I legit am getting the impression that many of these changes that lock players into specific party roles are tailored to weed out solo players. I want to continue to love the game and stick wiith it but so far i am anything but reassured by what i have been shown.
This is me exactly, particularly the lack of any reassurance by what we've seen/heard thus far.
I don’t understand this.
What are you concerned about exactly?
That solo play on a Paly will be too hard? (It’s not, and I’ve played near best case and near worst case)
Same with Warlock.
I’ll reserve judgement on Barbarian and Fighter because I haven’t played enough of either of them, but so far so good.
DC is no different on preview than live in terms of effectiveness of its 2 specs, so again I’m confused by the comment(s).
The current builds for Ranger kick a$$ in M16. In particular the Hunter (Archer) build I'm using is doing massive dps, at only 13.5k in the first levels of the Undermountain campaign (and everywhere else). Hoping they keep the build as-is, but you never know when the nerf hammer will fall.
The biggest loser in terms of class builds I've seen so far is the vanilla Destroyer GWF - the similar Barbie build in M16 cannot do the same lazy old 'stand your ground' style of play with lifesteal, unstoppable and WMS. Do that in M16 (w/o lifesteal) and you will consistently get wiped by trash mobs, much less bosses.
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dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
> @gromovnipljesak#8234 said: > This is a random idea i just had while working, but hear me out @asterdahl - if youre finding it hard to balance out solo with group content - give role bonuses in group content that would make the class play right. > > Eg, in solo, OP and HR have rougly the same capabilities, while in say FBI, the HR gets lets say a 50% damage bonus, and the OP gets more HP or Defense or something, that wouls make the HR unable to solo due to not being tanky enough, and OP wouldnt be able to deal competitive damage, and solo content woulnt be so insanely hard for one specific class. And it would make classes actually need each other ro complete the group content. > > Toodles.
That's a clever idea. I can imagine a queue with role bonuses. Like a basketball team with 5 jerseys. One DPS jersey. Put it on and get +X% Dps. One tank jersey... gives +X% Defense and passive threat. One healer jersey... +X% healing. And two... i dunno... neutral? Wild card?
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
> @dread4moor said: > > @gromovnipljesak#8234 said: > > This is a random idea i just had while working, but hear me out @asterdahl - if youre finding it hard to balance out solo with group content - give role bonuses in group content that would make the class play right. > > > > Eg, in solo, OP and HR have rougly the same capabilities, while in say FBI, the HR gets lets say a 50% damage bonus, and the OP gets more HP or Defense or something, that wouls make the HR unable to solo due to not being tanky enough, and OP wouldnt be able to deal competitive damage, and solo content woulnt be so insanely hard for one specific class. And it would make classes actually need each other ro complete the group content. > > > > Toodles. > > That's a clever idea. > I can imagine a queue with role bonuses. > Like a basketball team with 5 jerseys. > One DPS jersey. Put it on and get +X% Dps. > One tank jersey... gives +X% Defense and passive threat. > One healer jersey... +X% healing. > And two... i dunno... neutral? > Wild card? >
I imagine an all around would be better. That way you can run as many people of whatever roles you want
I have an impression that text-to-speech technology is used for Undermountain. The things itself is neither good nor bad. At least it is better than initial SKT voices that possibly were just some untrained people from the street (I do not know if it was fixed or not). But there are two major problems with it now. 1: Pauses on comma and dot are too long and unnatural, the speech is not fluid enough. 2: Speech is too dull, please use some emotion annotations if technology allows for it (or change technology if it does not). Speech for all dialogues was a strong point of Neverwinter, please make quality speech for new mod as well. The current implementation just breaks immersion.
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mamalion1234Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,415Arc User
combatant's maneuver do not increase combat advantage damage when i look the character sheet ca is not affected.
I see little point of forcing role. Cleric joining as DSP and switching to heal if party dies on some boss? This is called flexibility and it could be runsaver in critical pieces.
The same with SW. Most of dungeon as DPS and switching to heal after wipe on last boss is also useful to have.
Other case is when 4 clerics join Folly as heals (I was there as OP tank ). The would need a feature to switch to DPS otherwise there will be no gold.
It's less about, "If Barbarian sucks at Tanking, Fighter can swap from DPS and take over." type situations. It's about building a group with 3 Tanks, 3 Healers and 4 DPS who can morph into various combinations thereof as the encounter demands. Paladin, 2 from Barb/Fighter and 2 from Cleric/Warlock offers that group build. If such versatility were allowed and players could drop in and out of the dungeon in order to switch Role, the "Other Three" would become that... the OTHER three... unsuitable for end game Meta due to lack of versatility. There might be the real Gandalf, Grey Mouser and Robin Hood standing in PE "LFG - CR" and they would be deemed "PUG only."
What have we seen to indicate that a dungeon will not be doable by the standard set-up of 3 DPS, 1 tank, and 1 healer?
Because that is where this all needs to start at.
If that is what is required to do a dungeon then just how long do you think people will be willing to wait for someone to put the "perfect" group together? How much longer will they want to wait while someone leaves the group, switches roles, re-joins the group, re-enters the dungeon, and catches up to the group, only to repeat the process once that particular encounter is done (never mind that trading DPS for a second healer or tank will slow the fight down), and then repeat that however many times during the dungeon?
I think that you are looking at a small minority of people. The same people that won't want a (insert class here) in the group because "testing" showed that (insert different class here) was "better".
The majority of players will probably be quite content with forming a group and letting everyone just fill the roles that they signed up as, no matter their class.
And your solution? Giving DPS/DPS classes more DPS? That will only marginalize the dual-role DPSers in the eyes of that majority. A tank/DPSer or heal/DPSer would have no more luck finding groups in their DPS role than a Paladin would as a DPSer.
If the devs design a 5-player dungeon that requires a second tank or second healer then shame on them, but until such a thing comes along you created a solution searching for a problem.
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silvergryphMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 740Arc User
The biggest loser in terms of class builds I've seen so far is the vanilla Destroyer GWF - the similar Barbie build in M16 cannot do the same lazy old 'stand your ground' style of play with lifesteal, unstoppable and WMS. Do that in M16 (w/o lifesteal) and you will consistently get wiped by trash mobs, much less bosses.
I think if a "lazy" style of gameplay is gone, then that is a win. My Barbarian is a lot more fun to play then his Destroyer incarnation.
The biggest loser in terms of class builds I've seen so far is the vanilla Destroyer GWF - the similar Barbie build in M16 cannot do the same lazy old 'stand your ground' style of play with lifesteal, unstoppable and WMS. Do that in M16 (w/o lifesteal) and you will consistently get wiped by trash mobs, much less bosses.
I think if a "lazy" style of gameplay is gone, then that is a win. My Barbarian is a lot more fun to play then his Destroyer incarnation.
I'm of the opinion that a "lazy option" should be available, but suboptimal.
Reproduced multiple times, Audio from lord neverember and the representatives from all over faerun overlap, next clip beginning before the previous one ends. occurred once bun not reproducible so far, Archer on either side of the staircase did not load in but was still able to attack and be targeted. Being shot by invisible archer was rather novel but qualifies as an error.
