I've got a 19k GF on preview that I've been playing this weekend a good bit. Reworked all my items so I'm at 20k+ for everything, with crit being 40k and power being 50k+.
I played a lot of Dreadnought. I was a DPS spec on live, and I'd like to keep that going forward.
I'll echo what RJ says. The class doesn't feel fun. At all. All I find myself doing is waiting 15-30 seconds to unleash an encounter ability to kill something. In the meantime, I might as well kite mobs, because my at wills don't do anything to them.
Additionally, if you want your at wills to do more, they eat a ton of vengeance, making it difficult to use the feat synergies with things like Anvil of Doom taking 25 more vengeance for a higher magnitude attack. I find myself having to use dig in constantly just to get vengeance. It'd be easier if Into the Fray didn't bug out and drop vengeance to 50% when it's over, but someone already mentioned that bug so I'll move on.
I spent hours working on practicing the rotation and the ability synergies (HS to Piercing +200mag, bull rush +400mag, Anvil +mag, feat so at wills do more dmg on crits with vengeance, double vengeance gain, etc.)
Even with that, a GWF guildie of similar IL and build outDPSed me by a good bit. And he was complaining about the lack of damage *he* did the whole time.
The DC cleric guildie in our party (again, similar Item level similar build) was 2.5x my damage in every dungeon we went into. GWF was 2x my damage. Both of them were complaining about their lack of DPS, so how do you think it feels to have all this gear, and be 1/2 their output?
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Additionally, general feedback: The game itself slowed down drastically, which has made it incredibly boring. The time it takes to run a comparable lower level dungeon is completely unreasonable. Why would I want to do a leveling queue, or a low level dungeon that actually takes me the same amount of time and effort, with the new IL scaling, as an equal level dungeon to my level? I get less rewards doing the lower level dungeon, for the same effort.
No more quick solo/duo runs of dungeons with my OP girlfriend. Instead, we'll need a full group to do something like Castle Never. And it's going to take 30-45 minutes. No thanks.
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So, if nothing significant changes, I'm probably going to retire from playing this game. I can say that preview has not been a fun experience. I enjoy the game that's on the live servers. Preview, even if you overlook the bugs and other small tweaks that still need to be made, at it's core, isn't a fun game.
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Feats lock you into specific enc/at wills, some of which are at odds with each other. e.g. you say "Reave" is useful end game, but the first feat requires me to take Heavy Strike in some fashion. Either for the piercing +200 buff, or to get a +200 buff from another at will, meaning Reave and/or cleave, isn't really viable, or consumes a lot of vengeance. If I take the at will dmg boos on crit eating 10 vengeance, and I use Reave, my whole vengeance bar is consumed in about 4 seconds of right clicking. That'd be ok, if the damage was decent, but it's not. It's a paltry damage boos compared to saving vengeance for Anvil of Doom.
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But that's not why people play Neverwinter. They don't play it to be the game vision that the designers had before it was ever released. They play it because of the game it is today. Certainly, some small tweaks need to be made to correct some extremes, but you shouldn't change the core/soul of the game, then tell everyone that this is the way it always should have been.
Hello! I'm very sorry to hear that you've had such an unpleasant time with the changes. I genuinely appreciate that you have taken the time to play around with the changes, learn about how your class works now, and go in-depth with your feedback. It's extremely helpful! I also genuinely appreciate you taking the time to give me some background into your gaming history and perspective on the changes. I'd like to take a moment to respond to a few of your points.
First—on the topic of Dreadnought and how it stacks up against your friend's classes, who I assume from your description were playing Arbiter and Blademaster. Tuning the damage potential of the classes is one of our largest priorities over the coming weeks. When the module goes live, I promise that Dreadnought will not be far behind the other DPS classes. We can't guarantee that balance will be perfect, but it should be very close, nowhere near an orders of magnitude difference if you're playing well and geared as well as your friends.
You also go on specifically to bring up the example of the feat that consumes vengeance to deal increased magnitude damage feeling too weak or as if it seriously hampers your synergy with other powers feeling like a clear example of why the changes are uninspired. I would say that tweaks to powers like that are the exact sort of thing we will be changing over the coming weeks if they do feel bad or they do feel like they really mess up the feeling of the class. I genuinely appreciate everyone's feedback on those subjects. Telling us what powers or synergies you do and do not like is incredibly helpful.
On the topic of the changes in general, which you seem to be understandably far more concerned with, I'm eager to understand the specifics. Though our changes are large in scale, as you can imagine we're not aiming to drive anyone away from the game, so I'd like to impress upon you that we'd very much like to make what changes we can to ensure that the game is still fun for those who have enjoyed it for some time.
Let me start by ensuring you that, we're not specifically attempting to carry out any initial "launch vision" for the game. Most of the launch development team no longer works at the company or on the project. In some ways in fact—for better or worse depending on your perspective—we're actually aiming to resolve a lot of fundamental problems with how the game was built at launch. I've addressed these issues more specifically in other posts and threads so I won't go into too much detail, but those issues include: classes built as if there were a trinity but without the gameplay to support the trinity; lack of a built in failure state for group encounters; unfocused abilities that do far too many things; and far too many bad choices when building your character.
Of course, our goals don't matter if you're not enjoying yourself—so I'd like to ask for a few more details on what you aren't enjoying. You mention that everything feels too slow, can you go into more detail about what feels slow, and which parts of that slowness feel more or less egregious to you? Obviously, we've slowed down a lot of things—no recovery means slower encounters and dailies, scaling in lower level dungeons means no 5 minute runs, and both of those things mean the average enemy encounter lasts a bit longer.
I know that it's tempting to say "all of them," when we ask, which is frustrating you most—but if you could rank them, or go into any further detail that would be very helpful. Additionally, if you gave some feedback about how much faster things would have to be for you to be happy with the changes—those are all useful data points.
You mention Castle Never specifically, and I would say, that from a lot of reports (I haven't had a chance to look at it yet myself this weekend) it sounds like Castle Never is scaling incorrectly. Once those are fixed, I really don't think even an average pick up group is going to take anywhere near 45 minutes to finish it. How long would you be okay with the average random dungeon run being?
Thanks again for taking the time to post, I do hope you'll continue to give the changes a chance over the next few weeks.
Visitied CN alone with my 19k fighter. The first enemy hit me with my shield raised and I was dead after the second hit. This feels like M6 again. Is this the intended difficulty?
Not at all, CN is bugged. We are not aiming for things to be anywhere near as punishing as M6 was.
We're certainly getting a lot of feedback on at-wills vis-a-vis other powers, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that we may make some adjustments. Just know that those adjustments do mean that the gap between playing skillfully and just holding down left click will narrow significantly, which is what we'd like to avoid.
The thing is: there are already feats and mechanics in place to ensure that players aren't doing "hold down At-wills to win". On live, I can easily tell whether a GWF on live is taking my flowchart joke literally when you see them not using their self buffs.
On preview, there still are feats and passives that encourage mixing up your power use. Things like the Ranger's Blade Hurricane/Lightning Rod, the Cleric's scale tipping, and Wizard's Spell Twisting encourage a rhythm of using different At-wills alongside your encounters.
Fighter (and Barbarian) has a few feats/passives encourage that rhythm to some extent such as, {repared Thrust, Cleaving Bull, or Heavy Slash.
However, the only feat on Fighter that actually has a good rhythm and feels effective is Heavier Slash. It makes Heavy Slash's damage decently respectable for damage and the feat actually makes sense with how both Heavy Slash is intended to be used: as something to throw out every now and then to refresh its damage buff.
Prepared Thrust is not great or fun to use because there is not much synergy: it's great for the first few seconds of combat, but then goes off timing, as I will refresh my Heavy Slash buff way before Piercing Thrust comes off cooldown. Cleaving Bull has a decent concept (charge in and quickly Cleave everything to establish aggro), but is not very good due to oddly being on the tank tree in addition to the boost not doing enough to help Cleave's poor state of being right now.
Alongside a global buff to At-wills + slightly reducing encounter damage to compensate, I would suggest doubling down on more feats & passives that encourage more methodical use of At-wills alongside Encounters.
Think passives/feats like live's Aspect of the Serpent & Swiftness of the Fox, passives and feats that encourage you to find a rhythm to your powers rather than just "tossing all your encounters when you can and then spam At-wills while waiting" problem that people are complaining about right now*.
*Do note that Mod 16's current system only encourages you to do this due to a large amount of number inflation bonuses, lack of group buffs, and a general lack of speed and aggression that made NW so much fun.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm also very happy with heavier slash and as feats are adjusted, that's definitely a model for a positive feat that is unlikely to change.
I've been a GF since pre-release, and have been playing weirdo underdog builds since the very beginning.
After playing on preview the whole weekend, I have to say that I really enjoy the changes to the GF tank, as it feels very much like what I tried to accomplish with my m11/12 IV protector build.There is however, as,others have pointed out, lots of issues that needs attention;
1. Fighter needs a better taunt mechanic, as the current skills placing you on top of mob aggro list is counting on tank to be able to actually hold aggro. In party with high DPS players, this is not the case.
2. At-Will damage has to be adjusted for Vanguard tank to be able to hold aggro.
3. Threatening Rush and Tide of Iron at-wills increased aggro effect should also include the "place on top of mob aggro list".Feat? This would make a great opener for the Vanguard, but would rely on having another at-will dealing just enough damage to actually keep mob attention.
4. Knights Challenge animation gets cancelled by shift-shielding, animation takes too long for this to be viable.
5. Dig In NEEDS to be a hard-taunt, of course all mobs should pile on top of the cocky imnune tank
6. As others have pointed out, Dig In needs polishing for both Fighter paragons.
7. Weapon set artifact effects are still m15, maybe these could be used to make some of our wishes to come true?
8. Does party healing from the feated self-heal daily (can't remember name) contribute to +aggro in it's current form?
9. This is a very good opportunity to make some weapon/armor enchants "class specific" instead of them being made 100% useless.
