test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
"The game is just not fun anymore"
hustin1
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 3,464 Arc User
Before I explain the title of the thread, a little explanation as to my perspective. I'm a guild leader. I never asked to be guild leader. Four years ago I was literally shanghaied into it and found out an hour after the fact. More than that, I'm the leader of the helm guild of our alliance. As such I need to be keenly aware of how our people are feeling and their morale.
I started to see this sentiment once Mod 16 launched, but things got really bad after Mod 17. Our participation absolutely cratered. Large numbers of players are on either temporary or permanent hiatus (it's hard to tell when you haven't seen some in many weeks). When people ARE on, the above sentiment is what I hear the most, worded in one form or another.
Now, another potential piece of evidence. Last week alone I was absolutely inundated with inquiries about bringing our guild into other alliances. I think I counted five separate inquiries. I politely rebuffed them all, but it warranted a short internal discussion on our side. Why the intense interest? What in blazes was going on? Our only explanation was that perhaps active participation is low everywhere and many guilds are hurting.
Devs, you have a major problem on your hands. People are demoralized and you need to do something about it.
I don't think there is any single cause, but I think it's safe to say that the overall push toward making the game harder is part of it. That's not exactly the right description, but the best way I can word it is that in the name of dungeon class balance you've made the solo experience much more tedious and frustrating for casual gamers.
I can't speak for other alliances, but mine doesn't have any hardcore players. I'm probably the most "hardcore" in the sole sense that I'm on every night, mainly because my role pretty much demands it. No one in our alliance is BiS. None of us are "this content is too easy" chest-thumpers. None of us are check-the-leaderboard-every-five-seconds PvP'ers. I'm not sure we even have any PvP'ers. We're mainly an older crowd. At 50, I'm one of the young whippersnappers. Our people have full-time jobs, families, and even other commitments beyond that. Some are caregivers, some are involved with charity. We've had more than our share of members with serious medical issues and we welcome them all. None are remotely what you would consider hard-core.
None are streamers or "content creators", though two of them are prolific Foundry authors. I've watched many of the Neverwinter streamers. They're BiS and they love dungeons. I get that. We are not them.
The vast majority of members I still see are expressing the same sentiment: what made the game fun prior to Mod 16 is gone and they've lost much of their desire to keep playing.
Before Mod 16, every Saturday without fail we would host the alliance at our stronghold for Dragonflight and Marauders. We always had a decent group of people show up, and we often held raffles for some of the people new to the game afterwards. The major draw, though, was simply that we all enjoyed each others' company. It was always fun. We've taken down as many as three dragons at a time, which was huge for us. Since Mod 17, though, that has completely stopped. I'm often the only one on nowadays. As far as I can tell, people are simply too demoralized with the general gameplay experience.
I don't like seeing people who have become my friends demoralized. The reason our alliance was so tight-knit over the past 8-10 mods was precisely because we were so much alike and got along so well. What has happened since April has been heartbreaking, and I don't see an end to it.
Devs. You need to fix this. Please.
I started to see this sentiment once Mod 16 launched, but things got really bad after Mod 17. Our participation absolutely cratered. Large numbers of players are on either temporary or permanent hiatus (it's hard to tell when you haven't seen some in many weeks). When people ARE on, the above sentiment is what I hear the most, worded in one form or another.
Now, another potential piece of evidence. Last week alone I was absolutely inundated with inquiries about bringing our guild into other alliances. I think I counted five separate inquiries. I politely rebuffed them all, but it warranted a short internal discussion on our side. Why the intense interest? What in blazes was going on? Our only explanation was that perhaps active participation is low everywhere and many guilds are hurting.
Devs, you have a major problem on your hands. People are demoralized and you need to do something about it.
I don't think there is any single cause, but I think it's safe to say that the overall push toward making the game harder is part of it. That's not exactly the right description, but the best way I can word it is that in the name of dungeon class balance you've made the solo experience much more tedious and frustrating for casual gamers.
I can't speak for other alliances, but mine doesn't have any hardcore players. I'm probably the most "hardcore" in the sole sense that I'm on every night, mainly because my role pretty much demands it. No one in our alliance is BiS. None of us are "this content is too easy" chest-thumpers. None of us are check-the-leaderboard-every-five-seconds PvP'ers. I'm not sure we even have any PvP'ers. We're mainly an older crowd. At 50, I'm one of the young whippersnappers. Our people have full-time jobs, families, and even other commitments beyond that. Some are caregivers, some are involved with charity. We've had more than our share of members with serious medical issues and we welcome them all. None are remotely what you would consider hard-core.