Ego etiam cupo recrari et amari diu post mortem meam I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
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lantern22Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,111Arc User
in FBI when the giants do their the charge - they sometimes go into the wall or into the sea and they disappear and you cant get past the snow rift. Companion also seems to disappear alot (sell sword)
I know some of this is unlikely as having a white dragon over to tea but here it goes.
1. I am hoping with these simplified mechanics set up hopefully we will start seeing new classes soon. I think a plethora of new classes that allow for new play-styles may lessen the rancor of having build versatility taken from the existing classes.
2. Greater character appearance customization, I don't just mean hairstyles. I mean height options, extended weight options or more body-types ( for xanathar's sake let me make a proper fat character, ) more readily available costume pieces and easier customization of those pieces. Maybe different postures or sets of idle animations.
3. Background choices that effect the way you experience the adventure, the Race and class quests are a good start on this and you just need to extrapolate a little more. Maybe one or 2 lines of unique dialog if the NPC you are getting a quest from shares your deity. Little things
4. More at will powers. A greater variety in the at wills will make the higher reliance on at wills less monotonous like an acid splash, FireBolt or shocking Grasp to change up the combat a little.
These are things that a myriad other MMOS have that neverwinter could get away without because people expressed themselves in builds, but since that is all going away, giving us other avenues of expression will help us feel less constrained. ( at least it will for me )
TL;DR give us more variety with which to express ourselves.
Ego etiam cupo recrari et amari diu post mortem meam I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
Entirely defeats the purpose of having "AoE" vs "Single Target" builds on load out hampering DPS who use those variants to switch between mob and boss encounters.
Not an issue, because those are both DPS loadouts, and you can switch between those just as before.
I see this more of an issue with, say a Cleric that wants to use a DPS loadout in CN before going through one of the 5 portals where the group is split up, but wants to use a Healer loadout for the bosses. That will not be possible.
That's correct, though we will be ensuring that this section of Castle Never is doable as a non-DPS class. Cases like this are one of many reasons healers and tanks are not completely without damage dealing options.
Started a lowbie Cleric on live. Ran through the preliminary stuff, claimed a couple of companions when I got into Neverwinter proper, then transferred the character over to test and continued my missions with "Finding Honor".
My companions are doing 1 damage per attack. That's it.
I know that they are low level just like I am, but 1 damage?
The companions are the Storm Rider and Renegade Illusionist.
Is there some minimum level you must be in order for companions to matter in Mod16? Like, only after you get the companion mission from Sgt. Knox or something?
Thank you.
This is definitely a bug, I apologize for the inconvenience. We are looking into the issue!
I mentioned this on the fighter thread, but having given it a bit more thought I'm wondering...
What do Wizards, Rogues and Rangers bring to a Dungeon Group, that Warlocks, Barbarians, Fighters and Clerics don't?
Because I can tell you what those second 4 bring that the first 3 don't... the flexibility to change into a support role at any Camp Fire along the dungeon.
Balance in role v role performance seems to be one of the main thrusts of the overhaul. What you might be forgetting is that (particularly end-game) dungeon groups look to extract every single perceived benefit they can when tackling the toughest content.
I'm sitting here thinking, "If a Barbarian's DPS build is as DPS valid as a Rogue, why not take a Barbarian for the extra Tanking if we need it?" Same with say... Ranger vs Cleric, or Wizard vs Fighter...
Why take something that has the same capacity in one role as its alternatives, but lacks the versatility of a second entire role within the party?
(And a third load out answers the "Single Target vs AoE" argument.)
Why would I not take... Paladin + 2 from Barbarian/Fighter + 2 from Cleric/Warlock (Or just one of each). That gives 3 Healers, 3 Tanks, 4 DPS that can be organised into any combination of 5 to suit the situation in a given dungeon?
This isn't a moan, or a complaint, by the way. I'm genuinely interested in knowing how you've gone about making sure pure DPS classes will be just as eagerly required in end game content as DPS/Support hybrids.
I hope you don't get stuck in the long grass of the statistical tweaks and bugs to not get the chance to keep ALL classes "in the loop" as it were as. For me, getting rid of the 2/2/1 "meta" group from end game was just as important as anything else in the overhaul.
Hello! Thanks for the feedback, I can assure you we are dedicated to ensuring that everyone playing as a DPS will have as equal a consideration as possible in group content.
One of the ways we will avoid the problem you are describing is: you will be unable to change paragon paths in queued content. So you won't be taking a barbarian swordmaster over a rogue because the barbarian has the option to switch to a tank if needed.
I am actually not certain if this change is in the preview build that is up right now, I apologize and I can't check at the moment. There also may be some issues and ways to circumvent this at the moment, but over the next few weeks we'll be closing any holes.
To be clear, you'll still be able to change loadouts, but the loadout must match the role you queued as. (Loadouts now clearly have the role marked on them in your loadout list as as well.)
Hopefully this answers your question and your concerns!
It does, thank you.
I kind of hoped it wouldn't be the solution despite it probably being the most efficient. As someone who's spent the past few months since my TR got... toned down... playing a Paladin main, I've occasionally found the need to temporarily switch Paragon in, for example, FBI and MSPC PUGs and lend a hand when our Tank wasn't fully equipped to get us through, I have a pinch of regret that I won't be able to do that in future, but appreciate the greater need of balance being maintained.
As long as complimentary Paragon load outs still work I agree that it seems the best solution.
Thank you for your understanding! While I absolutely understand the desire to change roles in a pick up group that isn't going well, the unfortunate reality is that the option would be abused far more often than it would be used for good. We are aiming for more realistic item level requirements in Module 16, so hopefully cases like the one you describe will be less prevalent.
I'm hoping @asterdahl doesn't get sick of hearing from me, but something that started over in Fighter would actually apply pretty well to most classes:
( In order to improve build variety,) perhaps some of the feats that create a synergy between two specific powers, particularly when at-wills are involved(since we only get two) could have a secondary, conceptually linked effect that is active when the recipient power isn't slotted. Using Cleaving Bull as an example, adding the following effect when triggered: "When Cleave is not slotted, your at-will powers inflict damage on enemies near your target" (I don't have access to game right now, so I don't have numbers like radius or magnitude, but I'm picturing something comparable to an unbuffed Cleave hit with a 90-120 degree arc centered on the target, adjusted for the speed of the powers in question), essentially redefining the purpose of the feat " to "Bull Charge buffs your at-will AoE damage," so that the feat is reliant on you having one particular power slotted, rather than two.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of using feats to create power synergies, I just don't like the idea of your feat choices potentially locking up both of your at-will slots and 2/3 of your Encounter slots.
I've given a fair bit of thought to this; because the broader effect is contingent on the more powerful effect not being available, it's not actually increasing the power of the feat at all, simply creating less of a gulf between the character's power level when they can do what they want vs. when circumstances call for one or more specific powers. It makes it harder to make "wrong choices" and more about choosing how to focus your character's aptitudes. The feat for the Dreadnaught that makes Brazen Slash buff Heavy Slash is particularly worrisome, since by its nature it locks up both of your at-will slots. Again, I'd propose a concept nudge from "Brazen Slash buffs Heavy Slash" to "Brazen Slash encourages mixing up your at-will powers," with the main function unchanged, but perhaps offering bonus damage to your next hit from a different at-will after finishing a Brazen Slash combo when Heavy Slash isn't slotted. Perhaps renaming the feat to "Brazen Aggression," to reflect that functionality, as well?
