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Official Feedback Thread: Icewind Dale PvE Campaign
terramak
Member, Cryptic Developer Cryptic Developer › Posts: 991 Cryptic Developer
Greetings Adventurers!
With the release of Icewind Dale comes a new campaign! This one is a little different from the others in the following ways.
The campaign also comes with the standard Boon progression and instance unlocks. We hope you enjoy improving Caer-Konig and reaping the rewards!
With the release of Icewind Dale comes a new campaign! This one is a little different from the others in the following ways.
- Reputation: As players adventure in Icewind Dale, they will gain the trust and appreciation of the citizens of Caer-Konig. Many of the tasks in the Icewind Dale campaign will become available as players reach certain reputation levels.
- Investment: The main path for progression in the campaign is to invest in key areas of Caer-Konig.
- Improving Baerick's Ice Forge allows players to gain ranks in the Black Ice Shaping profession, which allows them to create more powerful versions of Black Ice gear.
- Improving the Hook, Line, and Sinker means players can pick up a drink on the house every day, specially made to put a fire in any adventurer's belly and improve their combat abilities for a limited time. Once word spreads about the quality of this tavern, though, be prepared to defend it from unruly types there to steal the mead!
- Improving the Frozenfar Expeditions trading post allows players access to the latest northern fashion, and provides daily rewards as well.
The campaign also comes with the standard Boon progression and instance unlocks. We hope you enjoy improving Caer-Konig and reaping the rewards!
Post edited by terramak on
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Comments
We need to collect feedback to better tune the speed at which players progress through the campaign, as well as the quality and quantity of the rewards. Given that, we would like you to categorize and color code your feedback so we can sort it and act on it most effectively! Please use the below format to submit bugs/feedback.
Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
Please use "Bold" face text for the Type then type your feedback in the body of your post. If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use BLUE.
(Concise feedback & screenshots are much appreciated)
Examples:
Bug:
On the second Boon task, the Campaign window said the task was complete, but would not allow me to select my Boon.
Feedback:
The Dwarven Valley unlock takes 20 hours, but I think it should be much shorter, like 5 minutes. When I got the chance to unlock it, I was amped to go to DV, but then was disappointed when I realized I had to wait until tomorrow.
Notable Changes
FAQ
All answers subject to change based on feedback!
Q: How can I start the Icewind Dale Campaign?
Q: Will the Open PvP be intrusive or required to progress in the Icewind Dale Campaign?
The campaign's Gear Score requirement is 10,000 in the Patch Notes. This is higher than the Gear Score requirement for Castle Never and Malabog's Castle (9,200) and just under the requirement for Valindra's Tower (10,500). I don't know what the population statistics are, but this seems oddly high.
Gear Score is also a mess, heavily influenced by feats, and is a poor proxy for a character's overall strength. I suspect that I will be buying junk off the AH to boost some of my low gear-score characters long enough to meet the requirement, then reequipping their current equipment that has the stats I wanted.
When leveling, there is a warning for entering zones above your character's level, but you're not prevented. I suggest doing something similar for the new campaign. Warn, but don't prevent.
Feedback:
Totally agree if the system works as described.
My 9.7K CW is far superior to my 11K GF or even my 12K HR in endgame dungeons and the current solo campaigns, yet in the proposed system the GF and HR can enter but not the CW?
Warning but allowing is a better option, as it avoid the ungodly mess that is rating by GS.
neverwinter the PVP game. i am outa of here, by the way i want my money back you theives!
Feedback:
I can give a bit more feedback now.
My Control Wizard (3 Sharandar, 5 Dread Ring) has around 10.5K GS from the best available Zealot/Servitor Dread Ring lair equipment. This took months (and I have 2 Eyes of Lathander, but only 1 Zealot Ring).
My Devoted Cleric (2 Sharandar, 0 Dread Ring) and Trickster Rogue (3 Sharandar, 0 Dread Ring) are both below, but grinding the Dread Ring for a month should push them over, if I have some luck with Zealot/Servitor drops.
My Guardian Fighter (5 Sharandar, 5 Dread Ring) was over the 10K mark before reaching level 60 because of the Reckless Attacker feat.
I know how to pick feats and ignore the game's misleading gear recommendations to inflate my GS. I don't know what the rest of the population is like, but I suspect that there are players who don't. If the PVE campaign is intended to be reasonably accessible for players who primarily solo/skirmish, I suggest keeping the boon requirement, and either turning the GS requirement into a warning, or dropping it.