None are streamers or "content creators", though two of them are prolific Foundry authors. I've watched many of the Neverwinter streamers. They're BiS and they love dungeons. I get that. We are not them.
The vast majority of members I still see are expressing the same sentiment: what made the game fun prior to Mod 16 is gone and they've lost much of their desire to keep playing.
Before Mod 16, every Saturday without fail we would host the alliance at our stronghold for Dragonflight and Marauders. We always had a decent group of people show up, and we often held raffles for some of the people new to the game afterwards. The major draw, though, was simply that we all enjoyed each others' company. It was always fun. We've taken down as many as three dragons at a time, which was huge for us. Since Mod 17, though, that has completely stopped. I'm often the only one on nowadays. As far as I can tell, people are simply too demoralized with the general gameplay experience.
I don't like seeing people who have become my friends demoralized. The reason our alliance was so tight-knit over the past 8-10 mods was precisely because we were so much alike and got along so well. What has happened since April has been heartbreaking, and I don't see an end to it.
Devs. You need to fix this. Please.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Post edited by hustin1 on
Tagged:
45
Comments
- Casual players are not having fun anymore, due to all the reasons you stated;
- People like me and my friends (medium players? almost hardcore? something in between?) are not having so much fun anymore because ToMM is practically impossible for us and everything else is easy.
I hope that the current CDP Discussion results in good solutions for all groups of players being implemented in upcoming mods.
- that hard content was soloable was a bad situation, but in many cases it was soloable because either the player was really really good or the content was really poorly structured
- soloing dungeons may not have been the initial idea, but it had it's pros: in the evenings, people called out for dungeons (bosses or last boss) after soloing the content (I know, the argument here is "because they were too bored by the low difficulty" but I don't fully believe that) and many new players could hop onto "LFM xy last boss ANY" and learn some <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that way.
- the RQ-situation is in a bad state imo
- queueing for certain dungeons (aside of 2x stones or similar activities) doesn't take place like it did before M16 anymore
Personally, I'm still online and we have recruited new players, but it's weird with how many vets are not on currently (whatever the reasons) and by how the new players are supposed to go about the content now, my red flags are:
- New players are driven to blaze through lvling just like before, but instead of starting campaigns like usual, a progress starting with M14 messed it up: Intro-gear in Ravenloft, then in Undermountain.
- Along with easily achieved 14k+ IL the situation with boons is different now. I try to advertise the boons, the masterboons, even the IL raise (and hell, I don't like that) and try to advertise actually playing the game, but new players realize pretty fast that as long as they don't wanna do tomm, they are completely fine with just Undermountain, a Hatchling and Lomm.
- that leaves a sour taste in the mouth of everybody that had to blast hours grinding in before being considered for the latest content.
- with dwindling numbers of vets online, the etiquette changed, also the knowledge about older content and wanting to run older content, including dungeons with poor individual rewards and guild activities (and don't get me started on how you explain now why ppl want guild marks)
I agree with the original post. I also witnessed new players checking past content, character build, salvage, alt armies etc and saying "wow, stuff was intense once huh"
Oh.
I nearly forgot the already often stated:
- Stop to fkn nerf my <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
- I have work to do and can't play too much at night
- If you are ill geared, it is too much time to collect resources to buy what you need, and people won't invite you to the dungeons, because you will fail too much, will be a liability, worse when you play a rogue.
- The currency system is confusing and keeps the carrot too much ahead of the donkey, in a way much of them will leave to play another games, that's what i did it by example.
I came back to the game a week and half ago,out of curiosity, but i don't know if i will continue to play, i don't care about PVP and if i will be frustrated enough, uninstall will follow.
Took was, in your terms, a "hardcore" NW player, playing 3-4 hours per day 6-7 days per week since 2013.
Then Mod16 castrated Took's beloved Fighter Tank (R.I.P., Bowser IV).
With Took's main toon unplayable (f_ckin' POTTY SQUAT) NW was not fun anymore. NW has not been Took's main game since then.
Took tried to fall in love w NW again, did early preview for Mod 17. But... one room boss battle and repurposed MEs.
Meh.
TOOM has clever mechanics. But it is so bis gear heavy and class unbalanced that only one Took Toon can even get into a party...
And that Took (devout cleric) is BORING AF to play.
Took hasn't quit NW. But Took just doesn't bother to login often.
Because, as OP says, it's just not very fun for The Took.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
> Took cannot argue with your theme.
> Took was, in your terms, a "hardcore" NW player, playing 3-4 hours per day 6-7 days per week since 2013.
>
> Then Mod16 castrated Took's beloved Fighter Tank (R.I.P., Bowser IV).