10. Older campaign gear could also see a new use with your new scaling mechanics. If I were to tank FBI, I would swap to everfrost resist load out. For demon infested content, my Drowcraft load out would be awesome. This also goes for the underdark rings, the +DR and +aggro rings would be awesome for your refreshed tank classes.
11. Tank needs combat advantage ability.
Tldr: We need better aggro mechanics, adjusted at-will DPS and dig in needs fixing
Thank you for the feedback! We'll definitely make some improvements to threat generation if its still a problem after people get more used to the current system.
That being said, I did want to say—there will be absolutely no hard taunts moving forward. Additional threat generation, and snapping yourself to the top of the list will be the only types of positive threat management. (Negative threat management, such as Cleric's Divine Glow which halve your current threat, are also available in some cases.)
This is a deliberate decision we have made so that the gameplay surrounding threat is both more straightforward to understand and more predictable. It also allows for us to put in place things like tank swapping in 10-man trials. If things like at-wills snap you to the top of the list, this would also be bade and destroy the opportunity for those sorts of mechanics to exist. So with that in mind, that's why you won't see at-wills with that effect, or hard taunts in the game.
That being said, as I stated, we'll be adjusting threat up if everyone is continuing to have a problem with it once they've gotten used to the mechanics. In our own internal playtests I'm having no trouble keeping threat on paladin or fighter right now, so I'm hesitant to swing the dial too heavily in the other direction, but I'm also skeptical that everyone here is doing optimal DPS! So please keep sending your feedback along, we will absolutely be making adjustments.
Hello I find some changes really interesting GF Tank until now we have the mark on the tab button you could attract the monsters well was also a good buff I find it a pity that there is no way to lure the monster from afar now sry my englisch is not the best i hope understand me
I'm also skeptical that everyone here is doing optimal DPS!
I'm not sure if i get it right. Does that mean that i have to stuck up my defensive stats to stay alive and also put up offensive stats to brake for example defensive of continuasly rising stats of mobs as i progress? And by that if i build myself soly on defensive stats for survivability does that mean i wont be able to keep agro as good as more offensive tank? It does make sense but still if DPS makes more threat then me and my ET doesnt cool down fast enough how should i tank. That would force me to build my character in particular way ( every tank would have to build it more or less the same way stats wisely ) But as i said its based on if i understood you correctly, if not i apology for miss understanding.
Thanks for the feedback! There seems to be something crazy going on with your character if your damage values were all over the place like that. If I could ask, what is your character's name on the test shard? We'd like to take a look so we can figure out what the issue is, thank you!
hey o/ Thanks for the reply. the name of the char in preview is Nyriel26. The crazy att will would happen every 1 or 2 mins.Pretty inconsistend.The att wills in question were "guarding strike" and threatening rush.one would do 2,6k damage and the next hit something like 471500 (5600). I am sorry i did not recorded them ,I was just doing a quick review of my Gf Rust Monster was hitting in the milions ,I copy pasted one hit to my friends was at 4 milion mark with base value at 37000 something. About companions people responded me that they have seen it aswell,the tigers one shot bosses.So it is not only my poor Rust Monster. All bosses in Elol were one shotted by the Rust Monster given enough time ,but it could not clear the level 70 mobs before the Dragon :P
I'm also skeptical that everyone here is doing optimal DPS!
I'm not sure if i get it right. Does that mean that i have to stuck up my defensive stats to stay alive and also put up offensive stats to brake for example defensive of continuasly rising stats of mobs as i progress? And by that if i build myself soly on defensive stats for survivability does that mean i wont be able to keep agro as good as more offensive tank? It does make sense but still if DPS makes more threat then me and my ET doesnt cool down fast enough how should i tank. That would force me to build my character in particular way ( every tank would have to build it more or less the same way stats wisely ) But as i said its based on if i understood you correctly, if not i apology for miss understanding.
Asterdahls means that he have no problem keeping agro but he is not sure if his playmates in internal test do optimal damage. Meaning players could play their dps toons bit better -> deal more dmg -> take aggro from tank.
I'm also skeptical that everyone here is doing optimal DPS!
I'm not sure if i get it right. Does that mean that i have to stuck up my defensive stats to stay alive and also put up offensive stats to brake for example defensive of continuasly rising stats of mobs as i progress? And by that if i build myself soly on defensive stats for survivability does that mean i wont be able to keep agro as good as more offensive tank? It does make sense but still if DPS makes more threat then me and my ET doesnt cool down fast enough how should i tank. That would force me to build my character in particular way ( every tank would have to build it more or less the same way stats wisely ) But as i said its based on if i understood you correctly, if not i apology for miss understanding.
Haha, I apologize for the lack of clarity. That sentence came immediately after me saying that in internal playtests I was not having trouble keeping aggro. So in that sentence, I'm saying that I'm not sure everyone here (at the studio who is playing DPS classes) is doing optimal DPS! As in, I may be holding aggro because they need to GET GUD!
Joking aside, your threat is based on your damage, so yes, after you reach acceptable mitigation, you should be focusing on increasing your damage to hold threat. The most effective way to hold threat is to deal more damage. That being said, at a base, you're going to be doing less, for various reasons. Thats why powers have threat multipliers on them, and why you naturally gain more threat from your actions.
For instance, if you're doing 70% of the damage of a DPS, you will easily be holding threat, even without any powers that directly state that they generate more threat. Add those in, and you can do even less damage relative to the DPS and still hold threat. We're still tuning those numbers though.
Thanks for the feedback! There seems to be something crazy going on with your character if your damage values were all over the place like that. If I could ask, what is your character's name on the test shard? We'd like to take a look so we can figure out what the issue is, thank you!
hey o/ Thanks for the reply. the name of the char in preview is Nyriel26. The crazy att will would happen every 1 or 2 mins.Pretty inconsistend.The att wills in question were "guarding strike" and threatening rush.one would do 2,6k damage and the next hit something like 471500 (5600). I am sorry i did not recorded them ,I was just doing a quick review of my Gf Rust Monster was hitting in the milions ,I copy pasted one hit to my friends was at 4 milion mark with base value at 37000 something. About companions people responded me that they have seen it aswell,the tigers one shot bosses.So it is not only my poor Rust Monster. All bosses in Elol were one shotted by the Rust Monster given enough time ,but it could not clear the level 70 mobs before the Dragon :P
Thanks so much for providing the information I asked for. That should make it much easier to track down what the issue is. I greatly appreciate it.
1. Re-specing. I started of building for dps. There really didn't seem much option for selection of feats and boons so just choose feats based on reducing cooldown and helping damage. Boons left me feeling I actually had no choice tbh.. first 3 on each tier, potions, and I selected heal option for master (hell might as well have a random heal or damage reduction than a random damage boost. went to Sosh river to test.. pleasantly surprised.. although a little less happy when I saw my gond art was doing 1.7m damage and was the reason for being able to 1 shot a rex. So I then went to solo elol (whilst not using art damage on mobs) as I use elol solo as a performance gauge.. again pleasantly surprised... only trouble I had in elol was with the adds after the scorpions.. seemed to do an awful lot of damage and would surround me a lot, the new dps tab mechanic here was useless.. dig in to build damage boost- get surrounded - try to attack - get ganked from all sides - dead. In mod (upto) 15 I play 2 builds.. conq for dps and tact for tnk. Both work very well. The mod16 dps felt very squishy when faced with a group of mobs and the tab mechanic very clunky and unrewarding....so I decided to try tank build........
I was very happy with vanguard compared to the dps route... although still having a very limited choice for the feats and the same 1 path for boons I knocked up a wild stab build again and then moved to do the campaign to test. Overall I had no problems at all... very easy to solo all campaign content without having to change any of my dps based gear (other than slot some runes into companion gear I had in storage). Tbh I had no issue with vanguard (except what on earth is the determination mentioned in the last feat and how to I build it ??). Dig in became very useful for those 'waiting for cooldown' moments and having what seemed like endless usage of the digin (barely touching stamina bar) meant coming out of digin with a reverse shield up movement removed the ganking issue I was faced with in the dps build. Damage was fine for soling the campaign (although i did notice when digging in, aka hiding, that my pet was quite the hero.. not me). Most of the time in campaign i was running a couple of levels beneath the mobs, not reaching 80 till the very last 2 campaign tasks. I've no idea yet how well the tank build plays in a party scenario, but I can see keeping agro being an issue on multiple mob groups (no more rounding up all the mobs in msp). I am interested in whether reflected damage adds to threat ?
SO my overall opinions re the changes..
boons.. lol .. in reality there is minimal choice here.. If I remember right, at 80 you get 69 boon points which with the options seems to leave you either choosing damage reduction, damage bonus or potion boosts (I chose the potion boosts but tbh rarely used a potion).
feats.. why even offer a choice of 2... you know there is no way to really fail with any choice offered.
the only benefit i can reap from these changes is that player skill will become much more important. no more hiding behind others buffs, and smashing the god mode button (although tbh gf tank digin feels like that).
But saying that, these changes will dramatically reduce the amount of skill needed to play a gf tank.
Considering I took wild stabs at the feats, took a very simplistic route thru the boons, didn't change from dps gear and whacked any old purple rune into companion gear I still had a strong character.
But with all the changes I am really in 2 minds about whether I want to grind out new equipment. Already I've spent money that previously would have gone into cryptics pockets on a starter d&d pack to play with my family (delivery today.. looking forwards to that)...... SO maybe (lets see if my girls take to rpg) I will be giving you a big thank-you for these changes (but not for the reasons you wish) but at the moment I am disappointed with this one horse pony you are giving me to ride.
