Player scaling goes against everything D&D is about and my humble suggestion to fix it.

zenbarrri · May 2019

First, I am not trying to start trouble, I am only speaking the truth and trying to help resolve a situation we all would rather not be in.

First, It makes no sense anymore to start a chr at level one and go through all we go through in search of creating that awesome end game chr we so desire, experiencing the struggles, the growth and the rewards for all the hard work put in along the way. Now with mod16 we might as well skip all that, start out at level 80 with all the goodies and just play along looking all cool and HAMSTER as it no longer matters what gear or what "Numbers" we have as they are now meaningless based on this new scaling feature. How can you logicaly explain how a player who worked thier butt off investing all that time/effort and in alot of cases thier hard earned real money to reach say an IL of 20K can now no longer complete a dungeon they legitimately could complete a month or so ago. A player should not have to be forced to not be able to play thier actually reached potential in any area of the game. That is not the essence of D&D. Becoming the HAMSTER Hero and helping others and facing more challenging adventures is. Quite simply, you either got the skills or you dont, but you could with more hard work. Instead of sustaining this horrible punishing feature would it not be better to say implement a feature allowing the chr to set thier own difficulty level after reaching thier max level. They could have the choice of settings of say: Advanced / Difficult / Hard / Expert. We currently are now forced to play with the flow of the game in this manner which has I am sure cost a loss in the player base instead of doing the opposite, but with this new feature it would satisfy everyones needs, new players / veteran players / and freeing the developers to be able to now focus thier attention on the positive growth of the game for everyone. My food for thought.

H.R.

silence1x · May 2019

In my less-than-scientific opinion, scaling is only there to make BiS, or near BiS, characters slow down when running lower level content (RAQ, RIQ, etc). Complaints were given, a decision was made by Cryptic, chaos ensued. Do I like it? No. My solution - don't play lower level stuff that is still scaled AND don't create any new toons due to reported issues with new characters having issues leveling up with certain bosses and areas.

Setting difficulty on the fly is a good idea. I don't think they have enough "bandwidth" to change things on a fundamental level to incorporate it though.

silverkelt · May 2019

There were outlaying issues with previous to mod 16 builds and confluences that happened to be built around several sources, adjustments to those linked looping damage modifers , wouldve served a similar purpose, but not limited progression.

I think some players wanted those cycles to end and stop the mad superhero modes available.. I dont think any of those players wanted progression to be completely minimized.

mebengalsfan · May 2019

silence1x said:
In my less-than-scientific opinion, scaling is only there to make BiS, or near BiS, characters slow down when running lower level content (RAQ, RIQ, etc). Complaints were given, a decision was made by Cryptic, chaos ensued. Do I like it? No. My solution - don't play lower level stuff that is still scaled AND don't create any new toons due to reported issues with new characters having issues leveling up with certain bosses and areas.

Setting difficulty on the fly is a good idea. I don't think they have enough "bandwidth" to change things on a fundamental level to incorporate it though.

What you are saying is go play another game. Most players unless you are near max IL won't take the average Joe through LoMM. This means the majority of players are left with just the level 80 zone to play. This means all content other than that zone is not worth playing.

I mean scaling hurts the game do to players not going back to lower content as scaling hurts the feel of progression. Changing up how stats worked and removal of recovery has hinder our ability to have fast combat that is enjoyable; making combat slow and tedious also impacted player perspective of this game and them sticking around. Than complexity was also removed, another feature that pushed more players out.

From what I have seen on the forum and social media many of the players that have stuck it out feel they should continue to play this game do to the money and time invested. I will tell all of you of that are sticking it out; move on. Cryptic management has made an executive decision to keep scaling; this means it will stick around until NWO or Cryptic itself is placed under new leadership. This means what we have now will stick around and if you are unhappy as a player with the changes it is time to move onto another more engaging game.

As someone who has moved on from more than one MMO it is harder to move onto another game than it is to state it but you will be happier when you do. The reasons for staying are typically not worth the other issues that maybe causing you disgust with this game. Just move on. If you like the game enough to stick it out and simply are unhappy presently, take an extended break from NWO; say 6 month or even a year. Either moving on or taking a break will impact management future decisions if enough players don't log into the game. Maybe cryptic will remove scaling, that is a big maybe.