I wouldn't encourage doing this with feats that don't interact with specific powers, or even with most feats that only interact with one power; my goal here is twofold: to increase overall build variety by reducing the number of "incompatible" power/feat combinations, and to reduce that feeling of player aggravation when circumstances force you to "turn off" one of your feats by unslotting one of the two powers it affects. Much like negative ability score modifiers, bonuses that you sometimes have to "choose" to lose just feel bad, man, and while building around very specific power synergies is flavorful, it definitely reduces build diversity. This suggestion is inherently unstackable (so it won't induce power creep, merely narrow the power gap), takes away none of the original flavor of those feats by continuing to incentivize the original combo over its alternatives, and honestly makes a nice nod to the creativity-driven combat of 5e (where what you can do with a d20 roll begins, not ends, with "hit it with my sword")
I'm not sick of hearing your feedback, please keep it coming! I hadn't read this specific feedback before, so I apologize if you posted it and I missed it in this or another thread. I can definitely understand the frustration with feats that lock in choices.
I just recently finished a pass of the Barbarian feats, which incorporated much of the feedback we've received on other classes, and I will be doing another pass on Cleric, Fighter, and Paladin's feats this week. I haven't had a chance to finish the work on those since the closed beta ended.
I feel that even though some of Barbarian's new feats involve specific powers, they are in an overall better position, as the choices in each column basically boil down to two different ways to approach the same issue, depending on personal preference.
For example, one of the DPS feats choices is between enhancing one relatively situational AoE or the other, making them both valid choices for your AoE rotation. You can hopefully feel a bit more comfortable in cases where you aren't using the power, such as those where you're in a single target or mixed loadout.
In the case of the Brazen + Heavy Slash feat, I think this one ultimately feels okay, because with the 4 at-will choices Dreadnought has access to, you're going to be using those two for a pure single target build without question. But that being said, I hear the feedback, and I will probably make changes to that feat. If you'd like to discuss that feat in specific more—I ask that you direct that feedback to the fighter thread though, just to keep this thread from getting even more traffic than it already has.
A masaive amount of feedback is concerned with the lack of build option and i see NO responce whatsoever to tha subject.
Is there any talk among you to remedy this part or is everything set in stone already(usually is at this time when it hit preview).
I see some feedback on tweeks, like aggro, a bit more damage with at wills but absolutly no answer to ANYTHING concerning this MAJOR outcry about limiting people into certain builds(with a comment about not wanting bad builds ??? isent that part of the game not to hand out premade characters...)
There has been several good suggestions about how to make character creation more varied but you stay silent on the matter can you please at least comment this.
Best
I have responded to this feedback quite a bit in the various class threads I am handling (Paladin, Fighter, Barbarian, and Cleric.) I will try to address the topic more directly in this thread in the near future.
You're welcome! Alright, let me try to address your original concern and questions about build diversity.
First of all, yes, we absolutely did simplify build diversity at the base class level. Both by isolating more powers to the paragon paths, and by reducing the number of feat choices.
These changes were made for two reasons: First, to make it possible for more classes to support two different roles. Many of the classes have since launch had feat trees dedicated to roles they could not play, and we finally wanted to make these options viable. Unfortunately, working with only a handful of powers unique to each paragon path, it would have been incredibly difficult to offer more roles for most classes.
Second, we wanted to reduce the number of wrong choices you could make when building your character. When compared with other MMOs where any attempt is made to balance classes, you still have a tremendous amount of freedom when building your character, in the form of boons, companions, mounts, insignias, gems, and equipment. There are opportunities to fail there, but we didn't think it was a great experience to fail before you even leave your character sheet.
I understand some players enjoy an underdog build. I have seen the argument that players who are in favor of less chances for players to fail; and thus an increase in the effectiveness of the average player in random content, are elitist. I would challenge this notion a bit. A system whereby it is possible to have a build that is superior in orders of magnitude when compared with another is a system which fosters and appeals to true elitism much more. Players who are happy that more players will have a competent build ultimately want to play with more people and have a good time.
That said, setting aside the goals for a moment. We did set out to offer more varied gameplay styles, and to make sure that the limited choices you do have are much more impactful than most of the choices in the old system. Some feats have missed the mark there, and we're working on reviewing those, and I hope you'll keep an eye on the changes in the coming weeks and continue to provide feedback.
If you wanted to minimize wrong choices then implementing a "Suggested build" or "Quick build" option that leads to the builds you feel are ideal. As it stands now you are taking away my toolbox and telling me i can only have have half of them back but they aren't going to work the way they used to before.
Part of the fun of the game was trying different situations with different sets of powers but since you are dividing the encounter powers so heavily between the Paragon classes and striping out some of the functions of those powers you have just weakened versatility in the name of "Minimizing wrong choices." Let me to illuminate you on a little D&D secret, any choice that a player has fun with, even if it leads to lower efficiency, is a right choice. And if a player has less fun with their mistakes make retraining tokens readily available. Have a "Optimize for X role" button that builds the optimal whatever.
There are a myriad of ways to address "Wrong choices" that don't involve taking away player agency but i have seen none of them considered. If there is another reason for doing it the way proposed in Mod 16 then i am open to hearing them but the refrain of "Minimizing wrong choices" doesn't seem to hold up to me because i am not the kind of person that finds other people making choices for me to be right unless i choose to let someone decide for me, which is still then my choice, and i doubt i am alone in this.
And before anyone comes out and accuses me of some flavor of elitism, let it be known, that my builds often suuuuuuck. I am by no means an elite player, i am not even a good player. Search my post history, it is often me telling people i am stuck or getting curb stomped, and the community tells me what i am doing wrong and i learn. I have to go back and try again, Sometimes with new characters but more often by switching out powers in my tray. Cause honestly the extensive gating of the encounter powers among the paragon path is the thing that gnaws my Gnolls the worst.
This is like going to a restaurant that used to have a wide drink selection and being told that from unspecified date in the future i will only be able to choose coke or Pepsi because the chef deemed them optimal calorie and caffeine delivery vessels when by the beholder's nonexistent happy sacks i want a fanta.
i know it is going to happen no matter what points i make, how eloquently i phrase things or how high my charisma bonus is. ( its low ) This is a place for feedback and that is what you are getting. I am not leaving or anything because threats like that are ineffective and often empty. I am just telling you that the removal of personal choices in the coming module make neverwinter a lesser product in my eyes and i am sure as sunrise less inclined to spend money on it.
Hello! Thank you for replying, I appreciate your perspective and your candor and am sorry to hear that you are frustrated with the changes. In regards to having options, you'll still have access to 10 encounter powers, 5 dailies and 4 at-wills on every class, and we are working to make sure the feat choices are more meaningful in providing real changes to how you play your class.
Setting that aside for a moment, while I appreciate your analogies to restaurant drink selection and pen and paper D&D, I do have to protest a bit to their accuracy. Your choice of orange Fanta is unlikely to prevent your dinner party from being able to finish their meal successfully. (As amusing as that concept is.)