However, a GS of 10.000 is not that hard to get (easier for some classes, though), and without actually knowing how hard the mobs in the new area are, it sounds fairly reasonable to me.
i agree with this too i got my cw to 10.6k in 8 days from creation just getting a few rank 5s upgrading 1 artifact to blue and maybe 2 boons from each campaign its not hard at all to get to 10k gs. its getting past 11-13k gs thats the hard part its not even that expensive to get to 10k.
inflating gs for the sake of gs is dangerous because it just means your gear is good and your feats are just supporting that but having an inflated gs means you dont have your stats where they belong you just have stats. if you arent ready for an area you probably shouldnt be there in the first place such as wearing just blues.
they also wanted to make it challenging more so than any overworld area so 10k is decent in my eyes i just hope the monsters can keep up
The Gear Score requirement is fair game for feedback in this thread, as it directly affects your ability to engage in the Icewind Dale Campaign, so thank you for calling out the difficulty reaching 10k GS as well as relative viability among classes.
For concerns about PvP: Our goal is not to force anyone to PvP if they do not wish to engage in PvP content or gameplay. The PvP areas are clearly marked, both on the map and in-world, and PvP gameplay is not at all required to progress in the Icewind Dale Campaign. When you get into the Icewind Dale adventure zones, it's totally okay to call out in the zone-specific threads where you got flagged if you felt you got flagged unfairly or without warning.
It would also be nice if we could get truly challenging endgame content, and that's not content playable by fresh 60s in blue/purple with 10k only...
There is more then just the PVP in Icewind Dale. You know that right?
That's why they should raise the GS requirements to be able to provide some challenging stuff for people who've been playing for... let's say, more than a week. The time you need now to reach 11-12k GS.
My fear is mod 3 makes ALL the old content obsolete.
No reason to farm T1/T2 since Black Ice gear trumps it hands down. No reason to grind out Formorian/Dread sets since Black Ice gear trumps that.
Since its a low GS to get into it, why wouldnt people beef up just enough to get by, then farm black ice as fast as they can....
As soon as you hit 60, chances are you already have rank 5/6 in your gear slots, just doing a few dailies will net you enough AD for gear good enough for Icewind, PVP for a week and get T1-T2 pvp items and do a few dalies to unlock the 3rd boon.
Total time = 1-2 weeks max (I would be I could level a toon 1-60 AND get into Icewind within a week with no help from my other toons)
That's a good point of feedback. What do you think would make you interested in going back to Sharandar and the Dread Ring? I feel the following are still draws toward playing through Malabog's Castle and Valindra's Tower, but I'm sure not everyone is drawn to the same things.
Is there anything else you think would draw you back to Sharandar / Dread Ring? How long do you feel is long enough before it's okay for a zone to become sub-optimal to play through?
Also note that the third Boon from either the Sharandar or the Dread Ring campaign is required to enter Icewind Dale at all.
stupid
there is no warning, some pretty pink thing pops up and says "you are flagged" wtf, ya not forced pvp, but sure **** close.
I think both of the other campaigns have a reasons to run. From Sharandar you get lesser fey blessings and from dread ring you can get greater marks for artifacts. Dread Ring however lacks a use for bounty and campaign currencies once you are complete with the campaign. At the very least, some potions to buy like with Sharandar.
For the dungeons, artifact drop rates are way to low to really be worthwhile if that is all you are running those 2 dungeons for.
Achievements in both campaigns are very generic, easily completed, and have no rewards outside of titles so there is much worth in trying to complete them, unless you are a completist like me.
Thanks for your feedback! The Icewind Pass Adventure Zone thread is where problems with the zone itself should go (e.g. issues with being flagged where you don't expect). That thread is here: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?635401
Please include details such as:
Remember that this is our first Icewind Dale build available to the public, so there's doubtlessly some stuff we need to fix or improve.
Allow the difficulty of the zone to be selectable and the higher the difficulty the better the drop rates. Ideally, max difficulty would be impossible. I did over 50 runs through Malabog and never once saw an artifact drop, let alone be able to roll on it.
Artifacts are indeed nice but they can't be realistically farmed considering the extremely low drop rates. I'm not opposed to super rare drops but it's something you just can't count on.