As a someone on console I'm still enjoying the game in its mod 15 state. I'm glad Cryptic held back the release mod 16; it should allow them to patch mo 16 a bit more before it hits console. I'll play my wizard through the new content and after that simply take a break as I won't be playing after that as I hate scaling in game that make my character weaker when progression is what I seek when I play a game. If combat is as bad for a wizard as it was for a Cleric or a Fighter I won't play much of mod 16 and I will simply giveaway all my items and than delete my character and the game off my PS4.

Cryptic can save this game.

I'm curious if the scaling in lower zones is based on the 500:1 ratio and not the 1000:1 ratio. If that is the case; that would be why most players have significantly lower stats in lower zones. If the older ratio is still in play for scaling and if it can be fixed; it would improve the experience for end game players. Given how stats are scaling; I'm starting to think that is where the issue is and it should be looked into immediately.

yperkeimenos · May 2019

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

silence1x said:
In my less-than-scientific opinion, scaling is only there to make BiS, or near BiS, characters slow down when running lower level content (RAQ, RIQ, etc). Complaints were given, a decision was made by Cryptic, chaos ensued. Do I like it? No. My solution - don't play lower level stuff that is still scaled AND don't create any new toons due to reported issues with new characters having issues leveling up with certain bosses and areas.

Setting difficulty on the fly is a good idea. I don't think they have enough "bandwidth" to change things on a fundamental level to incorporate it though.
What you are saying is go play another game. Most players unless you are near max IL won't take the average Joe through LoMM. This means the majority of players are left with just the level 80 zone to play. This means all content other than that zone is not worth playing.

I mean scaling hurts the game do to players not going back to lower content as scaling hurts the feel of progression. Changing up how stats worked and removal of recovery has hinder our ability to have fast combat that is enjoyable; making combat slow and tedious also impacted player perspective of this game and them sticking around. Than complexity was also removed, another feature that pushed more players out.

From what I have seen on the forum and social media many of the players that have stuck it out feel they should continue to play this game do to the money and time invested. I will tell all of you of that are sticking it out; move on. Cryptic management has made an executive decision to keep scaling; this means it will stick around until NWO or Cryptic itself is placed under new leadership. This means what we have now will stick around and if you are unhappy as a player with the changes it is time to move onto another more engaging game.

As someone who has moved on from more than one MMO it is harder to move onto another game than it is to state it but you will be happier when you do. The reasons for staying are typically not worth the other issues that maybe causing you disgust with this game. Just move on. If you like the game enough to stick it out and simply are unhappy presently, take an extended break from NWO; say 6 month or even a year. Either moving on or taking a break will impact management future decisions if enough players don't log into the game. Maybe cryptic will remove scaling, that is a big maybe.

As a someone on console I'm still enjoying the game in its mod 15 state. I'm glad Cryptic held back the release mod 16; it should allow them to patch mo 16 a bit more before it hits console. I'll play my wizard through the new content and after that simply take a break as I won't be playing after that as I hate scaling in game that make my character weaker when progression is what I seek when I play a game. If combat is as bad for a wizard as it was for a Cleric or a Fighter I won't play much of mod 16 and I will simply giveaway all my items and than delete my character and the game off my PS4.

Cryptic can save this game.

I'm curious if the scaling in lower zones is based on the 500:1 ratio and not the 1000:1 ratio. If that is the case; that would be why most players have significantly lower stats in lower zones. If the older ratio is still in play for scaling and if it can be fixed; it would improve the experience for end game players. Given how stats are scaling; I'm starting to think that is where the issue is and it should be looked into immediately.