Also, in pen and paper D&D, the combat and mechanical elements often take back seat to the storytelling. Even for those groups that play more combat oriented campaigns, with any game (physical or digital) played primarily with people you know and are sitting down with in real life, house rules and common sense often prevent issues present in the design of certain games from becoming a problem. In fact, in some games, an intentional imbalance can be both intentional and can improve the experience.
However, I would argue that group play based online games are not a genre of game that benefits from those sorts of choices. I'm sure some of you have had the experience of a relatively small gaming group (either tabletop, or some local co-op/competitive) having a seriously diminished experience after one of the players invested a significantly larger amount of time into mastering the rules, or reading up on them online.
In an MMO, that's the norm for most players, and even if they themselves don't read guides or forum/reddit posts about what to do, they likely get that information second hand from guild mates, or public channels. The power of the "meta" can be so strong that, you can see even in games where classes are balanced within less than 5% of each other at a theoretical level—to the point that personal ability to play the class far outweighs the differences in each class's potential—that people will make choices based on that meta, even if they will never be running content anywhere close to difficult enough for the small theoretical gain to make a difference.
Now obviously that's not everyone, and I absolutely respect your desire to have options. I played a lot old school MMOs where whole classes were just never welcome in endgame content, and I often hand fun playing those classes. Of course, those games also didn't have any sort of random matching. But with that being said, we aren't removing all of the choice. With as much choice as there will be, the best possible DPS build on any class will almost certainly be more than 5% better than the worst possible DPS build on any class, that's just the reality. We'll be trying our best to ensure that they're as close as possible, and hopefully we'll get to the point that individual player skill is a wide enough variance that things are fairly even across all the builds.
I do hope you'll consider the potential benefits of the changes, and realize that we're making these changes with the hopes of improving everyone's experience playing through the content we offer, and so that we can offer more exciting content when we have a somewhat reasonable baseline to aim that content at. I hope that as we hone in on feat adjustments, that we'll be able to provide enough different experiences for you that you feel like there are at least a few options for your favorite classes and roles.
I mentioned this on the fighter thread, but having given it a bit more thought I'm wondering...
What do Wizards, Rogues and Rangers bring to a Dungeon Group, that Warlocks, Barbarians, Fighters and Clerics don't?
Because I can tell you what those second 4 bring that the first 3 don't... the flexibility to change into a support role at any Camp Fire along the dungeon.
Balance in role v role performance seems to be one of the main thrusts of the overhaul. What you might be forgetting is that (particularly end-game) dungeon groups look to extract every single perceived benefit they can when tackling the toughest content.
I'm sitting here thinking, "If a Barbarian's DPS build is as DPS valid as a Rogue, why not take a Barbarian for the extra Tanking if we need it?" Same with say... Ranger vs Cleric, or Wizard vs Fighter...
Why take something that has the same capacity in one role as its alternatives, but lacks the versatility of a second entire role within the party?
(And a third load out answers the "Single Target vs AoE" argument.)
Why would I not take... Paladin + 2 from Barbarian/Fighter + 2 from Cleric/Warlock (Or just one of each). That gives 3 Healers, 3 Tanks, 4 DPS that can be organised into any combination of 5 to suit the situation in a given dungeon?
This isn't a moan, or a complaint, by the way. I'm genuinely interested in knowing how you've gone about making sure pure DPS classes will be just as eagerly required in end game content as DPS/Support hybrids.
I hope you don't get stuck in the long grass of the statistical tweaks and bugs to not get the chance to keep ALL classes "in the loop" as it were as. For me, getting rid of the 2/2/1 "meta" group from end game was just as important as anything else in the overhaul.
Hello! Thanks for the feedback, I can assure you we are dedicated to ensuring that everyone playing as a DPS will have as equal a consideration as possible in group content.
One of the ways we will avoid the problem you are describing is: you will be unable to change paragon paths in queued content. So you won't be taking a barbarian swordmaster over a rogue because the barbarian has the option to switch to a tank if needed.
I am actually not certain if this change is in the preview build that is up right now, I apologize and I can't check at the moment. There also may be some issues and ways to circumvent this at the moment, but over the next few weeks we'll be closing any holes.
To be clear, you'll still be able to change loadouts, but the loadout must match the role you queued as. (Loadouts now clearly have the role marked on them in your loadout list as as well.)
Hopefully this answers your question and your concerns!
To clarify, for example a wizard can switch from Arcanist to Thaumaturge or Thaumaturge to Arcanist during a dungeon, but a Cleric cannot swap between Devout and Arbiter in a dungeon? Also, does this apply to random queues only or also premades?
We'd like to keep this restriction to random queues but it may not be possible for Module 16 launch. Ultimately, we're not looking to prevent weird remade groups from running through content. We do believe we'll be able to get to the point where 3 dps, 1 tank, 1 healer is the genuinely optimal group setup, so the goal isn't to force that on premade groups.
The only goal of the restriction is to prevent abuse such as riding the tank queue and then switching to a DPS immediately on entry, etc.
With the level cap increasing, could we take this mod as an opportunity to update Guild armors and accessories? The current Company armor is far outdated and wouldn't be recommended for anything more than collections sake. A Level 80 armor set with equal stats to the Spy Guild's armor would be a decent update to the Guild armories.
Unfortunately, adding new equipment to the Strongholds was something we simply didn't/don't have the bandwidth to get in for Module 16, but we would like to add new items to purchase with guild marks. I apologize that this wasn't something we could fit in for Module 16. We have put a lot of work into the module, but there's so many more things we would like to have done that it's painful when we have to say that we didn't have time for something like this.
It really helps us out if you can direct feedback like that to the specific thread, as there's already quite a lot to sift through in the general thread, and the difficult issues thread helps us to quickly identify and file bugs for high priority difficulty issues like this.
@asterdahl "A system whereby it is possible to have a build that is superior in orders of magnitude when compared with another is a system which fosters and appeals to true elitism much more."
so asking a handful of best in class folks to determine the proper character build to force on everyone else is actually less elitist because in being prevented from making poor choices, we are all a little closer to best in class??? heck we may even be worth tolerating in a random queue...
"Players who are happy that more players will have a competent build ultimately want to play with more people and have a good time."
so the types of people who deem other people's character build "competent" will have more fun now??? now i understand what you are getting at... mod16 isn't elitist because 19k ilvl act rotation macroers can finally mingle with the common folk knowing that any bad choice they might have made in the name of fun, play style, lore, or role playing will have been eliminated and all they will have to correct is everyone's rotation.
I feel like there's a straw man here, so let me rephrase Asterdahl's position:
"trap" options are not actually options, they are traps.
"Underwater basketweaving" feats are not real feats, they are trap.
"System mastery" has its role, but a player that is not especially well informed should be able to perform adequately. If there's a huge gulf between best and worst builds, then the worst builds either A.) can't do the bare minimum of content or B.) the content is totally irrelevant for the best builds.
I'm not 100% on board with the *way* this issue was resolved in mod 16, but I can at least understand the purpose of the changes.
