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Updates to Random Queues

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  • dafrca#4810 dafrca Member Posts: 469 Arc User
    edited November 2017
    asterdahl said:

    The other approach of moving Fangbreaker and Spellplague into Hero's Accord is more realistic, however, as it stands right now, Hero's Accord represents whichever queues are currently at the maximum item level. Right now this means just Tomb of the Nine Gods.

    Then maybe the real answer here is to change your definition of what the Hero's Accord is rather than continue to raise the bar for new players down the line. Allow Hero's Accord to be the top end of game dungeons. By holding to some definition you selected you are closing your mind to the clear feedback from some of your most active players.

    EDIT: Fixed Quote Block

    Post edited by dafrca#4810 on
  • asterdahlasterdahl Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 1,258 Cryptic Developer
    agilesto said:

    adinosii said:


    Example approach 2a:

    A variation on the previous approach, except the bonus rewards for any particular dungeon/skirmish are dynamically adjusted, depending on their popularity. So, if very few people want to run eCC, for example, it would start to give more and more RAD, until people start running it. This would give people a choice - they could either run a few unpopular dungeons skirmishes, or multiple popular ones to reach their daily maximum RAD.
    I'd buy this. We know that system is possible, as there's a "needed role" bonus in random queue. They'd implement a "needed dungeon" bonus when a dungeon is less run than others. If I see that eGWD rewards goes from up to 20k I'd certainly run it. (with the group I want because no random queues group conditions, yay)
    While technically possible it's not nearly as straightforward as leveraging the system that handles role bonuses. This solution would also require some sort of dynamic reordering of queues on a "bonus AD" leaderboard, so that everyone would not have to check each individual queue for the current bonus reward before deciding what to queue for. The AD bonuses would also have to swing quite wildly. Making it something that could be easily understood at a glance and didn't create a world where the normative play was to play the same few queues over and over would be quite difficult.


    You want people to run more differents dunjeons ?

    Make the dunjeons rewarding IN THE CHEST.

    Something that would make us think, the decent drop chance at something good is there.



    Otherwise you can turn this how you want this is just an other attempt to nerf da earning and making us lost even more time...

    I went into it a bit in a previous post, but average AD earn per account is actually up, which is also what we expected to see. We believe that there is a perception issue and that those players who are legitimately earning less AD they haven't yet become comfortable with how to engage with the new system.

    When you consider how much AD is granted by the random dungeon and random skirmish, if you run those and then if you can't run a random epic, just run whichever specific epic you prefer, you'll generate quite a bit of AD. There is a psychological block comes up when you start thinking about the fact that you won't get the "bonus AD" from running the epic dungeon. However, you'll still get seals, salvage and refinement. When you add that to the bonus AD you received from the random skirmish and random dungeon, you're generally going to come out ahead of your earnings in previous modules.

    There's a lot of talk about how random queues specifically harms new players, but for new players coming into the system where this is the norm, and there isn't this perception that they must have the ability to run a random epic dungeon in order any epic dungeon, they won't have a block about running individual epic dungeons and they'll be earning more than what they would have before and with a goal of becoming stronger to unlock the ability to complete a random epic dungeon eventually.

    But you bring up the rewards "in the chest" and this is something we are looking at. We have some concrete plans to make improvements. One of the things random queues allows us to do is improve rewards in certain dungeons without worrying as much about completely breaking the balance between queues, because we can now guarantee that the less popular queues will at least pop.
    manipulos said:

    armadeonx said:

    Random Dungeon category will sell more Campaign Completion Tokens for Storm Kings Thunder and Cloaked Ascendancy in the Zen store.

    On the other hand, we actually introduced account wide unlocks for queues in Swords of Chult based on feedback for random queues on the preview forum. Encouraging campaign progression wasn't a specific goal of random queues. We're always discussing how to ensure that those requirements don't become too steep of a wall, while still trying to maintain the context of each of those queues within their respective campaigns.

    So please continue to provide your feedback, thank you!
  • asterdahlasterdahl Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 1,258 Cryptic Developer

    I always worry when I am told the "average" is X. If we see 10 players. one player gets 1991 and the other nine get 1 each then the average is 200 each.

    As you rightly point out, using the mean of a given set of data, which some people use interchangeably with the word average you can fall into all sorts of pitfalls. However, average and mean are not interchangeable, median for instance is also a measure of average which will more accurately exclude outlying data.