Gearing out friends, well, maybe, for pve. Not for icewind dale because I'd recommend friends to farm pvp like crazy to get gear with tenacity, just because the most exciting part is pvp/
Farming shards... Like, lolwut? Are there any useful (read: expensive on the auction house) shards dropping in malabog's castle and valindra's tower? The short answer is: no.
Now, as a player having two 15k characters, what I need is astral diamonds. That's what we're farming, which means we have to get rare and specific drops that don't drop often and can sell well on the auction house (and artifacts don't count due to the drop rates, 1% chance or less is just not farmable) to upgrade our enchantments (weapon, armor, and rank 10s), to buy epic pets, etc. Well what the hamster wheel requires us to do, actually.
Now if all we need is black ice, then the T2 dungeon sets will become even cheaper, like starters sets, and we have nothing else to loot and trade to improve our characters without having leadership mules, and leadership farms aren't a fun game to play, if I may.
The current balance allows most of us to survive in the free to play model requiring craploads of astral diamonds to keep up with everyone. Now, if Malabog's castle and valindra's tower were dropping something we can sell or at the very least refine (like the standard T2 purple <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> boss loots), I'd have stopped playing the old T2s long ago, because after my 150th karrundax kill or so (playing since day 1), my eyes bleed.
The real issue is that to keep a healthy F2P model trade has to be strong, but currently, the dev team is narrowing our opportunities in this area. Now I perfectly understand that everything being BoE was a bad idea and would have ruined the game, but every valuable drop being BoP will soon ruin the F2P model too, and icewind dale is another step in this direction. If I have nothing to trade then I have no way to see my characters progressing without spending a lot more money on the game and this isn't something I'm ready to do because I don't like the F2P model on neverwinter (selling coalescent wards is a bad idea and that makes me hating the cash shop, sorry to be blunt but that's why i've spent so little on your game so far). If I can't see my characters progressing steadily and have to rely on slow, dull, refinement mules, there is:
- less excitement to play content. No chance for an awesome drop i can trade if I want makes a place useful instead of exciting.
- a chance I quit after some time because I can't compete anymore with the way I play the game.
Now I don't care if icewind dale makes T2 content, MC and VT obsolete, but how am I going to make my characters better if all I can do is refining 50k a day on the two I play? Considering a perfect weapon enchantment costs 5-6M ADs to make or buy, we're looking at 100 days to get one! or 0.3 year. For one character. And there are 14 slots on a character. We're looking at something over 3 years, with two characters feeding one. That's insane!
Yes I have edited my post (felt something was wrong), it's late and I'm tired but I want to see the new content. T_T
I'm unable to enter the Iceforge, and the dwarf outside doesn't want to talk to me. Prior to arriving at this point in the quest line, I've already processed Black Ice. Not sure if that threw the tracker off. As it stands, I'm unable to progress through the campaign at this point.
Agree with these points. Time would be better spent elsewhere with the current 3 artifact limit.
Personally I go back to Sharandar and Dread Ring for the dailies. But then I like solo PVE content.
There was mention of post 60 advancement (I haven't seen any details on that though) so going back for XP seems worthwhile.
Obviously, completing all the boons is worthwhile.
As it currently is, there is an invisible wall blocking most of the access point to this. You have to stand behind the dwarf and point your cursor in the corner to advance this quest.
Also, as many have found out, the Lighting the Pass quest for Ten-Towners is currently bugged, forcing everyone to choose Arcane Brotherhood to finish the first few quests to advance the campaign.
The zone was big enough to complete the PvE quest without having to flag for PvP, as long as you avoided the areas. There is a slight aura surrounding where you will be flagged for PvP, however, machines with older graphics cards might not have a good enough card to see this clearly. I think it may need to be more visible.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
After completing the campaigns I have no reason to go back. I don't care for artifacts, collections nor achievements. Artifacts drop too rarely to make it worth the time. Shards might be a reason but if you want them just buy them on the AH.
What I do need are (Greater) Mark of Potency, Wards and (R)AD. Especially the first two I can't get in any predictable way. Now if we could get some kind of chest, I would probably go back to Shar/DR all the time. Maybe two different types of caches. In Shar you get a Coffer of Augmentation, while you get the refinement cache from the CTA-event in the Dread Ring.
I understand that I still won't get them all the time but even the little chance to get them would be worth my time to go back. Sure you would have to make the items BoP but as I want them for my personal use only that doesn't matter to me anyway.