> With Took's main toon unplayable (f_ckin' POTTY SQUAT) NW was not fun anymore. NW has not been Took's main game since then.
>
> Took tried to fall in love w NW again, did early preview for Mod 17. But... one room boss battle and repurposed MEs.
> Meh.
> TOOM has clever mechanics. But it is so bis gear heavy and class unbalanced that only one Took Toon can even get into a party...
> And that Took (devout cleric) is BORING AF to play.
>
> Took hasn't quit NW. But Took just doesn't bother to login often.
> Because, as OP says, it's just not very fun for The Took.
>
I'm afraid you are mistaken, master Took! The spirit of your Bowser IV is very much alive in one of the most fun to play "builds" for the vanguard, it even works great in Module 18 content 👍
I've been a guild leader for a couple of year and at that time we run events just for the fun of it. Winter event for example was a great one, nowadays almost nobody does it. I'm 44, so close to @hustin1 's age and as him I don't have so much time to spend on the game.
Currently I just do solo stuff like MEs (or soloing low level epic dungeons) and help out if somebody in guild or alliance chat needs an hand. Before I was definitely more hardcore (I was one of the few alive at the end of the first successfully reported run at Master Svardborg) but now that fun is gone. I stay in the game only because I found out a guild I like to be in, but that's it).
My feeling is that game development is treating this game like over competitive eastern MMO's while, having a D&D background, it should try to stand out by giving a broader community experience and a less performance-based approach.
Some weeks ago in a post I read @thefabricant saying that he is a goal-driven type of player. Obviously content like TOMM caters to that type of players and I fully understand they should get some of that stuff in the game, but there are many more ways to enjoy an MMO and I guess these have been neglected for quite some time.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
I think its a combination of scaling/capping and ridiculously slow toon progression once you get to a certain point.
Example Radiant Rank 13 > Rank 14
75 Pres or 1 Coal = c500k AD
3 Rank 6 Enchant Stones = c90k
2 Rank 6 MOPs = c180k
Upgrade cost = c800k which for me is maybe 2 weeks work on the Random Q etc
I get a whopping extra 240 power - yippee!
BUT then for group content its scaled down anyhow and for solo content I have no need for it.
And as all other skills are capped, it becomes pointless.
SOLO content I can destroy most stuff by rolling my face across the keyboard.
Group content I get scaled down, to th epoint where progression seems pointless.
---------------
Epilogue - Also running the same content over and over to inch towards a goal isn't fun.
MEs/FEs - I ran 3 a day for about 4 months = 360 times. I got some stuff which was nice.
But heck it just felt like having a part time job. Boring and no fun at all.
I'm a 39y old guild leader in a guild founded (not by me) in 2016 which, for the most part, value the "play as you are, as you want, when you want" philosophy. Most of our guildmates were in the medium casual category (playing more or less daily, but below 2h/d on average), with obviously a bunch of more hardcore (4h+/d).
I started Neverwinter during mod 11, and played with my brother. we are both in the "goal-driven" kind of players in MMORPG : we need to have something to aim at (be it an equipment, a dungeon, an achievement, or a collective goal like stronghold rank20). I'm also in the "animation" field, when i don't have a clear goal, I create in-game animations for my guild/ally to have fun that doesn't require anything but the ability to type or chat (RP or not).
Mod 16 came as a well forecasted hurricane on us and what were remaining after were only ruins, anger and sadness.
In june, post jubilée so some 2 months after the release, our 2 "core" parties (8-10 players at "close enough to BiS" state), who were the skeleton of our activity and used to help new guildmates discovering dungeons, were both gone with a taste of disgust in the mouth, leaving me and my bro as the lone ones with a good knowledge of mechanics while still trying to process how to build and play well again...
Fortunetaly our ally (which took also a mod16 hit) is big enough so the damages were manageable...
My bro didn't renew VIP during the jubilee when he saws how the game was diving into a debacle, and "mod 17" came as a confirmation. So he left with the end of his VIP at the beginning of september, and as a consequence my NWO playtime was then halved (as i play with him on other games).
The problem i have recently with Neverwinter is it tends to completly loose the already thin D&D spirit it had.
A game which pretends to be MMORPG, especially with the big D&D tag, should promote and enhance communauty activities (RolePlay events, friendly competitions, cooperative contests), should propose tools (we have some, but very few) so we can animate the world in many other ways than bashing monsters.
Damn, i can't help but think how great was, as a DM owning a module, the aurora toolset back in NwN1 days...