    Rest assured, when I say that averages are up notably, that it's not a small fraction of players who's earnings have increased by an order of magnitude pulling the averages up.
  • aganwayaganway Member Posts: 269 Arc User
    edited November 2017

    anguskart said:

    On the subject of IG, Ive also seen a trend lately of botters in the skirmish queue, they stand there and occasionally heal and do nothing else to contribute to the skirmish. There should be a way to kick them from the skirmish, or at the very least easily report them for botting with a click.

    My first attempt at the Random Skirmish (and last by the way) was real bad. I didn't know what was going on. I tried to join in but was lost from the start. Died twice, healed almost none, and I just can't see how I could have been any more useless then I was. It was such a bad experience I have not been back sense. To have then be punished for being a bot (and I am not a bot in any way) would have pushed me from the game all together.

    This random queue for dungeons at least has not been as bad, but from my point of view has hurt my overall experience in the game and made me question if this game is really not for me, or any new player at all. The hyper focus on the high end of the 70 level characters and the flat out refusal to accept this change was bad for newer players and characters just hurts even more IMO.

    Hey, welcome to the crazy world of Neverwinter. There does indeed seem to be a large general focus on end-game content, getting stats to some 'perfect' level and until you reach this illusory magnificent state, nothing matters except getting there and the journey on the way seems to be mostly unimportant. Many people do feel this way. I have been playing for about 4 years, at least I know it was mod 2 because I remember when Icewind Dale came out which was mod 3. I have played several classes and finally settled on CW as my main which I now love, it's loads of fun to play, but it was quite a journey to find that out and I spent a lot of time playing GWF and DC as my mains plus a few others here and there. Because of this I have been playing the game a long time but I am only now getting my current character up to what would be considered a 'decent' item level by people. For me though it's about the journey and not necessarily chasing the end. I like to settle on content I enjoy even if it is below where I could be, and just play it my own way and do my own thing a lot of the time solo, I'm not personally fussed about reaching the top fast, the longer it takes the more pleasure I will have when I finally get there from the build-up. I think there are a lot of people in the game who actually are not all focused on the top-end and getting there instantly, many people start new characters and classes experimenting with them and grinding up over and over, I see this in my friends list all the time - new characters being created from people who have been in the game several years. So it's not always about high end levels, and only that, for everyone.

    Try not to be disillusioned about your experiences you mentioned, one thing which I found helpful myself was to go to Youtube and search for particular content, this is a great way to find your feet before even entering something. Pretty-much any content on Neverwinter will have some video of it on Youtube, just use the keywords "Neverwinter *event in question*" and you will find something to watch from start to finish which will show you how it generally goes which allows you to be prepared for how it goes before going in there for real. Also vids and blogs on different builds of all classes, and if you find over time that you are frustrated that you aren't performing as you would like, it is always a possibility that it's not the right class for you, and you can find another one which while still provides buffs/support, but allows you to play in a style which suits you better and is more intuitive to you. Sometimes we are just playing the wrong class. I found that out myself.

    It's also a good idea to find a guild which suits you and join it if you haven't already, they come in all shapes and sizes with different expectations, you can even join my one-man guild if you like, I like to help people get on their feet and explain how stuff goes. I assume you're on PC, if you're interested look for 'Secret Service' guild, my main is Marquovis and I'm in there every day. Even if you don't want to join, you can look me up and I'd be more than happy to help out where I can. Bottom line and whatever you do, it's a good thing to find some sort of ingame support as the game contains so much content and it can be a headache to work it out for yourself with no help. I actually played for nearly a year before I even learned there was a pathway to my quests, spent a load of time running around lost lol. I have learned the hard way in so many areas myself and know how frustrating it can be. Anyway, best advice I can give you is take your time, don't give up, play it your own way and don't stress about doing it to please other people or a certain accepted "way", check-out vids on Youtube on content you are thinking of doing before you do it so you know more or less what to expect, and try to find a guild which suits your personality and playstyle/expectations. At the end of the day the Neverwinter community and environment is a special place with an often great bunch of people (fair few idiots too) and worth the effort. Cheers. :-)
  • danpio1217#3410 danpio1217 Member Posts: 58 Arc User
    asterdahl said:



    I went into it a bit in a previous post, but average AD earn per account is actually up, which is also what we expected to see. We believe that there is a perception issue and that those players who are legitimately earning less AD they haven't yet become comfortable with how to engage with the new system.