1. Re-specing. I started of building for dps. There really didn't seem much option for selection of feats and boons so just choose feats based on reducing cooldown and helping damage. Boons left me feeling I actually had no choice tbh.. first 3 on each tier, potions, and I selected heal option for master (hell might as well have a random heal or damage reduction than a random damage boost. went to Sosh river to test.. pleasantly surprised.. although a little less happy when I saw my gond art was doing 1.7m damage and was the reason for being able to 1 shot a rex. So I then went to solo elol (whilst not using art damage on mobs) as I use elol solo as a performance gauge.. again pleasantly surprised... only trouble I had in elol was with the adds after the scorpions.. seemed to do an awful lot of damage and would surround me a lot, the new dps tab mechanic here was useless.. dig in to build damage boost- get surrounded - try to attack - get ganked from all sides - dead. In mod (upto) 15 I play 2 builds.. conq for dps and tact for tnk. Both work very well. The mod16 dps felt very squishy when faced with a group of mobs and the tab mechanic very clunky and unrewarding....so I decided to try tank build........
I was very happy with vanguard compared to the dps route... although still having a very limited choice for the feats and the same 1 path for boons I knocked up a wild stab build again and then moved to do the campaign to test. Overall I had no problems at all... very easy to solo all campaign content without having to change any of my dps based gear (other than slot some runes into companion gear I had in storage). Tbh I had no issue with vanguard (except what on earth is the determination mentioned in the last feat and how to I build it ??). Dig in became very useful for those 'waiting for cooldown' moments and having what seemed like endless usage of the digin (barely touching stamina bar) meant coming out of digin with a reverse shield up movement removed the ganking issue I was faced with in the dps build. Damage was fine for soling the campaign (although i did notice when digging in, aka hiding, that my pet was quite the hero.. not me). Most of the time in campaign i was running a couple of levels beneath the mobs, not reaching 80 till the very last 2 campaign tasks. I've no idea yet how well the tank build plays in a party scenario, but I can see keeping agro being an issue on multiple mob groups (no more rounding up all the mobs in msp). I am interested in whether reflected damage adds to threat ?
SO my overall opinions re the changes..
boons.. lol .. in reality there is minimal choice here.. If I remember right, at 80 you get 69 boon points which with the options seems to leave you either choosing damage reduction, damage bonus or potion boosts (I chose the potion boosts but tbh rarely used a potion).
feats.. why even offer a choice of 2... you know there is no way to really fail with any choice offered.
the only benefit i can reap from these changes is that player skill will become much more important. no more hiding behind others buffs, and smashing the god mode button (although tbh gf tank digin feels like that).
But saying that, these changes will dramatically reduce the amount of skill needed to play a gf tank.
Considering I took wild stabs at the feats, took a very simplistic route thru the boons, didn't change from dps gear and whacked any old purple rune into companion gear I still had a strong character.
But with all the changes I am really in 2 minds about whether I want to grind out new equipment. Already I've spent money that previously would have gone into cryptics pockets on a starter d&d pack to play with my family (delivery today.. looking forwards to that)...... SO maybe (lets see if my girls take to rpg) I will be giving you a big thank-you for these changes (but not for the reasons you wish) but at the moment I am disappointed with this one horse pony you are giving me to ride.
Thanks for taking the time to play on the test shard and send your feedback! I wanted to take a moment to answer a few questions and respond to a few comments. First, yes, reflected damage does count towards your aggro. You mention that you feel there won't be much skill required to play Vanguard, but threat management is now a significantly more active part of tanking, as opposed to just smashing tab over and over. I hope you find some time to play group content on preview, and please let me know what you think if you do, I truly appreciate it.
Finally, you asked why offer 2 feat choices, and mention that there's no way to fail with either of the choices offered. Do you want one of those choices to be a clear failure? Ultimately, we're aiming to remove false choices, where one of the choices will simply make you a worse character, particularly on building the core of your character's class setup. We believe there are already enough chances to fail when choosing equipment, artifacts, etc. and when actually fighting enemies.
1. Re-specing. I started of building for dps. There really didn't seem much option for selection of feats and boons so just choose feats based on reducing cooldown and helping damage. Boons left me feeling I actually had no choice tbh.. first 3 on each tier, potions, and I selected heal option for master (hell might as well have a random heal or damage reduction than a random damage boost. went to Sosh river to test.. pleasantly surprised.. although a little less happy when I saw my gond art was doing 1.7m damage and was the reason for being able to 1 shot a rex. So I then went to solo elol (whilst not using art damage on mobs) as I use elol solo as a performance gauge.. again pleasantly surprised... only trouble I had in elol was with the adds after the scorpions.. seemed to do an awful lot of damage and would surround me a lot, the new dps tab mechanic here was useless.. dig in to build damage boost- get surrounded - try to attack - get ganked from all sides - dead. In mod (upto) 15 I play 2 builds.. conq for dps and tact for tnk. Both work very well. The mod16 dps felt very squishy when faced with a group of mobs and the tab mechanic very clunky and unrewarding....so I decided to try tank build........
I was very happy with vanguard compared to the dps route... although still having a very limited choice for the feats and the same 1 path for boons I knocked up a wild stab build again and then moved to do the campaign to test. Overall I had no problems at all... very easy to solo all campaign content without having to change any of my dps based gear (other than slot some runes into companion gear I had in storage). Tbh I had no issue with vanguard (except what on earth is the determination mentioned in the last feat and how to I build it ??). Dig in became very useful for those 'waiting for cooldown' moments and having what seemed like endless usage of the digin (barely touching stamina bar) meant coming out of digin with a reverse shield up movement removed the ganking issue I was faced with in the dps build. Damage was fine for soling the campaign (although i did notice when digging in, aka hiding, that my pet was quite the hero.. not me). Most of the time in campaign i was running a couple of levels beneath the mobs, not reaching 80 till the very last 2 campaign tasks. I've no idea yet how well the tank build plays in a party scenario, but I can see keeping agro being an issue on multiple mob groups (no more rounding up all the mobs in msp). I am interested in whether reflected damage adds to threat ?
SO my overall opinions re the changes..
boons.. lol .. in reality there is minimal choice here.. If I remember right, at 80 you get 69 boon points which with the options seems to leave you either choosing damage reduction, damage bonus or potion boosts (I chose the potion boosts but tbh rarely used a potion).
feats.. why even offer a choice of 2... you know there is no way to really fail with any choice offered.
the only benefit i can reap from these changes is that player skill will become much more important. no more hiding behind others buffs, and smashing the god mode button (although tbh gf tank digin feels like that).
But saying that, these changes will dramatically reduce the amount of skill needed to play a gf tank.
Considering I took wild stabs at the feats, took a very simplistic route thru the boons, didn't change from dps gear and whacked any old purple rune into companion gear I still had a strong character.
But with all the changes I am really in 2 minds about whether I want to grind out new equipment. Already I've spent money that previously would have gone into cryptics pockets on a starter d&d pack to play with my family (delivery today.. looking forwards to that)...... SO maybe (lets see if my girls take to rpg) I will be giving you a big thank-you for these changes (but not for the reasons you wish) but at the moment I am disappointed with this one horse pony you are giving me to ride.
Thanks for taking the time to play on the test shard and send your feedback! I wanted to take a moment to answer a few questions and respond to a few comments. First, yes, reflected damage does count towards your aggro. You mention that you feel there won't be much skill required to play Vanguard, but threat management is now a significantly more active part of tanking, as opposed to just smashing tab over and over. I hope you find some time to play group content on preview, and please let me know what you think if you do, I truly appreciate it.
Finally, you asked why offer 2 feat choices, and mention that there's no way to fail with either of the choices offered. Do you want one of those choices to be a clear failure? Ultimately, we're aiming to remove false choices, where one of the choices will simply make you a worse character, particularly on building the core of your character's class setup. We believe there are already enough chances to fail when choosing equipment, artifacts, etc. and when actually fighting enemies.
reflection. good.. time to try find that reflect ring from mysterious merchant.
Threat/agro management has always been a learnt skill, and as you should know the mashing of tab only works for initial marking of more than 5 targets and still needs further management to keep agro as the hard taunt (I believe) had an internal cooldown. I feel currently much more skill is required than the mod16 changes will need.
Personally i would rather more choice to allow me to learn what works and what doesn't rather than the 'all will work' approach.
Sry, after seeing the lack of change to TR play and the general dumbing down of gf I don't plan on revisiting the preview in a hurry to test my CW, DC, HR, GWF and OP. I will wait till launch now to see what happens with regards to final agro mechanics.
But as a side note, quite frankly I am pretty disappointed that despite you running tests under nda.... the number of bugs and the general roughness of the changes presented on preview is quite staggering.
Dig In: This seems pointless. Only reason to dig in is if you play bad. Tab Mark was already the worst tab ability in the game, now its even more useless. A good mechanic should reward important values such as positioning and situational awareness, not become obsolete once you have those. A better tab ability would be if dig in intercepted damage from allies in an AoE, and maybe built threat based on that.
Path of the Vanguard: Some effort seems to have gone into making sure Vanguard doesn't compete with other dps, but not into making sure Dreadnaught doesnt compete with tanks? Dreadnaught seems equally tanky as Vanguard. Also using powers that provide tankiness seems to do enough in the way of reducing dps whether Vanguard or Dreadnaught, so an additional 30% reduction on top of that seems unnecessary. Path of the Vanguard should provide more tankiness or some benefit to the group to make Vanguard a more viable tank over Dreadnaught.
PvP Boons: - icon doesn't work when assigning points, have to exit page and assing from scratch to change them before committing.