What did we get lastly in NWO ? the end of the foundry, one nice campaign (with everything else broken during 2 months outside of this campaign), one nice (we can argue) epic dungeon, farming and grind, one very hardcore trial (which is doable by few so "elite" players can have their futile pride and ego satisfied [and i put myself in this :P]) and a purely solo by design event (in a MMO, that's make no sense for me...)
Since mod15, I don't understand where NWO is going...
I think the Devs should really get some fresh level 70 character and start playing it through the Undermountain campaign to see how much fun they're having with it.
When they're done with that, use the same character on level 80 for a full run through the Hell Pit event, still having fun?
Not a problem, now copy that character onto the preview server and start the Infernal Descent campaign... my guess, at that point the remaining fun has left the building screaming in agony.
I have no problem with giving those "one percenters" their shot at glory with hard content, but the Devs shouldn't forget about all the other players around here as well. I think that they had the right idea with Master Expeditions on that matter, keep the basic or single rune MEs doable by the regular folks/solo players and anything above for the group players/hardcore guys and girls.
In short, give everyone with max. level and reasonable equipment a go at fresh content, but also have something exciting on the side for those that are geared well above the "average".
Anyway, just another old guy here wondering where the fudge NWO is headed these days.
New players should have heaps to do like grinding out boons on lower level campaigns. Grinding AD for enchants etc.
I'm not sure that it should be - start up, get to Lvl 80 in 2 days, slot some free R8s and then straight into the latest and hardest content with minimal problems.
However, I greatly dislike M16 and M17. If I never see one of those ME, WE, FEs things again, it will be too soon.
and gimme back my lunging strike
I hate the frickin' constant grinding and I largely try to avoid it. I've managed to get through one whole set of RE\WE\FE to get a nice item at the end from Mod 17. But, I don't think I want to do it again. It's a lot of work and it gets quite tedious.
Right now I'm doing the SKT and Chult grinds to get the remaining boons and open up the keys. But, I have to admit that I'm not very enthusiastic about it. There's a good chance if I step away from the game for a little while due to boredom, I step away for good.
BTW, I'm curious about something from other folks here. Does this game really feel like D&D? Maybe in terms of story and/or creatures, but otherwise it appears like any other console-like RPG to me. It's D&D flavor-like, but I don't really feel I'm using any sort of D&D tactics/strategy. Spells and attacks are limited to just a narrow band of defenses and attacks to deal with hoards of creatures. I long for the days of Baldur's Gate, et al (and yes, I can't wait for the upcoming release of BG3!).
It would appear to me NW D&D appeals to the adult crowd. I know friends who play and people who use to play, I met them in person. I traveled a lot. Currently unemployed, but camping out on my friend's sofa, or in the parents attic seeking work. As for my age demographic, I am not quite 30 yet. I was hanging with the RP crowd but it looks like they moved on to higher grounds. I was out late this weekend playing D&D with a group at the local hobby shop. I jumped on here to look at how the game is looking for January. I might not stop in to grab my freebies at the end of the month, they were mostly the same old stuff we get. Almost like someone gives you ice cream and all they ever do is offer you vanilla. It isn't about the value, it is about the usage, all that free junk keeps stacking up. I stopped in the Winter Fest and same stuff, but they no longer offer my mount, same old thing there as well. With nothing else to do, I return to my job search. Have a Happy Festival of Lights everyone.
Just killing time...
I think scaling probably was the number one fun killer / devalued the other end game dungeons we had. Tong codg fbi all became kind of pointless. it felt like the reward table got nerfed heavily and having it at a different difficulty level with scaling just feels bad. 70. Fun DEAD..
the earlier dungeons than that now take too long for hte HAMSTER rewards and are definitely not fun.
I never enjoyed Lomm.
Fe's me's etc.. so repetitive.. so not fun. the strain on the eyes with those terrible grey areas and the irritating traps. no good items to be able to trade. I honest to god preferred fishing. at least that was super profitable. so were the regular hunts.
currently I'm playing fallout. that has a limited shelf life for me. I want to love this game because i don't really have anything else to play but in all honesty I'm one strand away from leaving and not coming back.
I should stress here that the vast, VAST majority of people in my alliance are not avid dungeon-runners; we are casual and social gamers and for most their time is too limited to devote to lots of dungeon-running. I'd be lying if I said that the changes in the name of dungeon class balance haven't REALLY rubbed them the wrong way. It should come as no surprise that they feel demoralized and have lost their desire to play as they kind of feel like persona non grata for the sake of making people like the dungeon-running BiS crowd happy.
