for 200-400k in rough salvage week.. complete joke of a system, while i think HUNTS in bavoria are soooo much better then in omu/chult.. they shouldve went with a token system.. so we could make our our own setups and not this randomized junk system.. now that they pulled salvage its also meaningless.. they shouldve make tokens + like 1000 ad per run or something.. not what they did instead.

[snip]

REGARDLESS of anything else they do.. content should drop things people can earn AD with.. and right now its not.

REROLL system sucks.. as it just further pushes everything down in value.

Thanks cryptic for HAMSTER up your game so much.

You can't simultaneously argue that content drops too much of what people can earn AD with and that content doesn't drop things that people can earn AD with.

The game economy functions fine, except for the Zen/AD backlog. 100k AD/day of refinement is fine. Low prices for most items on the AH is fine, because it actually allows people to build up their characters in a reasonable amount of time and not rely on the RNG for a jackpot. Cheap RP is great. If they'd only take the RNG out of refinement, as I and others have been urging for years, the feel of upgrading a character would stop being tedious and painful.

You're saying at the same time that there should be cruel, obnoxious RNG in keeping people from getting necessary items so that they should increase in value and that there should be a token system so that no one needs much AD to get gear.

I'm fine with gear being accessible. The real improvements this game needs are in getting rid of the RNG wherever possible, class balance, de-emphasis on support classes that most of us don't want to play and rethinking the awful control/instadeath/immunity mechanics that have been ruining boss encounters since mod 6. And of course un-frakking the mess they've made out of mastercrafting.

Delay Mod 16

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