    When you consider how much AD is granted by the random dungeon and random skirmish, if you run those and then if you can't run a random epic, just run whichever specific epic you prefer, you'll generate quite a bit of AD. There is a psychological block comes up when you start thinking about the fact that you won't get the "bonus AD" from running the epic dungeon. However, you'll still get seals, salvage and refinement. When you add that to the bonus AD you received from the random skirmish and random dungeon, you're generally going to come out ahead of your earnings in previous modules.

    The issue isn't the earn, the issue is that ITS NOT FUN to play garbage alts... to earn AD... to spend on mains... that i can't play... because farming... which takes up the majority of your time in any game... is on the garbage characters... not my mains...
  • agilestoagilesto Member Posts: 516 Arc User
    edited November 2017


    I've got an idea, how about every dungeon you complete you get a drop of the components to make another key...OR just give another key once a day.

    ^ THIS. CN gives you Faerzress, FBI gives you voninblood through relics.
    It's time for the other campaign-related dungeons to give the equivalent amount of currencies needed to craft the key. This would remove another issue.

  • darthtzarrdarthtzarr Member Posts: 1,003 Arc User
    asterdahl said:

    average AD earn per account is actually up

    Is this rough AD generated, or actual AD generated? Something that seems to be overlooked here is the value of unbound loot. A piece of Salvage worth 4,400 RAD is worth more than getting 4,400 RAD from random queues, and getting an unbound item worth 4,889 AD on the AH is worth more than either of these, but it sounds as if they are being treated as equals, or even being excluding in the case of unbound items. Sometimes even an account bound item is worth a considerable sum of AD if it is an item you need.

    Are these being added to this "average"? This is part of (but not all of) the reason MSP was considered to have such bad rewards. It had a 100% chance to drop bound special items (like mounts/companions etc), while FBI had a 100% chance to drop unbound special items. These are obviously not equals, but seemed to be treated as such.

    Signature [WIP] - tyvm John

  • sirkus1313sirkus1313 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 39 Arc User
    Thanks for listening to the many complaints about the random que and getting dungeon shards. I appreciate the change. That will help.
  • dafrca#4810 dafrca Member Posts: 469 Arc User
    asterdahl said:

    I always worry when I am told the "average" is X. If we see 10 players. one player gets 1991 and the other nine get 1 each then the average is 200 each.

    As you rightly point out, using the mean of a given set of data, which some people use interchangeably with the word average you can fall into all sorts of pitfalls. However, average and mean are not interchangeable, median for instance is also a measure of average which will more accurately exclude outlying data.

    Rest assured, when I say that averages are up notably, that it's not a small fraction of players who's earnings have increased by an order of magnitude pulling the averages up.
    Thank you for responding. I had concerns and am happy you replied.
  • runswsissorsrunswsissors Member Posts: 5 Arc User
    edited November 2017
    I don't understand why you made it so we could do private dungeon runs with friends and even to even be able to solo. It was great fun for a while. Then you punish us by making it all random. I personally don't feel comfortable or like running with a bunch of strangers and had found it to be a lot more fun with friends and the challenge of going solo had been great. It gave me a chance to see where my charas were lacking and make changes to make them better. This random que took all the fun out of it for me and many others that I know. It's like a punishment to run them, the way we enjoyed them and get no rewards at the end.
    And I know this is not a thread for the changes made for SW, but after all the work and yes real life money I had sunk into mine, she is now pretty much useless. To me it's like a slap in the face. Mod Edit: Removed portion that violates ToS
  • tripsofthrymrtripsofthrymr Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,624 Community Moderator

    I personally don't feel comfortable or like running with a bunch of strangers and had found it to be a lot more fun with friends

    You can still random queue with a pre-made group of friends. You can't pick where you're going, but you can pick who you go with.

    Caritas Guild Founder (Greycloak Alliance)

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  • venusnurmi#9562 venusnurmi Member Posts: 6 Arc User
    adinosii said:

    shockmage said:

    "we don’t think it’s particularly exciting to run the same dungeon forever" *cough* ToNG*

    Well, it's not *that* bad... I mean, you only have to run it like 3000-5000 times per character - that's only going to take you a few years....stop complaining ;)

    Seriously though - the RQs and the UES drop rate have reduced my interest in the game to the degree that
    • I spent a whole evening looking for upcoming RPGs that I could start playing instead - found one, which sounds really interesting, but it is not scheduled for release until 2019.
    • Decided not to buy any Zen this round. Seriously, why should I support a a game that is becoming less and less enjoyable?
    I agree with you, they took all the fun from me. Now, question... even if we do the random HAMSTER and all... can we get the same amount of AD we did before? I was getting a little over 12k AD per day with 2 dungeons and 2 skirmishes. I tried the random thingie with guildies, could never make over 8k AD, cause of course, somehow now my toon can't go into epic anything and I get left behind while others go and have fun. I loved it when we could finally FINALLY solo things and get AD while at it. Now my toons have become so weak (or mobs so strong, I don't know what the hell happened there), that I cannot solo anything anymore. Like someone else said here, it was great to solo and see what you were able (or not) to accomplish, what you needed to work on.