(Excluding the stat changes, those are just bad)
Hmm, I make no guarantees that "Underwater Basketweaving" won't show up in a future item tooltip. I do want to take a moment to thank those of you who have been following the feedback threads closely and can respond to posts like this, articulating or explaining points I have made in other posts or threads.
It saves me a tremendous amount of time not having to repost content. (Especially since at this point, I've made so many posts in the last few weeks, that I can't easily find any of my own specific comments, yikes!) If anyone misquotes or misrepresents my position, I'll certainly jump in and respond, but in this and many other cases, I genuinely appreciate the assistance.
I always love when someone gives a negative feedback and states they are the leaving the "white knight defender" of the devs or yhe devs themselves say: see ya dont let the door hit you on the way out.
Understand if you run a business and you have 50 regular daily customers, that come in every day for 2 years. After 2 years you makr changes to the business and 30 people state I don't like these changes, please stop or rethink your decision.
Now you can do what you suggested: see ya, and hope you find 30 new clients or your remaining 20 buy more to make up for lost sales of 30, or you go out of business.
You and devs should be less flippant on dismissing a portion of the client base or you may wind up a client base that can't support the game to be profitable.
Hi Darkheart! Thank you for posting your thoughts, I do genuinely appreciate your perspective on the changes, even if we aren't looking to walk back all of the changes that are receiving negative feedback. One of the difficulties with comparing a game like Neverwinter to a brick and mortar establishment like you're describing is that we don't have a direct 1-to-1 interaction, or even have employees that have a direct 1-to-1 interaction with all of our customers.
I know it's extremely frustrating to hear this, but only a tiny, tiny portion of the population uses the preview server, or goes on the forums at all for that matter. And then there are further elements to consider. For instance, let's assume 1% of Neverwinter players are active on the forums, that 1% of forum posters are not a representative sample of the population, for various reasons, but mostly self-selection bias.
There's also a bias towards negativity that plays a huge role, which going back to your brick and mortar store example, is why so many small business will try to encourage customers to go review their business. Because if you like it, you're pretty unlikely to go out of your way to tell them about it on the internet. However, if you hated it, you're likely to find your way to Yelp or what-have-you, with no help at all.
Now I don't say all of this with the goal of outright dismissing absolutely any of your feedback, or any other forum poster for that matter. Some of our most dedicated players are posters, and even if you just made an account to post about something that frustrated you on preview this week, we genuinely appreciate the time you've taken to let us know. We do hope we can resolve as many frustrations as possible.
I just feel like these things should be outlined so that you can also understand our position. There is an extremely large population of players who may have completely different, and unvoiced opinions than yourself, or any other forum poster for that matter.
You're welcome! Alright, let me try to address your original concern and questions about build diversity.
First of all, yes, we absolutely did simplify build diversity at the base class level. Both by isolating more powers to the paragon paths, and by reducing the number of feat choices.
Second, we wanted to reduce the number of wrong choices you could make when building your character. When compared with other MMOs where any attempt is made to balance classes, you still have a tremendous amount of freedom when building your character, in the form of boons, companions, mounts, insignias, gems, and equipment. There are opportunities to fail there, but we didn't think it was a great experience to fail before you even leave your character sheet.
I understand some players enjoy an underdog build. I have seen the argument that players who are in favor of less chances for players to fail; and thus an increase in the effectiveness of the average player in random content, are elitist. I would challenge this notion a bit. A system whereby it is possible to have a build that is superior in orders of magnitude when compared with another is a system which fosters and appeals to true elitism much more. Players who are happy that more players will have a competent build ultimately want to play with more people and have a good time.
This is the problem many of us are trying to explain. Because you have, as you said, "we absolutely did simplify build diversity" that means that very quickly all players will be playing a pretty much the same cookie cutter build out of the gate. Because there will be a single or sometimes two "best builds" that will get sorted out very quickly because with less choices the process or elimination will sort that out fast. Really fast. The only thing left will be sorting out companions because BiS will be obvious and because there is even less choice with enchants and companion gear now even that will get sorted super fast as well. Less is not more no matter how you try to sell it.
How is that fun? This is in no way in the spirit of D&D. (And I have been playing since the early 80's/late 70s). D&D has always been about building our characters from scratch and being able to be different (for better or worse) than the next person and having the freedom to build them as varied as possible. If we follow this logic the next step is pre-made characters because, since we might make "the wrong choices" (as you pointed out). So, just don't allow us to pick anything other than gear, companions and enchants because this feels like where it's going.
I just get this feeling that 2 months or less after mod 16 launch everyone will have the same builds for all classes and we all will just be clones of each other.
And with cooldowns nerfed so bad most solo content will be reduced to people standing around doing at wills over and over and over waiting around for encounters that may not ever come in time to help them with the mobs and much less bosses they are currently fighting. And in group combat, spamming at wills over and over again, with a clone after clone of the same build everyone else will be playing will put people to sleep. (BTW this will be every single battle in the entire game now because of scaling.)
Don't get me wrong, I really hope I am wrong about this but just feels like your dumbing things down too much. And let me be clear, I am not complaining about dealing with the power creep or the buff/debuff situation or trying to make roles more meaningful again. Those are all freaking great! I am so on board with that. I really am! I love that there is a new level cap! But when you had a a system like NW where there really was so much choice and variety of how you could build your character and now sort of confine it to fewer (actually much fewer) choices it doesn't feel right. But, I am hoping you prove me wrong. I really am.
Hi Autumwitch! I appreciate you taking the time to reply to my post. I would like to at least clarify that I am hearing what you and others are saying about build diversity, I am not unable to understand your explanation. We do unfortunately seem to be at an impasse in terms of agreeing about what an acceptable level of build diversity is.
Unfortunately, those who are frustrated by the reduction in build diversity also tend to use hyperbole to prove their point. It's certainly not the case that because there was a reduction in choice to a system (classes pre module 16) with an absolutely huge number of choices (setting aside valid vs. trap choices at the moment) that suddenly there is only one possible arrangement per class.
You still have access to 2 paragon paths, each with: 10 encounters, 8 class features, 5 dailies, and 4 at-wills, and then feats but with only a limited number of slots to take at a time. There are a lot of combinations you can still make with those. Admittedly at least half of those (if you were to just go through every permutation) are not super great in every situation. (But hopefully those are obvious, like, taking a full AoE build to a boss fight with no adds, etc.)
But herein lies the crux of the problem—there are some genuinely contradictory arguments being made in the name of build diversity. You can't have it both ways that there is now only 1 valid build, but that pre-module 16, it was good to have access to a number of bad builds. (Well ultimately, you can make whatever argument you like, but if the argument is logically at odds with itself, we're going to have a harder time interpreting your feedback, and even considering what if any changes to make.)
Now, I'm not saying any of this to criticize or belittle any of the feedback we are receiving, I'd just like to steer those of you are frustrated towards making a clear argument about the issues that are bothering you so we can better understand them. If you feel that pre module 16, there were 3 really solid, fun builds that felt different to play, and now there are only 2, tell us about it in the class threads, and tell us what powers made the old build that doesn't have any gameplay representation in Module 16 possible. Alternatively, if you feel that being able to make bad choices and build an underpowered character is something that you're sad to see go, let us know that as well and tell us why you feel that you wish you could make an underpowered character. We want to hear it!