Safe areas: Character constantly enters combat animation in areas where there is passive healing, for example camp fires or Protectors Enclave.
Sorry if i dont bring prints but i got some big Hits from "Assassin drakes in Epic Shores of Tuern, for example the last group of mobs near the last camp fire, a Asssin Drake gave me 2 hits 226k to miy shield and he or another around did 758k like a sec after, both with bite attack.
also got heavy hits from a crab near a HEW in the firsty undermountain leveling zone (where you use potions to make fish XD) and as Barbarian i got 2million dmg from a Giant in the first undermontain area. (where you find 2 sleeping.
Obs is never the first hit maybe some debuff or self buff is still not scaled...
I played my Fighter over the weekend from 70 to 80. I'll echo what most other people are saying with respect to build choices and lack of customization.
Feedback This toon is about 17k, DPS spec for preview. I didn't have much trouble adjusting or completing any of the content with the exception of Umbraxakar's Lair. There were several mobs of Assassins "cult of Shar Assassin" that constantly killed me. I was only fighting one mob at a time, I raised my shield and backed up to avoid getting surrounded, and my guard was depleted in 2 seconds. Then I'd get knocked down and killed over the next 1 seconds. If I didn't have a daily ready, it was very difficult to kill the mob and died in a few seconds. With my daily, I was able to block for 1 second, then use my daily, use the encounter that stuns and finish them off. Without a daily, I had to use a scroll of life for almost every assassin mob I came across. I had to use my DC artifact and sit there for a full minute 3-4x because it was changed to only provide 25% AP gain. This was very frustrating.
Bug: After completing Umbraxakar's lair and hitting level 80, I turned in all my quests. However, I seem to be in a stuck state. I am not able to unlock the last box in the campaign. I was able to go up to the 3rd floor in the tavern and talk to everyone. There are about 6 people with question marks over their heads but when I talk to them, they do not provide any quests. I do not know where to go or who to talk to in order to progress to the final "box" and get my last boon.
2
checkmatein3Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 525Arc User
I wanted to give feedback after another 2 days of preview testing, as well as levelling all the way up to 80.
First, there seems to be a lot of missing synergy in stats in the builds. I think some are reporting that bonding stones are not working. (I have not confirmed this, but it would make sense).
Second, at level 74, when both lines opened up the last encounter power, the Dreadnaught became a lot easier to play, in solo PvE. I completed up to Vankradoom (where I hit a quest snag), but in all the expeditions and even being swarmed by multiple mobs, the Dreadnaught in its daily, and encounter rotation did fine. The at wills though are still terrible. Of course, the problem is that I was maxed on mod 15, so my perspective is very very skewed. I think a BIG game design that has not been communicated OR has not been worked out in areas (???) is the answer you just gave today about scaling vs. mobs level. Since all players are coming into the game at level 70 (like mob 6), and we encounter mobs OVER our level, in areas that we heretofore might have run through with no more than a thought, the result is absolute frustration. I have seen reports of stronghold being too strong, dungeons, etc.. Since there is a built in encounter modifier based on levels (as with all modules), with a level cap raise it is particularly important that this is taken care of (a 2nd and third and a fourth pass with testing). For example, during each expedition, I am scaled/adjusted to the mobs there, but outside of that, is scaling working to be able to confront mobs in common areas. Imagine if the only area open to players maxed at 70 is the new campaign (which I will guess on live will not be playable in 1 day as on preview), and old pre 70 zones.
Third, as rjc and dreadmoor have pointed out, the synergies built into each pathway (Vanguard, Dreadnaught) need some adjusting so that the philosophy of each class is consistent. With a reduction of choices from mod 15, the available choices (between top or bottom) should consistently communicate a kind of play. For example, perhaps top and bottom choices for Vanguard change from Heavy Tank (needed for Epic Party play) to Light Tank (solo PvE play). The Vanguard class has a range based on its possible use in the game. The Dreadnaught class, unfortunately, does not. In Epic party play, the Dreadnaught class will compete with all other dps classes for the dps slot. If it is not comparable to those classes, the class will be ignored (outside of random queue), and it could be that RQ leads to a lot of abandons. Just saying. I have read a few posts where lvl 80 well geared Fighters do not compare to other dps classes in dps output. This can still be due to the fact that perfect endgame builds are yet to be found, but that could apply to all classes, so the comparison will probably hold. So, the Dreadnaught dps class pathways might have selections between party dmg (like a buffer) and solo dmg. If Dreadnaught is changed into a light tank, and Vanguard are just two options for Heavy Tank, the queuing in end game content would be only Vanguard. I guess I am asking what you intend as a range of choices within each pathway as viable in the different kinds of content. Or maybe one pathway is PvP only? Vanguard Heavy Tank (PvE), Vanguard Heavy Tank (PvP), Dreadnaught DPS (PvE), Dreadnaught DPS (PvP)? Is that how you conceive the choices? I am scratching my head trying to figure out the philosophy behind the choices based on a vision of style of play (with less freedom from mod 15). We need clarification on this. I need clarification on this. And how does this fit into the overall 20:60:20 design for at wills:encounter:daily?
Fourth, I do want to commend the devs for giving immense and quick feedback on mod 16. I also want to say I am blown away by the artwork and design of the zones, and the story told.
Actually, as funny as it was, I'd like it fixed because the bug also affected the directions you could shield...
Bug: Constantly Facing One Direction
There was bug that would cause your character to face one direction and only that direction, despite panning the camera in different directions. This would also cause your character to only be able to shield in that one specific direction, and the only way I could sort of force myself to shield in a different direction was to use Aggravating Strike in a different direction. The bug would not reset on death but did reset upon leaving the instance.
The moonwalk in question came from inputting any non-forwards walking movement, where your character would use the forwards walk animation but be moving backwards or sideways and it was hilarious.
I am not sure how to reproduce the bug, I tried to reproduce the moonwalk for the fun of it and could not get the bug to ever happen.
I recall it had to do something with Seethe/Dig In and an enemy attack drained the rest of my shield just as I was trying to use regular Guard to get out of Dig In. I got the bug in Master of the Hunt, but I do not think it is limited to Master of the Hunt.
Actually, as funny as it was, I'd like it fixed because the bug also affected the directions you could shield...
Bug: Constantly Facing One Direction
There was bug that would cause your character to face one direction and only that direction, despite panning the camera in different directions. This would also cause your character to only be able to shield in that one specific direction, and the only way I could sort of force myself to shield in a different direction was to use Aggravating Strike in a different direction. The bug would not reset on death but did reset upon leaving the instance.
The moonwalk in question came from inputting any non-forwards walking movement, where your character would use the forwards walk animation but be moving backwards or sideways and it was hilarious.
I am not sure how to reproduce the bug, I tried to reproduce the moonwalk for the fun of it and could not get the bug to ever happen.
I recall it had to do something with Seethe/Dig In and an enemy attack drained the rest of my shield just as I was trying to use regular Guard to get out of Dig In. I got the bug in Master of the Hunt, but I do not think it is limited to Master of the Hunt.
+1 I had this happen to me also, was able to do it in PE. something to do with Dig in/seethe as I was pressing tab at the time.
It might be just my odd preference but in my opinion that thust at the end of Brazen Slash combo brakes attack flow of this At-will. I think it would look better if instead of that thrust character would make shield back swing bit similar to Tide of iron.
1
dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
Dig In: On Vanguard, add party protection (eg. OP Divine Protector) and threat generation while kneeling in Dig-In.
Doesn't that fit the theme (dedicated tank)?
Allow me to give public praise to @asterdahl . You have a thankless job, enduring 48 hours of non-stop complaint. I admire your professionalism, restraint and timely responses. This is the best dev response to feedback I've seen in 5 1/2 years in NW. Regards.
Aww shucks, I appreciate the kind words! Glad to respond, these changes have been in the works for a very long time, and now that they're out and people are getting a chance to play with them, obviously we're all very excited to see the response! Of course, this is preview, so particularly with all the bugs skewing everyone's experience, we're expecting it to be pretty rough, but I truly believe that we'll be able to get things in a good place over the coming weeks.
On the topic of Dig In—the changes will mostly be defensive, as we are definitely focusing on the vision of fighter being the heavy, ultra-durable style tank. I'd like to steer away from directly increasing aggro while in dig-in, because generating aggro passively while you are not actually hitting the enemy is something we are looking to not do.
However, I do understand that there is concern about losing aggro when using dig in, so I'll be looking to see what sort of changes we can make. Ultimately, it may be the case that aggro just gets a buff across the board so you can use dig in more freely without worrying about losing it. We want to see how aggro plays out as everyone gets used to the new changes.
An "across the board" aggro buff to Vanguard would be nice. Ty.
My point (and I did have one) was... Vanguard is the new GF Protector: the unwanted step-child. The dedicated tank that is not good at anything else... and mediocre at tanking also.
With the loss of tab-mark, neutered DPS, hard-taunts on cool-down (eg. ET) and our tab function an aggro-less 5 second "time-out", Vanguard needs something special and useful that makes it stand out as a valuable addition to the party.
Thanks for considering.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
Of course, our goals don't matter if you're not enjoying yourself—so I'd like to ask for a few more details on what you aren't enjoying. You mention that everything feels too slow, can you go into more detail about what feels slow, and which parts of that slowness feel more or less egregious to you? Obviously, we've slowed down a lot of things—no recovery means slower encounters and dailies, scaling in lower level dungeons means no 5 minute runs, and both of those things mean the average enemy encounter lasts a bit longer.
I am not the person you're responding to, but I did mention loving NW's speed and aggression at some point. I don't speak for every player, but I figured that if I tried to describe what I meant, the dev team would understand why people are calling this mod slow and possibly remedy this feeling.