    Bah! I was so stupid to trust Cryptic would keep this game great and spend real money on it.
  • elvalianonelvalianon Member Posts: 331 Arc User
    edited November 2017
    @asterdahl

    I'm pleasantly surprised to see a developer this involved with a discussion.

    Will random queue's ever get a private option? So that class restrictions won't be a thing anymore. Since this mod update I haven't done one random dungeon queue because I refuse to tell what class people should bring when unnecessary, example being when someone plays a healing SW that can take on the healer slot just fine but doesn't have the official tag for it.
  • diloul#3484 diloul Member Posts: 49 Arc User
    edited November 2017
    > @asterdahl said:

    > But you bring up the rewards "in the chest" and this is something we are looking at. We have some concrete plans to make improvements. One of the things random queues allows us to do is improve rewards in certain dungeons without worrying as much about completely breaking the balance between queues, because we can now guarantee that the less popular queues will at least pop.

    """""Random Dungeon category will sell more Campaign Completion Tokens for Storm Kings Thunder and Cloaked Ascendancy in the Zen store.""""
    >
    >
    This is interesting, i apreciate that your team is aware that rewards are a real matter when runing a dunjeon.
    The salvage is cool but a real treasure from times to times in a chest is what adventurers run dunjeon for.
    Our experience shouldn't be only based on salvage only, that being true for 2x etos/tuern or random whatever dunjeons/skirmish
    Thanks.

    Not related but i'm not sure i understand the part about tokens.
    "Random dunjeons category selling more completions token on zen market"
  • runswsissorsrunswsissors Member Posts: 5 Arc User

    I personally don't feel comfortable or like running with a bunch of strangers and had found it to be a lot more fun with friends

    You can still random queue with a pre-made group of friends. You can't pick where you're going, but you can pick who you go with.

    It's still not the same, some players are different levels and can't go to all the dungeons that others can. Or if you have a goal, like getting the companion gear, you don't have the choice. And there are some dungeons that really...HAMPSTER
  • ontheleftcoast#2086 ontheleftcoast Member Posts: 120 Arc User
    @asterdahl

    You keep asserting that "average AD" is up but for me it's definitely not. My main is a DPS GF and I cannot tank epic dungeons, especially the T3 ones like FBI or mSP. There absolutely needs to be a way to specify your role for the queue. WIth builds like Templock and some others simply assuming a role based on class is broken. Are you ever going to add something like this or should I just scuttle my GF and hope you don't destroy my next best toon with the next "update" to the game?
  • micky1p00micky1p00 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 3,594 Arc User
    BTW can we have the ever-frost resistance earlier, the account unlock is great, but still can't run, need that for FBI qualification. Really don't want to step into the cold cold wilds....
  • edwardial#8815 edwardial Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    Regarding the random queue itself, you know what dungeons and skirmishes a player is qualified for based on iLevel, and which ones have been unlocked. Why not just random among those that are qualified and unlocked? Low levels will wind up in one or two dungeons until they advance. High levels will wind up in more.

    Addressing the complaints about players that are barely geared for a dungeon, let me increase the desired iLevel for the others in the group. The dungeon may only require iLevel 9500, but let me say I only want to run with iLevel 10500 players. Do limit it to my iLevel to prevent "carry me" requests.

    You cannot make anybody happy when all they want to do is rush through for the AD. There is a reason they almost always ran the lowest level dungeon: it was fast and they got their AD without any real effort. You should put the daily AD grind on the daily quests they should be running for campaign advancement. It is the content they should be doing, so reward them for doing it.