I do hope you understand my perspective, and also can appreciate that I do understand what you are saying. I also thank you for your patience and apologize for the frustrations that changes like this can cause.
I understand the rationale behind the - complete (as far as I can tell) elimination of party buffs (buffs that benefit others than the buffer, if in range of the buffer) - almost complete elimination (=serious nerf) of self-buffs (buffs that only benefit my own character)
Party Buffs were a huge problem in MOD 15 and the MODs before it. Too many different combinations of buffs, leading to multiplicative effects. The result were unexpected combinations that would buff a party up to 1000%, practically impossible to balance.
The new philosophy seems to be: only self buffs (if any at all). I tend to agree, but maybe the Devs have just overdone it a little bit.
With no party buffs at all, we are more or less individualists, that do not bring anything beneficial to the party (except our role). I very much liked the idea, to help out my entire party with buffs. It is sad that this "social" feature is completely gone.
I therefore suggest a very limited version of party buffs, that should not pose any performance issues and that could be beneficial in terms of working together as a team within a party (of five)
SUGGESTION:
Give each class/ paragon path one (just one) unique party buff, that does not stack. - the unique buff should only be applied to a party of five (so maximum number of five buffs). - it can be implemented as a static variable on each character, than only needs to change when the party composition changes (or a team member chooses a new load-out) - in the character power setup it can be implemented as class-icon (of which we can slot two) - the buffs (per class/paragon path) should focus on different aspects of game mechanics, so that they are largely independent and do not lead to any unforeseeable synergies - a nice addition feature would be a choice between a self buff (slightly stronger) and a party buff (weaker for each individual party member, but stronger as a combined party effect), so we have the choice to be "selfish" or "social"
For instance: Pally: 5% faster recharge of encounter powers (scaled down version of aura of wisdom) DPS1: 10% damage increase for all encounter powers DPS2: 10% damage increase for all dailies DPS3: 10% damage increase for all at-wills Tank: 5% reduced damage DC-healer: 5% outgoing healing ...
This would give us meaningful choices, in particular a choice that benefits the party (of five) or ourselves It would retain some good "social" aspects of the previous MODs, without being overpowered or unpredictable due to 100+ different combinations. If you split the benefits (as suggested for the DPS-classes) over all three types of attacks (at-wills, encounters, dailies), it would become beneficial to have different dps classes in a team (not just 3 barbs or whatever the best dps class is atm).
Hey Motu999, thanks for checking out the changes on preview and posting your feedback! We appreciate the time you've dedicated to helping us out.
In regards to party buffs, they haven't actually been completely eliminated, some classes still have access to buffs and debuffs that the whole party can benefit from. For example, Cleric's Break the Spirit and Barbarian's Battle Fury are examples of a debuff and buff the whole party can still benefit from.
That being said, I appreciate the thought you've put into for your feedback. If you have any particular classes you feel are being underserved in this regard, let us know in the individual class thread. Obviously, we've made an intentional choice for some classes to be less or more focused on providing that sort of utility, but if your class isn't providing as much as you'd like, I do hope you'll let us know in the class thread.
I am of the opinion that dps/support should not be as good dps as a dps/dps. The reason being: it gives them 2 complete "classes", instead of only 1. In order for dps/dps specs to have both paths do something distinct and different, it usually means differentiating between AoE and single target, or the likes. In other words, 1 of the paths fundamentally has a weakness that the other role can fill, thus to play the class properly you are reliant on changing loadouts. In contrast, the dps/support, being good at both in a single loadout means their dps spec is objectively "better" then a dps/dps, which can only dps.
I think a dps/support should only have an AoE dps or only have a single target dps loadout, it should not be able to do both. This way it is as good as a dps in 1 type of combat, but then falls flat otherwise. This makes its roles equal to that of a dps/dps. That, or it should be able to do both at 80-90% of the effectiveness of a dps/dps, but, by design, they should be imo a worse dps then a pure dps, there is always a tradeoff for having 2 roles.
What is the point of being a specialist dps if a support with a dps spec can do the same thing as you and do something else.
While I appreciate the sentiment, we don't plan to go this route, because if we do, the DPS path of a class with a non-dps path will basically be shunned in group content, and we'll be offering a choice to players at character creation that is completely invalid for group play.
Now I suppose hypothetically, if they are at 90% effectiveness, that may be within the margin of acceptance by the community, at which point, I would argue that the difference between them and a pure DPS is probably outweighed by difference in player skill, and essentially meaningless.
However, we do feel that the second case is much less likely to occur, even if we get the DPS that close. Ultimately, for the pure DPS classes, we are aiming for the paragon paths to offer different play styles, such that you can pretty much use one path or the other based on your own personal preferences. I do understand that right now, some of those paths are a bit stronger at AoE, or a bit stronger at single target, we're still working out the details.
We'd really like that in a group, if you prefer to play as an Assassin, you can comfortably do that throughout an entire run, as opposed to feeling the need to switch back and forth between Assassin and Whisperknife, for example. That being said, we do understand that those pure DPS will be able to bring more diversity in terms of DPS to the group so that's something we're trying to be careful about balancing around as we get into final* tuning.
(*Note that I say final tuning only in reference to launch, as we will absolutely be tuning further both in Module 16 after launch, and well into the next few modules based on where we see performance of each class.)
Due to severity of these changes, will players be given a choice if they want to continue to Neverwinters Undermountain or chose to remain in "the vanilla" version of the game?
Will you release vanilla Neverwinter server, like just module 1? or m15? 60/70 caps.
We have no plans to offer such a service. There are many reasons we have no plans to offer this service, but, as I've seen this sort of thing appear as a popular request not just for Neverwinter, but among other MMO fandoms as well—please bear in mind that it's not as simple as putting an old build on a server.
A build from 4 years ago wouldn't just have the old powers, it would have the old code, and there would be compatibility issues with changes that have happened to Windows, graphics drivers, etc. Backporting all of those changes would be exceptionally time consuming. So while we have no plans to offer such a service, please realize that it is also significantly more work than it seems to do so, at first glance.
I legit am getting the impression that many of these changes that lock players into specific party roles are tailored to weed out solo players. I want to continue to love the game and stick wiith it but so far i am anything but reassured by what i have been shown.
This is me exactly, particularly the lack of any reassurance by what we've seen/heard thus far.
I don’t understand this.
What are you concerned about exactly?
That solo play on a Paly will be too hard? (It’s not, and I’ve played near best case and near worst case)
Not worried about difficulty, and more challenge is welcome (certainly compared to the ease with which we have it now). More concerned about the slow pace and pacing, both surrounding and because of the changes, to the point of it not being fun.
I'm having fun playing this new mod and I talked to some Alliance members in preview tonight and they are having fun as well.
One of those players likes to play a particular way and does so even if not considered "optimal" by the community at large, they found things in the new class version that were not there before and are having fun playing their character.
So yes, some of us are enjoying the mod.