On the live server, players move decently fast fast and generally do a ton of damage.
I feel aggressive: I want to bring the fight to the enemy, I can constantly dance in and out of enemy attacks, and it's enemies can't really do much as I destroy them. I want to be on the offensive & keep the pressure on my enemies, which makes you feel like the epic hero that is destined to save the world that the game really wants to sell you on.
But right now, I feel very encouraged to play very conservative. The long cooldowns and marginal decreases from cooldown reducing feats, combined with the low base damage on At-wills, gives me the implicit message that "I am only allowed to deal damage with encounters and daily attacks". I am only encouraged to fire off my encounters, toss in my daily attack if I can, and then spend my next 20 seconds pitifully chipping enemies with At-wills while waiting for another opportunity to be allowed to do damage.
Speaking of which, the new system only encourages me to fire off my encounters as fast as possible due to a lack of meaningful buffs/debuffs. I don't see the point in waiting 5 more seconds for my Commander's Strike to add another 40,000 damage to my Anvil of Doom when I can just deal that same damage with my At-wills. While you might say that some buffs do exist, the numbers aren't very impactful when they're things like "1.03x damage from a daily attack that ends in 10 seconds and only gets fired every 2 minutes".
I get that the intention was to avoid the situation where enemies die in 3 button presses, and for the most part, all of us are okay with that. But the tiny, non existent buff percentages don't give me a big enough incentive to work with my team, in addition to sending other messages to us.
The reason @fisenfis loathed the DC changes on day 1 of owlbear is because of the implicit message that comes from "DC is only healer". It tells me that I am not allowed to be pro-active and contribute to fights, even if I'm not intended to be the star of the show (aka the DPS). I am not allowed to run away, hide, and babysit peoples' HP bars for when they (inevitably) make a mistake.
Same thing with tanking: I am not allowed to contribute to the fight aside from taunting bosses and directing them away from enemies. I am only supposed to sit, taunt enemies, wait for the DPS to get their act together, and occasionally cover them if they decided red areas are good.
Right now, runs end up being 5 solos that tenuously need to communicate when a mechanic threatens to "do it or die", rather than an entire team planning and preparing their attack phases.
There is a lot more to this module that affects the pacing and fun factor of NW, but that is all I feel I can analyze for now without running out of characters and not sleeping.
1. Re-specing. I started of building for dps. There really didn't seem much option for selection of feats and boons so just choose feats based on reducing cooldown and helping damage. Boons left me feeling I actually had no choice tbh.. first 3 on each tier, potions, and I selected heal option for master (hell might as well have a random heal or damage reduction than a random damage boost. went to Sosh river to test.. pleasantly surprised.. although a little less happy when I saw my gond art was doing 1.7m damage and was the reason for being able to 1 shot a rex. So I then went to solo elol (whilst not using art damage on mobs) as I use elol solo as a performance gauge.. again pleasantly surprised... only trouble I had in elol was with the adds after the scorpions.. seemed to do an awful lot of damage and would surround me a lot, the new dps tab mechanic here was useless.. dig in to build damage boost- get surrounded - try to attack - get ganked from all sides - dead. In mod (upto) 15 I play 2 builds.. conq for dps and tact for tnk. Both work very well. The mod16 dps felt very squishy when faced with a group of mobs and the tab mechanic very clunky and unrewarding....so I decided to try tank build........
I was very happy with vanguard compared to the dps route... although still having a very limited choice for the feats and the same 1 path for boons I knocked up a wild stab build again and then moved to do the campaign to test. Overall I had no problems at all... very easy to solo all campaign content without having to change any of my dps based gear (other than slot some runes into companion gear I had in storage). Tbh I had no issue with vanguard (except what on earth is the determination mentioned in the last feat and how to I build it ??). Dig in became very useful for those 'waiting for cooldown' moments and having what seemed like endless usage of the digin (barely touching stamina bar) meant coming out of digin with a reverse shield up movement removed the ganking issue I was faced with in the dps build. Damage was fine for soling the campaign (although i did notice when digging in, aka hiding, that my pet was quite the hero.. not me). Most of the time in campaign i was running a couple of levels beneath the mobs, not reaching 80 till the very last 2 campaign tasks. I've no idea yet how well the tank build plays in a party scenario, but I can see keeping agro being an issue on multiple mob groups (no more rounding up all the mobs in msp). I am interested in whether reflected damage adds to threat ?
SO my overall opinions re the changes..
boons.. lol .. in reality there is minimal choice here.. If I remember right, at 80 you get 69 boon points which with the options seems to leave you either choosing damage reduction, damage bonus or potion boosts (I chose the potion boosts but tbh rarely used a potion).
feats.. why even offer a choice of 2... you know there is no way to really fail with any choice offered.
the only benefit i can reap from these changes is that player skill will become much more important. no more hiding behind others buffs, and smashing the god mode button (although tbh gf tank digin feels like that).
But saying that, these changes will dramatically reduce the amount of skill needed to play a gf tank.
Considering I took wild stabs at the feats, took a very simplistic route thru the boons, didn't change from dps gear and whacked any old purple rune into companion gear I still had a strong character.
But with all the changes I am really in 2 minds about whether I want to grind out new equipment. Already I've spent money that previously would have gone into cryptics pockets on a starter d&d pack to play with my family (delivery today.. looking forwards to that)...... SO maybe (lets see if my girls take to rpg) I will be giving you a big thank-you for these changes (but not for the reasons you wish) but at the moment I am disappointed with this one horse pony you are giving me to ride.
Thanks for taking the time to play on the test shard and send your feedback! I wanted to take a moment to answer a few questions and respond to a few comments. First, yes, reflected damage does count towards your aggro. You mention that you feel there won't be much skill required to play Vanguard, but threat management is now a significantly more active part of tanking, as opposed to just smashing tab over and over. I hope you find some time to play group content on preview, and please let me know what you think if you do, I truly appreciate it.
Finally, you asked why offer 2 feat choices, and mention that there's no way to fail with either of the choices offered. Do you want one of those choices to be a clear failure? Ultimately, we're aiming to remove false choices, where one of the choices will simply make you a worse character, particularly on building the core of your character's class setup. We believe there are already enough chances to fail when choosing equipment, artifacts, etc. and when actually fighting enemies.
reflection. good.. time to try find that reflect ring from mysterious merchant.
Threat/agro management has always been a learnt skill, and as you should know the mashing of tab only works for initial marking of more than 5 targets and still needs further management to keep agro as the hard taunt (I believe) had an internal cooldown. I feel currently much more skill is required than the mod16 changes will need.
Personally i would rather more choice to allow me to learn what works and what doesn't rather than the 'all will work' approach.
Sry, after seeing the lack of change to TR play and the general dumbing down of gf I don't plan on revisiting the preview in a hurry to test my CW, DC, HR, GWF and OP. I will wait till launch now to see what happens with regards to final agro mechanics.
But as a side note, quite frankly I am pretty disappointed that despite you running tests under nda.... the number of bugs and the general roughness of the changes presented on preview is quite staggering.
I'm sorry to hear that you're disappointed. We are making a lot of systemic changes to the game, so some of the issues that you're seeing now weren't actually happening during closed beta. (Some of them were, of course.) But we've made a lot of changes between the closed beta and the preview server, including huge changes to equipment stats, and further changes to level scaling.
That being said, we're on the preview server earlier than we normally are, because we know how large scale these changes are and that we'll need help identifying a number of outliers. A vast majority of the problems fall under the umbrella of unexpected difficulty spikes, and I've recently put up a new thread: Scaling and Difficulty Issues to help everyone centralize bug reports on this topic. I appreciate everyone's patience as we continue to work out these issues.
On the topic of fighter however, I'd like to clarify that there was no internal cooldown to any hard taunts pre Module 16. Taunts could be applied as frequently as the power allowed.
Dig In: This seems pointless. Only reason to dig in is if you play bad. Tab Mark was already the worst tab ability in the game, now its even more useless. A good mechanic should reward important values such as positioning and situational awareness, not become obsolete once you have those. A better tab ability would be if dig in intercepted damage from allies in an AoE, and maybe built threat based on that.
Path of the Vanguard: Some effort seems to have gone into making sure Vanguard doesn't compete with other dps, but not into making sure Dreadnaught doesnt compete with tanks? Dreadnaught seems equally tanky as Vanguard. Also using powers that provide tankiness seems to do enough in the way of reducing dps whether Vanguard or Dreadnaught, so an additional 30% reduction on top of that seems unnecessary. Path of the Vanguard should provide more tankiness or some benefit to the group to make Vanguard a more viable tank over Dreadnaught.
PvP Boons: - icon doesn't work when assigning points, have to exit page and assing from scratch to change them before committing.
Safe areas: Character constantly enters combat animation in areas where there is passive healing, for example camp fires or Protectors Enclave.
Thank you for taking the time to try out the changes on preview and send your feedback. I agree that there may be some issues with the survivability difference between Vanguard and Dreadnought and it will definitely be an area that I will be focusing on during the coming weeks.
In regards to feedback unrelated to fighter—if you could, please post that feedback in the appropriate threads, or the general thread if there is no specific thread (such as the passive healing bug.) I know that it's inconvenient but it will greatly help us to properly keep track of your issues and ensure that the right developers are seeing it, thank you!
Sorry if i dont bring prints but i got some big Hits from "Assassin drakes in Epic Shores of Tuern, for example the last group of mobs near the last camp fire, a Asssin Drake gave me 2 hits 226k to miy shield and he or another around did 758k like a sec after, both with bite attack.
also got heavy hits from a crab near a HEW in the firsty undermountain leveling zone (where you use potions to make fish XD) and as Barbarian i got 2million dmg from a Giant in the first undermontain area. (where you find 2 sleeping.