Judging by your many posts you seem to be a dedicated player and when dedicated players declare their intent to leave ,you know things are about to go downhill fast. In my view Neverwinter will become the next Rift and eventually go into service mode. Based on that it's safe to assume that any money players spend from now on will be a waste.

jeremytheman232 · May 2019

When you q up it should group similar il players. That would fix the high il players from killing the content. Im a 17k pally and my dad is an 18k gwf we did our random leveling q last night and were with a brand new player. If its an alt big deal but new players get 0 experience of a dungeon when high il blow thru and rush the boss. We tried going slow but he/she would die easily. If we went to help mobs were wiped in 1 hit. Figured just finish and let the person re q and hope they get in with lower people. Some people prefer high il people rush them thru in which case a private q works. If you try playing the system by changing gear to massively increase or decrease il mid dungeon then u get super scaled. Give like 2 or 3k il buffer between players

mebengalsfan · May 2019

yperkeimenos said:

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

silence1x said:
In my less-than-scientific opinion, scaling is only there to make BiS, or near BiS, characters slow down when running lower level content (RAQ, RIQ, etc). Complaints were given, a decision was made by Cryptic, chaos ensued. Do I like it? No. My solution - don't play lower level stuff that is still scaled AND don't create any new toons due to reported issues with new characters having issues leveling up with certain bosses and areas.

Setting difficulty on the fly is a good idea. I don't think they have enough "bandwidth" to change things on a fundamental level to incorporate it though.
What you are saying is go play another game. Most players unless you are near max IL won't take the average Joe through LoMM. This means the majority of players are left with just the level 80 zone to play. This means all content other than that zone is not worth playing.

I mean scaling hurts the game do to players not going back to lower content as scaling hurts the feel of progression. Changing up how stats worked and removal of recovery has hinder our ability to have fast combat that is enjoyable; making combat slow and tedious also impacted player perspective of this game and them sticking around. Than complexity was also removed, another feature that pushed more players out.

From what I have seen on the forum and social media many of the players that have stuck it out feel they should continue to play this game do to the money and time invested. I will tell all of you of that are sticking it out; move on. Cryptic management has made an executive decision to keep scaling; this means it will stick around until NWO or Cryptic itself is placed under new leadership. This means what we have now will stick around and if you are unhappy as a player with the changes it is time to move onto another more engaging game.

As someone who has moved on from more than one MMO it is harder to move onto another game than it is to state it but you will be happier when you do. The reasons for staying are typically not worth the other issues that maybe causing you disgust with this game. Just move on. If you like the game enough to stick it out and simply are unhappy presently, take an extended break from NWO; say 6 month or even a year. Either moving on or taking a break will impact management future decisions if enough players don't log into the game. Maybe cryptic will remove scaling, that is a big maybe.

As a someone on console I'm still enjoying the game in its mod 15 state. I'm glad Cryptic held back the release mod 16; it should allow them to patch mo 16 a bit more before it hits console. I'll play my wizard through the new content and after that simply take a break as I won't be playing after that as I hate scaling in game that make my character weaker when progression is what I seek when I play a game. If combat is as bad for a wizard as it was for a Cleric or a Fighter I won't play much of mod 16 and I will simply giveaway all my items and than delete my character and the game off my PS4.

Cryptic can save this game.

I'm curious if the scaling in lower zones is based on the 500:1 ratio and not the 1000:1 ratio. If that is the case; that would be why most players have significantly lower stats in lower zones. If the older ratio is still in play for scaling and if it can be fixed; it would improve the experience for end game players. Given how stats are scaling; I'm starting to think that is where the issue is and it should be looked into immediately.
Judging by your many posts you seem to be a dedicated player and when dedicated players declare their intent to leave ,you know things are about to go downhill fast. In my view Neverwinter will become the next Rift and eventually go into service mode. Based on that it's safe to assume that any money players spend from now on will be a waste.

The game has its issues. The next patch will solve some of them. The issues still present after the patch goes live IMO are issues around combat, cost to players to get better companions, legendary mount bonuses need to be adjusted a bit, add a new role to the game, and add some complexity back to building up our characters. Doing these things will improve the game greatly IMO.

mebengalsfan · June 2019

pariswinters#7118 said:
the more I play the more I realize why they did the scaling this way. It makes all the brand new players instantly on the same level as anyone else, rank 9 is the max rank for any enchantment, except weapon or armor which seem to max at rank 7 and you get a free set of all rank 8 from the start of the campaign.. they are on the same level as people who have played the game since it started.....everywhere except the new dungeon of course. personally I hate it because it invalidates all the gear and enchantments I've worked on, but I understand why they did it, so new players aren't discouraged.