    Put some better boss and sub-boss drops in the dungeons to attract people to the random queues. The daily AD grind there is just going to cause more complaining.
  • scathiasscathias Member Posts: 1,174 Arc User

    Regarding the random queue itself, you know what dungeons and skirmishes a player is qualified for based on iLevel, and which ones have been unlocked. Why not just random among those that are qualified and unlocked? Low levels will wind up in one or two dungeons until they advance. High levels will wind up in more.

    because then high ilv players would just drop all their gear to end up in etos every run and the whole point of random queues is dead
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  • minotaur2857minotaur2857 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,141 Arc User
    scathias said:

    Regarding the random queue itself, you know what dungeons and skirmishes a player is qualified for based on iLevel, and which ones have been unlocked. Why not just random among those that are qualified and unlocked? Low levels will wind up in one or two dungeons until they advance. High levels will wind up in more.

    because then high ilv players would just drop all their gear to end up in etos every run and the whole point of random queues is dead
    As I said earlier, that's trivial to fix, just keep note of the highest IL a character has had since this system was instituted, and base the dungeon selection on that, if he ever puts the gear back on he'll from then on need that IL to RQ.

    The only chars that would be hit with this are characters where you've taken gear off to sell or give to alts so presumably you're not playing them much.

    Alternatively if a character ups his GS after entering a dungeon (possibly allow a small amount for switching to/from frost gear), render him ineligible for the bonus ADs.

  • pteriaspterias Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 661 Arc User
    edited November 2017
    We *can* make as much or more AD as before, but we are "forced" to faceroll leveling dungeons and ruin a lowbie or two's fun and do Random Skirmishes. Removing Merchant's Folly from the Random Skirmishes was a good move, even though I personally liked it there. It'll open up RS to many more players.

    In general, the changes here are nice, but they amount to re-arranging the living room furniture while the kitchen is on fire.

    The Epic queue list is madness. I am genuinely shocked and astonished at the resistance to moving FBI and mSP out of the ERQ. I mean, it would be a MASSIVE improvement if they were just removed from the ERQ and NOT PUT INTO ANOTHER RANDOM QUEUE AT ALL!!

    Let me say that again:
    It would a massive improvement if FBI and mSP weren't in ANY random queue list at all!

    That is REALLY bad. I have 3 characters that can do every dungeon with another on the way. My other 4 characters are good up through CN, but they can't even dream about FBI or mSP. As it currently stands, I have never, and will never, use the ERQ.

    ---

    On a lighter note, moving Shores of Tuern and Kessel's Retreat into the skirmishes list would be nice to add some more variety there. I know you said they were internally judged to be considered dungeons, but you say that as if you guys didn't make that call. In a broader point, I know internal consistency is desirable, but sometimes well-placed exception can save a lot of heartache.

    ---

    A thought about leveling dungeons: Part of the reason they were rescaled to 3 players was to make them pop faster iirc. With RQs, they are firing at lightning speed, which would make 5 people a breeze. I know this will never happen, but you could just return all the old dungeons exactly as they originally were as leveling dungeons! No scaling or anything needed! 5 players, same old dungeon, just as they used to be, except maybe drop the role requirements.

    All this would be made much better by a good level scaling.

    ---

    Talking about sorting out the key system, the obvious solution would be to unify all the keys made in different campaigns to make the same key. Basically a home-made Legendary Dragon Key. This would also help justify the continued 20 hours it takes to craft a campaign key.

  • kieranmtornkieranmtorn Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 382 Arc User
    Like many, my in game time is now much lower, since Random Epic Dungeons queues were implemented. So it's fairly obvious, that currently I'm not a happy customer. I was one of the many that objected to this on preview to no avail.

    For Random Epic Dungeon Queues to function there has to be healers and tanks in those queues, so my solution is my 3 support toons [dc(13.6k), gf (12.9k), op(12.5k)] DO NOT random queue for epic dungeons. I suggest the same for the anybody else that is unhappy with this system. Either queue with a full party or don't queue.
  • jiubiizeekkjiubiizeekk Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 144 Arc User
    For you american Devs/managers/ect out there I think what people are trying to say is:
    Here on the other side of the world when most of you's (including players) are asleep we are able to run the two available random queue's skirm/dung.
    I for one sat in protectors and Continued looking at the /lfg and /all and the /3k_zerg for about 20 minutes before there was a run that had a party leader who wanted a 15k Scourge warlock.
    Now i don't have much play time, well i could play for hours on end, But i don't want to spend this time/this life waiting for Some runs to earn some ad. Back before the change in that 20 minutes yes i could run two EToS and start the third but i could feel a sense of progression. But with the pay gate (marks) ect now it just feels like a wast of time, And time is money.

    Right before the change i wanted to try and become one of the most geared Scourge warlocks, But daymn Yall are motivation killers, halted my progression haven't gained a single Itemlevel since the change.
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