Obs is never the first hit maybe some debuff or self buff is still not scaled...
This is definitely a bug, thanks for the report! I've put up a new thread in the preview forum just for reports like this, so if you can head over there and repost this, I would greatly appreciate it. We're working hard to track down these issues.
I played my Fighter over the weekend from 70 to 80. I'll echo what most other people are saying with respect to build choices and lack of customization.
Feedback This toon is about 17k, DPS spec for preview. I didn't have much trouble adjusting or completing any of the content with the exception of Umbraxakar's Lair. There were several mobs of Assassins "cult of Shar Assassin" that constantly killed me. I was only fighting one mob at a time, I raised my shield and backed up to avoid getting surrounded, and my guard was depleted in 2 seconds. Then I'd get knocked down and killed over the next 1 seconds. If I didn't have a daily ready, it was very difficult to kill the mob and died in a few seconds. With my daily, I was able to block for 1 second, then use my daily, use the encounter that stuns and finish them off. Without a daily, I had to use a scroll of life for almost every assassin mob I came across. I had to use my DC artifact and sit there for a full minute 3-4x because it was changed to only provide 25% AP gain. This was very frustrating.
Bug: After completing Umbraxakar's lair and hitting level 80, I turned in all my quests. However, I seem to be in a stuck state. I am not able to unlock the last box in the campaign. I was able to go up to the 3rd floor in the tavern and talk to everyone. There are about 6 people with question marks over their heads but when I talk to them, they do not provide any quests. I do not know where to go or who to talk to in order to progress to the final "box" and get my last boon.
Thanks for taking the time to level up to 80 on preview and send us your feedback, we appreciate the time you've dedicated to helping us out! The issues you encounter with the Star Assassins is definitely not an intended spike in difficulty, and almost certainly due to various bugs and lack of final tuning on some critters.
In regards to not being able to progress through the final stage of the campaign—would you mind reposting that bug report in the general feedback thread? I know it's inconvenient, but it will really help to ensure the right developer sees your report. We'd love to read every thread on here ourselves, but unfortunately there's a bit too much. Thank you!
I wanted to give feedback after another 2 days of preview testing, as well as levelling all the way up to 80.
First, there seems to be a lot of missing synergy in stats in the builds. I think some are reporting that bonding stones are not working. (I have not confirmed this, but it would make sense).
Second, at level 74, when both lines opened up the last encounter power, the Dreadnaught became a lot easier to play, in solo PvE. I completed up to Vankradoom (where I hit a quest snag), but in all the expeditions and even being swarmed by multiple mobs, the Dreadnaught in its daily, and encounter rotation did fine. The at wills though are still terrible. Of course, the problem is that I was maxed on mod 15, so my perspective is very very skewed. I think a BIG game design that has not been communicated OR has not been worked out in areas (???) is the answer you just gave today about scaling vs. mobs level. Since all players are coming into the game at level 70 (like mob 6), and we encounter mobs OVER our level, in areas that we heretofore might have run through with no more than a thought, the result is absolute frustration. I have seen reports of stronghold being too strong, dungeons, etc.. Since there is a built in encounter modifier based on levels (as with all modules), with a level cap raise it is particularly important that this is taken care of (a 2nd and third and a fourth pass with testing). For example, during each expedition, I am scaled/adjusted to the mobs there, but outside of that, is scaling working to be able to confront mobs in common areas. Imagine if the only area open to players maxed at 70 is the new campaign (which I will guess on live will not be playable in 1 day as on preview), and old pre 70 zones.
Third, as rjc and dreadmoor have pointed out, the synergies built into each pathway (Vanguard, Dreadnaught) need some adjusting so that the philosophy of each class is consistent. With a reduction of choices from mod 15, the available choices (between top or bottom) should consistently communicate a kind of play. For example, perhaps top and bottom choices for Vanguard change from Heavy Tank (needed for Epic Party play) to Light Tank (solo PvE play). The Vanguard class has a range based on its possible use in the game. The Dreadnaught class, unfortunately, does not. In Epic party play, the Dreadnaught class will compete with all other dps classes for the dps slot. If it is not comparable to those classes, the class will be ignored (outside of random queue), and it could be that RQ leads to a lot of abandons. Just saying. I have read a few posts where lvl 80 well geared Fighters do not compare to other dps classes in dps output. This can still be due to the fact that perfect endgame builds are yet to be found, but that could apply to all classes, so the comparison will probably hold. So, the Dreadnaught dps class pathways might have selections between party dmg (like a buffer) and solo dmg. If Dreadnaught is changed into a light tank, and Vanguard are just two options for Heavy Tank, the queuing in end game content would be only Vanguard. I guess I am asking what you intend as a range of choices within each pathway as viable in the different kinds of content. Or maybe one pathway is PvP only? Vanguard Heavy Tank (PvE), Vanguard Heavy Tank (PvP), Dreadnaught DPS (PvE), Dreadnaught DPS (PvP)? Is that how you conceive the choices? I am scratching my head trying to figure out the philosophy behind the choices based on a vision of style of play (with less freedom from mod 15). We need clarification on this. I need clarification on this. And how does this fit into the overall 20:60:20 design for at wills:encounter:daily?
Fourth, I do want to commend the devs for giving immense and quick feedback on mod 16. I also want to say I am blown away by the artwork and design of the zones, and the story told.
Thanks for reading!
Hello, thanks for taking more time to play on preview and post your feedback. I'll dive right in to some of your questions!
First, in regards to the scaling you're seeing making areas like the Stronghold much more difficult than they currently are on live, those are bugs—we're not aiming for Strongholds to suddenly be dangerous maps with punishing enemies. Ultimately, we're aiming for a scaling system that is as unobtrusive as possible. Once scaling is in the right place, it shouldn't be something you have to think about.
The only thing that it will do is ensure that when you're running a level 70 dungeon as a level 80, it's not the case that your crushing things by sneezing on the enemies. It'll be as if you're running it with a very well geared 70.
On to questions specifically about fighter: there are no plans for Dreadnought to be able to play as a tank, it is a dedicated DPS class, and although it may be underperforming right now, I assure you that it will receive the necessary DPS buffs to compete with other DPS classes over the next few weeks.
In regards to whether one of the rows of feats is being viewed as a PvP or PvE row—we're not looking at the feats in that way. As many other players have already expressed, they are unhappy to see less choices. I've addressed this in quite a few posts already, though of course, my answers may not have been to your satisfaction, depending on your perspective. Ultimately, we believe we can offer more, meaningful choices in the current system, and that we are leaving more room to expand on a strong foundation in the future. We believe that on live, a lot of false choices exist, and there is only the illusion of a large number of choices. That said, if we were to focus the current feat choices on PvP or PvE exclusively, we feel that would significantly reduce the number of choices available to players of either type of content, so we'd like to avoid that.
Also, thank you for the kind words about the artwork in the zones, and the story! I'll pass your feedback along to the art team.
Comments
First—on the topic of Dreadnought and how it stacks up against your friend's classes, who I assume from your description were playing Arbiter and Blademaster. Tuning the damage potential of the classes is one of our largest priorities over the coming weeks. When the module goes live, I promise that Dreadnought will not be far behind the other DPS classes. We can't guarantee that balance will be perfect, but it should be very close, nowhere near an orders of magnitude difference if you're playing well and geared as well as your friends.
You also go on specifically to bring up the example of the feat that consumes vengeance to deal increased magnitude damage feeling too weak or as if it seriously hampers your synergy with other powers feeling like a clear example of why the changes are uninspired. I would say that tweaks to powers like that are the exact sort of thing we will be changing over the coming weeks if they do feel bad or they do feel like they really mess up the feeling of the class. I genuinely appreciate everyone's feedback on those subjects. Telling us what powers or synergies you do and do not like is incredibly helpful.
On the topic of the changes in general, which you seem to be understandably far more concerned with, I'm eager to understand the specifics. Though our changes are large in scale, as you can imagine we're not aiming to drive anyone away from the game, so I'd like to impress upon you that we'd very much like to make what changes we can to ensure that the game is still fun for those who have enjoyed it for some time.
Let me start by ensuring you that, we're not specifically attempting to carry out any initial "launch vision" for the game. Most of the launch development team no longer works at the company or on the project. In some ways in fact—for better or worse depending on your perspective—we're actually aiming to resolve a lot of fundamental problems with how the game was built at launch. I've addressed these issues more specifically in other posts and threads so I won't go into too much detail, but those issues include: classes built as if there were a trinity but without the gameplay to support the trinity; lack of a built in failure state for group encounters; unfocused abilities that do far too many things; and far too many bad choices when building your character.
Of course, our goals don't matter if you're not enjoying yourself—so I'd like to ask for a few more details on what you aren't enjoying. You mention that everything feels too slow, can you go into more detail about what feels slow, and which parts of that slowness feel more or less egregious to you? Obviously, we've slowed down a lot of things—no recovery means slower encounters and dailies, scaling in lower level dungeons means no 5 minute runs, and both of those things mean the average enemy encounter lasts a bit longer.
I know that it's tempting to say "all of them," when we ask, which is frustrating you most—but if you could rank them, or go into any further detail that would be very helpful. Additionally, if you gave some feedback about how much faster things would have to be for you to be happy with the changes—those are all useful data points.
You mention Castle Never specifically, and I would say, that from a lot of reports (I haven't had a chance to look at it yet myself this weekend) it sounds like Castle Never is scaling incorrectly. Once those are fixed, I really don't think even an average pick up group is going to take anywhere near 45 minutes to finish it. How long would you be okay with the average random dungeon run being?
Thanks again for taking the time to post, I do hope you'll continue to give the changes a chance over the next few weeks.