Hey Obsidiancran3, I know it's not always the first thought to come onto the forums and post when you're enjoying something, but the whole team genuinely appreciates when anyone takes the time to do so. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and the thoughts of your alliance mates.
bug:I tried to look at level 80 gear in the ah. it won't accept a value of anything over 70 in the search parameters.
feedback:doing the expedition after terminus. while the combat does feel a little more fluid today. I'm finding it very annoying to be caught in constant stuns. mobs have more than one stun per mob at times. One is difficult enough to deal with at a time. more than one without lifesteal is just aggravating. you can't even grab your health. it's really not a fun mechanic. it is like nails on a chalk board. it would be nice if it could be toned down. I would include this in the expedition feedback but I think it is something that would apply to all of the game. it's more of a lifesteal thing. I don't remember it being such a huge mechanic before lifesteal was around.
Thanks for the report about the auction house, I've noted the issue and we'll be looking into it. In regards to the enemies stunning you, can you reply in the difficulty issues thread with some examples of specific enemies you're having trouble with? Thanks!
Comments
The biggest loser in terms of class builds I've seen so far is the vanilla Destroyer GWF - the similar Barbie build in M16 cannot do the same lazy old 'stand your ground' style of play with lifesteal, unstoppable and WMS. Do that in M16 (w/o lifesteal) and you will consistently get wiped by trash mobs, much less bosses.
> This is a random idea i just had while working, but hear me out @asterdahl - if youre finding it hard to balance out solo with group content - give role bonuses in group content that would make the class play right.
>
> Eg, in solo, OP and HR have rougly the same capabilities, while in say FBI, the HR gets lets say a 50% damage bonus, and the OP gets more HP or Defense or something, that wouls make the HR unable to solo due to not being tanky enough, and OP wouldnt be able to deal competitive damage, and solo content woulnt be so insanely hard for one specific class. And it would make classes actually need each other ro complete the group content.
>
> Toodles.
That's a clever idea.
I can imagine a queue with role bonuses.
Like a basketball team with 5 jerseys.
One DPS jersey. Put it on and get +X% Dps.
One tank jersey... gives +X% Defense and passive threat.
One healer jersey... +X% healing.
And two... i dunno... neutral?
Wild card?
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
> > @gromovnipljesak#8234 said:
> > This is a random idea i just had while working, but hear me out @asterdahl - if youre finding it hard to balance out solo with group content - give role bonuses in group content that would make the class play right.
> >
> > Eg, in solo, OP and HR have rougly the same capabilities, while in say FBI, the HR gets lets say a 50% damage bonus, and the OP gets more HP or Defense or something, that wouls make the HR unable to solo due to not being tanky enough, and OP wouldnt be able to deal competitive damage, and solo content woulnt be so insanely hard for one specific class. And it would make classes actually need each other ro complete the group content.
> >
> > Toodles.
>
> That's a clever idea.
> I can imagine a queue with role bonuses.
> Like a basketball team with 5 jerseys.
> One DPS jersey. Put it on and get +X% Dps.
> One tank jersey... gives +X% Defense and passive threat.
> One healer jersey... +X% healing.
> And two... i dunno... neutral?
> Wild card?
>
I imagine an all around would be better. That way you can run as many people of whatever roles you want
combatant's maneuver do not increase combat advantage damage when i look the character sheet ca is not affected.
The same with SW. Most of dungeon as DPS and switching to heal after wipe on last boss is also useful to have.
Other case is when 4 clerics join Folly as heals (I was there as OP tank
I'm strongly against role lock on.
Because that is where this all needs to start at.
If that is what is required to do a dungeon then just how long do you think people will be willing to wait for someone to put the "perfect" group together?
How much longer will they want to wait while someone leaves the group, switches roles, re-joins the group, re-enters the dungeon, and catches up to the group, only to repeat the process once that particular encounter is done (never mind that trading DPS for a second healer or tank will slow the fight down), and then repeat that however many times during the dungeon?
I think that you are looking at a small minority of people. The same people that won't want a (insert class here) in the group because "testing" showed that (insert different class here) was "better".
The majority of players will probably be quite content with forming a group and letting everyone just fill the roles that they signed up as, no matter their class.
And your solution? Giving DPS/DPS classes more DPS? That will only marginalize the dual-role DPSers in the eyes of that majority. A tank/DPSer or heal/DPSer would have no more luck finding groups in their DPS role than a Paladin would as a DPSer.
If the devs design a 5-player dungeon that requires a second tank or second healer then shame on them, but until such a thing comes along you created a solution searching for a problem.
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occurred once bun not reproducible so far, Archer on either side of the staircase did not load in but was still able to attack and be targeted. Being shot by invisible archer was rather novel but qualifies as an error.
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
1. I am hoping with these simplified mechanics set up hopefully we will start seeing new classes soon.
I think a plethora of new classes that allow for new play-styles may lessen the rancor of having build versatility taken from the existing classes.
2. Greater character appearance customization, I don't just mean hairstyles. I mean height options, extended weight options or more body-types ( for xanathar's sake let me make a proper fat character, ) more readily available costume pieces and easier customization of those pieces. Maybe different postures or sets of idle animations.
3. Background choices that effect the way you experience the adventure, the Race and class quests are a good start on this and you just need to extrapolate a little more. Maybe one or 2 lines of unique dialog if the NPC you are getting a quest from shares your deity. Little things
4. More at will powers. A greater variety in the at wills will make the higher reliance on at wills less monotonous like an acid splash, FireBolt or shocking Grasp to change up the combat a little.
These are things that a myriad other MMOS have that neverwinter could get away without because people expressed themselves in builds, but since that is all going away, giving us other avenues of expression will help us feel less constrained. ( at least it will for me )
TL;DR give us more variety with which to express ourselves.
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
I just recently finished a pass of the Barbarian feats, which incorporated much of the feedback we've received on other classes, and I will be doing another pass on Cleric, Fighter, and Paladin's feats this week. I haven't had a chance to finish the work on those since the closed beta ended.
I feel that even though some of Barbarian's new feats involve specific powers, they are in an overall better position, as the choices in each column basically boil down to two different ways to approach the same issue, depending on personal preference.
For example, one of the DPS feats choices is between enhancing one relatively situational AoE or the other, making them both valid choices for your AoE rotation. You can hopefully feel a bit more comfortable in cases where you aren't using the power, such as those where you're in a single target or mixed loadout.
In the case of the Brazen + Heavy Slash feat, I think this one ultimately feels okay, because with the 4 at-will choices Dreadnought has access to, you're going to be using those two for a pure single target build without question. But that being said, I hear the feedback, and I will probably make changes to that feat. If you'd like to discuss that feat in specific more—I ask that you direct that feedback to the fighter thread though, just to keep this thread from getting even more traffic than it already has.
Setting that aside for a moment, while I appreciate your analogies to restaurant drink selection and pen and paper D&D, I do have to protest a bit to their accuracy. Your choice of orange Fanta is unlikely to prevent your dinner party from being able to finish their meal successfully. (As amusing as that concept is.)
Also, in pen and paper D&D, the combat and mechanical elements often take back seat to the storytelling. Even for those groups that play more combat oriented campaigns, with any game (physical or digital) played primarily with people you know and are sitting down with in real life, house rules and common sense often prevent issues present in the design of certain games from becoming a problem. In fact, in some games, an intentional imbalance can be both intentional and can improve the experience.