Very rarely does a MMO do this unless it is a special event. If a MMO does this in the game as a standard feature it levels up the lower players to the higher players stats to a specific point. This allows players to still feel progression long term in the game.

NWO did not need to do the scaling like it did. If anything, scale everyone up to 17K if you are below it for all content. This means every enemy is basically level 80. All players stats get scaled upward until player hits 17K IL. Once a player hits 17K IL his or her stats are what they are, period. No more scaling. Any player who is above 17K IL will feel progression as they can adjust stats for their character as needed vs. what we see right now in the game.

I don't know about you or about other players but for me that would have been a better solution as progression would still exist.

mebengalsfan · June 2019

hitchslapped said:
thing is, i don't think the way things were especially discouraged many new players. seeing established players romp through stuff, when i was new, just motivated me to put in effort to figure out what i needed to do to be able to do that myself. progression mattered, new players understood that progression mattered, and it motivated them to put in effort to progress.. which meant motivating them to play through campaigns, to run party content to earn ad and rp and gear, and it allowed them to see meaningful improvement as they did so, because content that was once too hard, became doable, and then became easymode. players went from new players being carried and being given advice, to players who could hold their own, to players who did the carrying and giving of advice. dungeons functioned not only as a source of AD, but as another means of gauging your progression.

the new system doesn't do that for new players, really. it says 'put in just enough effort to be 'good enough' because others will be handicapped down to your level, and so will you if you progress 'too far'. it negates the sense of *ongoing* progression, leaving only the understanding that they're miles and miles away from reaching endgame, which is, if anything, going to discourage them, rather than encourage them. and dungeons.... OLD dungeons are at a point where many of them require endgame players ( or at least players that are closing in on that mark ) to be present for them to be completed, and that discourages new players even more, because they go to run them and they find that they can't even do *old* content that should logically be way easier than newer content. it doubles down on telling new players to only bother trying to run certain content that longer-term players are running to farm ad or drops, because they won't be able to cope with the rest of it. it tells new players that for them, hitting their AD caps and actually being able to buy stuff to progress their character is something they're not going to stand a chance of being able to do. ( and that's thinking about new players who have a bunch of available time to play. new *casual* players are gonna see progression as simply being a pipedream for them. )

the issue with the focus on speed-runs and meta group composition was handled with the removal of powershare, lifesteal, buff-focused builds, and ending the nonsense of paladins being good at *every* possible role. cutting movement speed handled the issue of higherlvl players zooming ahead of new players in dungeon runs.

As with all things the few complaints out weighed what actually most players really wanted.

Power creep being a thing in end game content needed to be fix; that would have been simply done by removing power sharing, adjust bonding to be a bit lower, make buffs not multiple and add a soft and hard cap to buffs. These fixes would have gone a lot smoother than what they did. But that required understanding the base code of the game and knowing where to look and how resolve the issues; this typically resulted in further issues when one item was adjusted. So instead of fixing that they ripped the game apart and redid it to how the company wanted and used us as the scapegoat for what was delivered instead of taking ownership of what was originally delivered for mod 16.

I love hearing the words it is what you wanted from a company when in fact what was asked by the community is far from what the company delivered. Gaming companies always over do the ask by leaps and bounds hoping to satisfy its player but usually the end results ends upsetting quite a bit of the player base that take time away making the developer realize ops we over did it and come back with patches to fix their product to make it better. Mod 16 is exactly that. Scaling, enchantments stats, gear, companions, bonding, etc...

I'm sure more fixes will come in mod 17 so I'm not going to go out and invest into anything just yet as more changes I'm sure will come and it will make what maybe great now, not so great fairly soon.

Player scaling goes against everything D&D is about and my humble suggestion to fix it.

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