That being said, I did want to say—there will be absolutely no hard taunts moving forward. Additional threat generation, and snapping yourself to the top of the list will be the only types of positive threat management. (Negative threat management, such as Cleric's Divine Glow which halve your current threat, are also available in some cases.)
This is a deliberate decision we have made so that the gameplay surrounding threat is both more straightforward to understand and more predictable. It also allows for us to put in place things like tank swapping in 10-man trials. If things like at-wills snap you to the top of the list, this would also be bade and destroy the opportunity for those sorts of mechanics to exist. So with that in mind, that's why you won't see at-wills with that effect, or hard taunts in the game.
That being said, as I stated, we'll be adjusting threat up if everyone is continuing to have a problem with it once they've gotten used to the mechanics. In our own internal playtests I'm having no trouble keeping threat on paladin or fighter right now, so I'm hesitant to swing the dial too heavily in the other direction, but I'm also skeptical that everyone here is doing optimal DPS! So please keep sending your feedback along, we will absolutely be making adjustments.
I find some changes really interesting
GF Tank
until now we have the mark on the tab button you could attract the monsters well
was also a good buff I find it a pity
that there is no way to lure the monster from afar now
sry my englisch is not the best i hope understand me
hey o/
Thanks for the reply.
the name of the char in preview is Nyriel26.
The crazy att will would happen every 1 or 2 mins.Pretty inconsistend.The att wills in question were "guarding strike" and threatening rush.one would do 2,6k damage and the next hit something like 471500 (5600).
I am sorry i did not recorded them ,I was just doing a quick review of my Gf
Rust Monster was hitting in the milions ,I copy pasted one hit to my friends was at 4 milion mark with base value at 37000 something.
About companions people responded me that they have seen it aswell,the tigers one shot bosses.So it is not only my poor Rust Monster.
All bosses in Elol were one shotted by the Rust Monster given enough time ,but it could not clear the level 70 mobs before the Dragon :P
Joking aside, your threat is based on your damage, so yes, after you reach acceptable mitigation, you should be focusing on increasing your damage to hold threat. The most effective way to hold threat is to deal more damage. That being said, at a base, you're going to be doing less, for various reasons. Thats why powers have threat multipliers on them, and why you naturally gain more threat from your actions.
For instance, if you're doing 70% of the damage of a DPS, you will easily be holding threat, even without any powers that directly state that they generate more threat. Add those in, and you can do even less damage relative to the DPS and still hold threat. We're still tuning those numbers though.
hey o/
Thanks for the reply.
the name of the char in preview is Nyriel26.
The crazy att will would happen every 1 or 2 mins.Pretty inconsistend.The att wills in question were "guarding strike" and threatening rush.one would do 2,6k damage and the next hit something like 471500 (5600).
I am sorry i did not recorded them ,I was just doing a quick review of my Gf
Rust Monster was hitting in the milions ,I copy pasted one hit to my friends was at 4 milion mark with base value at 37000 something.
About companions people responded me that they have seen it aswell,the tigers one shot bosses.So it is not only my poor Rust Monster.
All bosses in Elol were one shotted by the Rust Monster given enough time ,but it could not clear the level 70 mobs before the Dragon :P
Thanks so much for providing the information I asked for. That should make it much easier to track down what the issue is. I greatly appreciate it.
1. Re-specing. I started of building for dps. There really didn't seem much option for selection of feats and boons so just choose feats based on reducing cooldown and helping damage. Boons left me feeling I actually had no choice tbh.. first 3 on each tier, potions, and I selected heal option for master (hell might as well have a random heal or damage reduction than a random damage boost. went to Sosh river to test.. pleasantly surprised.. although a little less happy when I saw my gond art was doing 1.7m damage and was the reason for being able to 1 shot a rex. So I then went to solo elol (whilst not using art damage on mobs) as I use elol solo as a performance gauge.. again pleasantly surprised... only trouble I had in elol was with the adds after the scorpions.. seemed to do an awful lot of damage and would surround me a lot, the new dps tab mechanic here was useless.. dig in to build damage boost- get surrounded - try to attack - get ganked from all sides - dead.
In mod (upto) 15 I play 2 builds.. conq for dps and tact for tnk. Both work very well. The mod16 dps felt very squishy when faced with a group of mobs and the tab mechanic very clunky and unrewarding....so I decided to try tank build........
I was very happy with vanguard compared to the dps route... although still having a very limited choice for the feats and the same 1 path for boons I knocked up a wild stab build again and then moved to do the campaign to test. Overall I had no problems at all... very easy to solo all campaign content without having to change any of my dps based gear (other than slot some runes into companion gear I had in storage).
Tbh I had no issue with vanguard (except what on earth is the determination mentioned in the last feat and how to I build it ??).
Dig in became very useful for those 'waiting for cooldown' moments and having what seemed like endless usage of the digin (barely touching stamina bar) meant coming out of digin with a reverse shield up movement removed the ganking issue I was faced with in the dps build. Damage was fine for soling the campaign (although i did notice when digging in, aka hiding, that my pet was quite the hero.. not me). Most of the time in campaign i was running a couple of levels beneath the mobs, not reaching 80 till the very last 2 campaign tasks.
I've no idea yet how well the tank build plays in a party scenario, but I can see keeping agro being an issue on multiple mob groups (no more rounding up all the mobs in msp). I am interested in whether reflected damage adds to threat ?
SO my overall opinions re the changes..
boons.. lol .. in reality there is minimal choice here.. If I remember right, at 80 you get 69 boon points which with the options seems to leave you either choosing damage reduction, damage bonus or potion boosts (I chose the potion boosts but tbh rarely used a potion).
feats.. why even offer a choice of 2... you know there is no way to really fail with any choice offered.
the only benefit i can reap from these changes is that player skill will become much more important. no more hiding behind others buffs, and smashing the god mode button (although tbh gf tank digin feels like that).
But saying that, these changes will dramatically reduce the amount of skill needed to play a gf tank.
Considering I took wild stabs at the feats, took a very simplistic route thru the boons, didn't change from dps gear and whacked any old purple rune into companion gear I still had a strong character.
But with all the changes I am really in 2 minds about whether I want to grind out new equipment. Already I've spent money that previously would have gone into cryptics pockets on a starter d&d pack to play with my family (delivery today.. looking forwards to that)...... SO maybe (lets see if my girls take to rpg) I will be giving you a big thank-you for these changes (but not for the reasons you wish) but at the moment I am disappointed with this one horse pony you are giving me to ride.
Finally, you asked why offer 2 feat choices, and mention that there's no way to fail with either of the choices offered. Do you want one of those choices to be a clear failure? Ultimately, we're aiming to remove false choices, where one of the choices will simply make you a worse character, particularly on building the core of your character's class setup. We believe there are already enough chances to fail when choosing equipment, artifacts, etc. and when actually fighting enemies.
Threat/agro management has always been a learnt skill, and as you should know the mashing of tab only works for initial marking of more than 5 targets and still needs further management to keep agro as the hard taunt (I believe) had an internal cooldown. I feel currently much more skill is required than the mod16 changes will need.
Personally i would rather more choice to allow me to learn what works and what doesn't rather than the 'all will work' approach.
Sry, after seeing the lack of change to TR play and the general dumbing down of gf I don't plan on revisiting the preview in a hurry to test my CW, DC, HR, GWF and OP. I will wait till launch now to see what happens with regards to final agro mechanics.
But as a side note, quite frankly I am pretty disappointed that despite you running tests under nda.... the number of bugs and the general roughness of the changes presented on preview is quite staggering.
Path of the Vanguard: Some effort seems to have gone into making sure Vanguard doesn't compete with other dps, but not into making sure Dreadnaught doesnt compete with tanks? Dreadnaught seems equally tanky as Vanguard. Also using powers that provide tankiness seems to do enough in the way of reducing dps whether Vanguard or Dreadnaught, so an additional 30% reduction on top of that seems unnecessary. Path of the Vanguard should provide more tankiness or some benefit to the group to make Vanguard a more viable tank over Dreadnaught.
PvP Boons: - icon doesn't work when assigning points, have to exit page and assing from scratch to change them before committing.
Safe areas: Character constantly enters combat animation in areas where there is passive healing, for example camp fires or Protectors Enclave.
for example the last group of mobs near the last camp fire, a Asssin Drake gave me 2 hits 226k to miy shield and he or another around did 758k like a sec after, both with bite attack.
also got heavy hits from a crab near a HEW in the firsty undermountain leveling zone (where you use potions to make fish XD)
and as Barbarian i got 2million dmg from a Giant in the first undermontain area. (where you find 2 sleeping.
Obs is never the first hit maybe some debuff or self buff is still not scaled...
Feedback
This toon is about 17k, DPS spec for preview. I didn't have much trouble adjusting or completing any of the content with the exception of Umbraxakar's Lair. There were several mobs of Assassins "cult of Shar Assassin" that constantly killed me. I was only fighting one mob at a time, I raised my shield and backed up to avoid getting surrounded, and my guard was depleted in 2 seconds. Then I'd get knocked down and killed over the next 1 seconds. If I didn't have a daily ready, it was very difficult to kill the mob and died in a few seconds. With my daily, I was able to block for 1 second, then use my daily, use the encounter that stuns and finish them off. Without a daily, I had to use a scroll of life for almost every assassin mob I came across. I had to use my DC artifact and sit there for a full minute 3-4x because it was changed to only provide 25% AP gain. This was very frustrating.
Bug:
After completing Umbraxakar's lair and hitting level 80, I turned in all my quests. However, I seem to be in a stuck state. I am not able to unlock the last box in the campaign. I was able to go up to the 3rd floor in the tavern and talk to everyone. There are about 6 people with question marks over their heads but when I talk to them, they do not provide any quests. I do not know where to go or who to talk to in order to progress to the final "box" and get my last boon.