However, I would argue that group play based online games are not a genre of game that benefits from those sorts of choices. I'm sure some of you have had the experience of a relatively small gaming group (either tabletop, or some local co-op/competitive) having a seriously diminished experience after one of the players invested a significantly larger amount of time into mastering the rules, or reading up on them online.
In an MMO, that's the norm for most players, and even if they themselves don't read guides or forum/reddit posts about what to do, they likely get that information second hand from guild mates, or public channels. The power of the "meta" can be so strong that, you can see even in games where classes are balanced within less than 5% of each other at a theoretical level—to the point that personal ability to play the class far outweighs the differences in each class's potential—that people will make choices based on that meta, even if they will never be running content anywhere close to difficult enough for the small theoretical gain to make a difference.
Now obviously that's not everyone, and I absolutely respect your desire to have options. I played a lot old school MMOs where whole classes were just never welcome in endgame content, and I often hand fun playing those classes. Of course, those games also didn't have any sort of random matching. But with that being said, we aren't removing all of the choice. With as much choice as there will be, the best possible DPS build on any class will almost certainly be more than 5% better than the worst possible DPS build on any class, that's just the reality. We'll be trying our best to ensure that they're as close as possible, and hopefully we'll get to the point that individual player skill is a wide enough variance that things are fairly even across all the builds.
I do hope you'll consider the potential benefits of the changes, and realize that we're making these changes with the hopes of improving everyone's experience playing through the content we offer, and so that we can offer more exciting content when we have a somewhat reasonable baseline to aim that content at. I hope that as we hone in on feat adjustments, that we'll be able to provide enough different experiences for you that you feel like there are at least a few options for your favorite classes and roles.
The only goal of the restriction is to prevent abuse such as riding the tank queue and then switching to a DPS immediately on entry, etc.
It really helps us out if you can direct feedback like that to the specific thread, as there's already quite a lot to sift through in the general thread, and the difficult issues thread helps us to quickly identify and file bugs for high priority difficulty issues like this.
It saves me a tremendous amount of time not having to repost content. (Especially since at this point, I've made so many posts in the last few weeks, that I can't easily find any of my own specific comments, yikes!) If anyone misquotes or misrepresents my position, I'll certainly jump in and respond, but in this and many other cases, I genuinely appreciate the assistance.
I know it's extremely frustrating to hear this, but only a tiny, tiny portion of the population uses the preview server, or goes on the forums at all for that matter. And then there are further elements to consider. For instance, let's assume 1% of Neverwinter players are active on the forums, that 1% of forum posters are not a representative sample of the population, for various reasons, but mostly self-selection bias.
There's also a bias towards negativity that plays a huge role, which going back to your brick and mortar store example, is why so many small business will try to encourage customers to go review their business. Because if you like it, you're pretty unlikely to go out of your way to tell them about it on the internet. However, if you hated it, you're likely to find your way to Yelp or what-have-you, with no help at all.
Now I don't say all of this with the goal of outright dismissing absolutely any of your feedback, or any other forum poster for that matter. Some of our most dedicated players are posters, and even if you just made an account to post about something that frustrated you on preview this week, we genuinely appreciate the time you've taken to let us know. We do hope we can resolve as many frustrations as possible.
I just feel like these things should be outlined so that you can also understand our position. There is an extremely large population of players who may have completely different, and unvoiced opinions than yourself, or any other forum poster for that matter.
Unfortunately, those who are frustrated by the reduction in build diversity also tend to use hyperbole to prove their point. It's certainly not the case that because there was a reduction in choice to a system (classes pre module 16) with an absolutely huge number of choices (setting aside valid vs. trap choices at the moment) that suddenly there is only one possible arrangement per class.
You still have access to 2 paragon paths, each with: 10 encounters, 8 class features, 5 dailies, and 4 at-wills, and then feats but with only a limited number of slots to take at a time. There are a lot of combinations you can still make with those. Admittedly at least half of those (if you were to just go through every permutation) are not super great in every situation. (But hopefully those are obvious, like, taking a full AoE build to a boss fight with no adds, etc.)
But herein lies the crux of the problem—there are some genuinely contradictory arguments being made in the name of build diversity. You can't have it both ways that there is now only 1 valid build, but that pre-module 16, it was good to have access to a number of bad builds. (Well ultimately, you can make whatever argument you like, but if the argument is logically at odds with itself, we're going to have a harder time interpreting your feedback, and even considering what if any changes to make.)
Now, I'm not saying any of this to criticize or belittle any of the feedback we are receiving, I'd just like to steer those of you are frustrated towards making a clear argument about the issues that are bothering you so we can better understand them. If you feel that pre module 16, there were 3 really solid, fun builds that felt different to play, and now there are only 2, tell us about it in the class threads, and tell us what powers made the old build that doesn't have any gameplay representation in Module 16 possible. Alternatively, if you feel that being able to make bad choices and build an underpowered character is something that you're sad to see go, let us know that as well and tell us why you feel that you wish you could make an underpowered character. We want to hear it!
I do hope you understand my perspective, and also can appreciate that I do understand what you are saying. I also thank you for your patience and apologize for the frustrations that changes like this can cause.
In regards to party buffs, they haven't actually been completely eliminated, some classes still have access to buffs and debuffs that the whole party can benefit from. For example, Cleric's Break the Spirit and Barbarian's Battle Fury are examples of a debuff and buff the whole party can still benefit from.
That being said, I appreciate the thought you've put into for your feedback. If you have any particular classes you feel are being underserved in this regard, let us know in the individual class thread. Obviously, we've made an intentional choice for some classes to be less or more focused on providing that sort of utility, but if your class isn't providing as much as you'd like, I do hope you'll let us know in the class thread.
Now I suppose hypothetically, if they are at 90% effectiveness, that may be within the margin of acceptance by the community, at which point, I would argue that the difference between them and a pure DPS is probably outweighed by difference in player skill, and essentially meaningless.
However, we do feel that the second case is much less likely to occur, even if we get the DPS that close. Ultimately, for the pure DPS classes, we are aiming for the paragon paths to offer different play styles, such that you can pretty much use one path or the other based on your own personal preferences. I do understand that right now, some of those paths are a bit stronger at AoE, or a bit stronger at single target, we're still working out the details.
We'd really like that in a group, if you prefer to play as an Assassin, you can comfortably do that throughout an entire run, as opposed to feeling the need to switch back and forth between Assassin and Whisperknife, for example. That being said, we do understand that those pure DPS will be able to bring more diversity in terms of DPS to the group so that's something we're trying to be careful about balancing around as we get into final* tuning.
(*Note that I say final tuning only in reference to launch, as we will absolutely be tuning further both in Module 16 after launch, and well into the next few modules based on where we see performance of each class.)
A build from 4 years ago wouldn't just have the old powers, it would have the old code, and there would be compatibility issues with changes that have happened to Windows, graphics drivers, etc. Backporting all of those changes would be exceptionally time consuming. So while we have no plans to offer such a service, please realize that it is also significantly more work than it seems to do so, at first glance.
Thanks for the report about the auction house, I've noted the issue and we'll be looking into it. In regards to the enemies stunning you, can you reply in the difficulty issues thread with some examples of specific enemies you're having trouble with? Thanks!