First, there seems to be a lot of missing synergy in stats in the builds. I think some are reporting that bonding stones are not working. (I have not confirmed this, but it would make sense).
Second, at level 74, when both lines opened up the last encounter power, the Dreadnaught became a lot easier to play, in solo PvE. I completed up to Vankradoom (where I hit a quest snag), but in all the expeditions and even being swarmed by multiple mobs, the Dreadnaught in its daily, and encounter rotation did fine. The at wills though are still terrible. Of course, the problem is that I was maxed on mod 15, so my perspective is very very skewed. I think a BIG game design that has not been communicated OR has not been worked out in areas (???) is the answer you just gave today about scaling vs. mobs level.
Since all players are coming into the game at level 70 (like mob 6), and we encounter mobs OVER our level, in areas that we heretofore might have run through with no more than a thought, the result is absolute frustration. I have seen reports of stronghold being too strong, dungeons, etc.. Since there is a built in encounter modifier based on levels (as with all modules), with a level cap raise it is particularly important that this is taken care of (a 2nd and third and a fourth pass with testing).
For example, during each expedition, I am scaled/adjusted to the mobs there, but outside of that, is scaling working to be able to confront mobs in common areas. Imagine if the only area open to players maxed at 70 is the new campaign (which I will guess on live will not be playable in 1 day as on preview), and old pre 70 zones.
Third, as rjc and dreadmoor have pointed out, the synergies built into each pathway (Vanguard, Dreadnaught) need some adjusting so that the philosophy of each class is consistent. With a reduction of choices from mod 15, the available choices (between top or bottom) should consistently communicate a kind of play. For example, perhaps top and bottom choices for Vanguard change from Heavy Tank (needed for Epic Party play) to Light Tank (solo PvE play). The Vanguard class has a range based on its possible use in the game. The Dreadnaught class, unfortunately, does not. In Epic party play, the Dreadnaught class will compete with all other dps classes for the dps slot. If it is not comparable to those classes, the class will be ignored (outside of random queue), and it could be that RQ leads to a lot of abandons. Just saying. I have read a few posts where lvl 80 well geared Fighters do not compare to other dps classes in dps output. This can still be due to the fact that perfect endgame builds are yet to be found, but that could apply to all classes, so the comparison will probably hold. So, the Dreadnaught dps class pathways might have selections between party dmg (like a buffer) and solo dmg. If Dreadnaught is changed into a light tank, and Vanguard are just two options for Heavy Tank, the queuing in end game content would be only Vanguard. I guess I am asking what you intend as a range of choices within each pathway as viable in the different kinds of content. Or maybe one pathway is PvP only? Vanguard Heavy Tank (PvE), Vanguard Heavy Tank (PvP), Dreadnaught DPS (PvE), Dreadnaught DPS (PvP)?
Is that how you conceive the choices? I am scratching my head trying to figure out the philosophy behind the choices based on a vision of style of play (with less freedom from mod 15). We need clarification on this. I need clarification on this. And how does this fit into the overall 20:60:20 design for at wills:encounter:daily?
Fourth, I do want to commend the devs for giving immense and quick feedback on mod 16. I also want to say I am blown away by the artwork and design of the zones, and the story told.
Thanks for reading!
Guild--And the Imaginary Friends
Bug: Constantly Facing One Direction
There was bug that would cause your character to face one direction and only that direction, despite panning the camera in different directions. This would also cause your character to only be able to shield in that one specific direction, and the only way I could sort of force myself to shield in a different direction was to use Aggravating Strike in a different direction. The bug would not reset on death but did reset upon leaving the instance.
The moonwalk in question came from inputting any non-forwards walking movement, where your character would use the forwards walk animation but be moving backwards or sideways and it was hilarious.
I am not sure how to reproduce the bug, I tried to reproduce the moonwalk for the fun of it and could not get the bug to ever happen.
I recall it had to do something with Seethe/Dig In and an enemy attack drained the rest of my shield just as I was trying to use regular Guard to get out of Dig In. I got the bug in Master of the Hunt, but I do not think it is limited to Master of the Hunt.
Bug: Into the Fray is granting huge amounts of AP when you attack.
I stopped using it because it was making it impossible for me to get a feel for different powers, rotations, etc.
It might be just my odd preference but in my opinion that thust at the end of Brazen Slash combo brakes attack flow of this At-will. I think it would look better if instead of that thrust character would make shield back swing bit similar to Tide of iron.
My point (and I did have one) was...
Vanguard is the new GF Protector: the unwanted step-child.
The dedicated tank that is not good at anything else... and mediocre at tanking also.
With the loss of tab-mark, neutered DPS, hard-taunts on cool-down (eg. ET) and our tab function an aggro-less 5 second "time-out", Vanguard needs something special and useful that makes it stand out as a valuable addition to the party.
Thanks for considering.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
On the live server, players move decently fast fast and generally do a ton of damage.
I feel aggressive: I want to bring the fight to the enemy, I can constantly dance in and out of enemy attacks, and it's enemies can't really do much as I destroy them. I want to be on the offensive & keep the pressure on my enemies, which makes you feel like the epic hero that is destined to save the world that the game really wants to sell you on.
But right now, I feel very encouraged to play very conservative. The long cooldowns and marginal decreases from cooldown reducing feats, combined with the low base damage on At-wills, gives me the implicit message that "I am only allowed to deal damage with encounters and daily attacks". I am only encouraged to fire off my encounters, toss in my daily attack if I can, and then spend my next 20 seconds pitifully chipping enemies with At-wills while waiting for another opportunity to be allowed to do damage.
Speaking of which, the new system only encourages me to fire off my encounters as fast as possible due to a lack of meaningful buffs/debuffs. I don't see the point in waiting 5 more seconds for my Commander's Strike to add another 40,000 damage to my Anvil of Doom when I can just deal that same damage with my At-wills. While you might say that some buffs do exist, the numbers aren't very impactful when they're things like "1.03x damage from a daily attack that ends in 10 seconds and only gets fired every 2 minutes".
I get that the intention was to avoid the situation where enemies die in 3 button presses, and for the most part, all of us are okay with that. But the tiny, non existent buff percentages don't give me a big enough incentive to work with my team, in addition to sending other messages to us.
The reason @fisenfis loathed the DC changes on day 1 of owlbear is because of the implicit message that comes from "DC is only healer". It tells me that I am not allowed to be pro-active and contribute to fights, even if I'm not intended to be the star of the show (aka the DPS). I am not allowed to run away, hide, and babysit peoples' HP bars for when they (inevitably) make a mistake.
Same thing with tanking: I am not allowed to contribute to the fight aside from taunting bosses and directing them away from enemies. I am only supposed to sit, taunt enemies, wait for the DPS to get their act together, and occasionally cover them if they decided red areas are good.
Right now, runs end up being 5 solos that tenuously need to communicate when a mechanic threatens to "do it or die", rather than an entire team planning and preparing their attack phases.
There is a lot more to this module that affects the pacing and fun factor of NW, but that is all I feel I can analyze for now without running out of characters and not sleeping.
That being said, we're on the preview server earlier than we normally are, because we know how large scale these changes are and that we'll need help identifying a number of outliers. A vast majority of the problems fall under the umbrella of unexpected difficulty spikes, and I've recently put up a new thread: Scaling and Difficulty Issues to help everyone centralize bug reports on this topic. I appreciate everyone's patience as we continue to work out these issues.
On the topic of fighter however, I'd like to clarify that there was no internal cooldown to any hard taunts pre Module 16. Taunts could be applied as frequently as the power allowed.
In regards to feedback unrelated to fighter—if you could, please post that feedback in the appropriate threads, or the general thread if there is no specific thread (such as the passive healing bug.) I know that it's inconvenient but it will greatly help us to properly keep track of your issues and ensure that the right developers are seeing it, thank you!
In regards to not being able to progress through the final stage of the campaign—would you mind reposting that bug report in the general feedback thread? I know it's inconvenient, but it will really help to ensure the right developer sees your report. We'd love to read every thread on here ourselves, but unfortunately there's a bit too much. Thank you!
First, in regards to the scaling you're seeing making areas like the Stronghold much more difficult than they currently are on live, those are bugs—we're not aiming for Strongholds to suddenly be dangerous maps with punishing enemies. Ultimately, we're aiming for a scaling system that is as unobtrusive as possible. Once scaling is in the right place, it shouldn't be something you have to think about.
The only thing that it will do is ensure that when you're running a level 70 dungeon as a level 80, it's not the case that your crushing things by sneezing on the enemies. It'll be as if you're running it with a very well geared 70.
On to questions specifically about fighter: there are no plans for Dreadnought to be able to play as a tank, it is a dedicated DPS class, and although it may be underperforming right now, I assure you that it will receive the necessary DPS buffs to compete with other DPS classes over the next few weeks.
In regards to whether one of the rows of feats is being viewed as a PvP or PvE row—we're not looking at the feats in that way. As many other players have already expressed, they are unhappy to see less choices. I've addressed this in quite a few posts already, though of course, my answers may not have been to your satisfaction, depending on your perspective. Ultimately, we believe we can offer more, meaningful choices in the current system, and that we are leaving more room to expand on a strong foundation in the future. We believe that on live, a lot of false choices exist, and there is only the illusion of a large number of choices. That said, if we were to focus the current feat choices on PvP or PvE exclusively, we feel that would significantly reduce the number of choices available to players of either type of content, so we'd like to avoid that.
Also, thank you for the kind words about the artwork in the zones, and the story! I'll pass your feedback along to the art team.