It's wrong, guys. It's just plain wrong.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Three years now and I've never participated in the winter whatever because I'm always burned out by the end of summer. Right now it's a real drag just logging on to invoke and collect my key. Last year I missed out on hundreds of keys cause I just couldn't be bothered at all.
To be fair though, I feel like this with any mmo. Gave Destiny 2 a go a couple weeks back, and I'm already sick of it - only go back now and then to hear Lance Reddick talk.
Can you imagine if this was in the the table top version? What level is your character? 2? 13? 20? Oh, it doesn't matter. You face goblins "of your level + 1". Btw, their rusty daggers are much better than your vorpal sword +10 because... scaling!
OR, you enter the goblin lair and are reduced to being level 1 again. Hope you didn't bring a long sword.
Queue Goblin Slayer combat music.
Its funny but it seems we both are on a pretty same boat. My guild almost collapsed. We had a mix of BIS and completly new players on board and despite hard attempts to keep our community informed and prepared for MOD 16 - it was too much to handle for most of us. And no matter if we talk about new player or BIS veteran, all of them felt stripped from their efforts, and ways they played this game.
Lets be honest here - MOD 16 literally took everything from every one.
And what it gave back in return, was far from what most of us expected.
And when I see new faces on Cryptic, or new community staff, or sudden initiative to create "a new channel of communication", or sudden focus on "content creators" who was here since day 1 but was never treated by Crytpic in the way they should, I feel digust.
All of that is just a huge smoke screen, a propaganda to cover a real Neverwinter condition.
Actually in fact its worse then you think. MOD 16 was supposed to be a game savior. We were told that game came to the wall where without serious rework, devs wont be able to create a new content. And that was- partially a truth. But a real reason was to change this game to make it as easy to mantain as possible.
Players were supposed to pay a price for devs comfort in runnig this game. It failed.
Players are in general not happy with the changes, while devs.... well MOD16 didnt worked out for them either.
Despite a change this game is still too complicated for Cryptic developers to make it working. And i takes even longer then pre MOD 16 to adress even a minor bugs.
On a side note: Any1 wanna bet that we wont see any rework of underperforming classes due to @asterdahl's mistake in mechanic? It all end up in bandaids like we see on Figher dps build proposal - but nothing else. Forget any serious changes or substantial reworks.
My VIP will run out in a couple of weeks - not sure If I should prolong it any more cos in last 6 months I menaged to collect about 90 keys in total.
I had some hopes connected to MOD 18, but so far I see no reason to give it a try. With @mimicking#6533 out of a picture I can assume that all his promises about changes in guilds etc, are gone with him.
It seems that I will join to a long line of players who loved this game, but felt rejected and decided to go away.
Cryptic gona be happy - another old grumbler will be gone and his - so dangerous - knowledge, experience and wealth acumulated for all these years will be gone with him.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
I am having a bit hard time to pinpoint what the actual problem is. It is not really the nerfs, the nerfs would make some disgruntled players leave, but if they were successful the rest of the players would be happy. It also is not the grinding, grinding is and will always be part of an MMORPG, if you cannot stomach the grind, find another game type. It is just not possible for the devs to produce content fast enough to avoid grinding.. but it must be grinding with a reward and a purpose.
Some thoughts on what is missing now:
* Lack of progression - you get your kit from UM and bang, you are more or less good good to go for everything in game but LoMM and ToMM. There is not much to work towards, and for instance the progression ladder that is boons is completely sidelined. And that progression must be enforced in the sense that you need a certain IL to be admitted to zones so it is not other players that kicks you out(that creates bad feelings). Most admission IL requirements today are way too low.
* Lack of interdependency - since most buffs went away, players to a very little extent depends on each other. This is most noticeable for tanks and healers.. tanks dont get to play their roles since people run ahead, and healers are really not that much needed. The defenses for the dps classes should probably be bumped down significantly to make the group dynamics work better. It will be interesting to see how the rating bump for 18k to 35k will work out. Maybe introduce a few -20k defense +10k power items
* Tomm was a disaster. It obviously is a big hit for the most hardcore small group, but for most players it is beyond reach. And that means there is a small group of players that enjoys a 20% dps advantage that the rest never can catch up to. I was expecting weapons with mod 18 that would match the base damage of ToMM weapons but with less effects, lessening the gap somewhat. As it is, the progress-to-BiS game is meaningless for all but the few hardcore ToMM runners, as the weapons will always mean you are far behind no matter how well geared you are otherwise. ToMM has placed the goalpost too far out and turned off and away a far bigger almost-BiS playermass than the relatively small group that is running it.
* Lack of challenge - there really is not much challenge progression in game: You go Completely trivial -> Lomm(that is not that hard) -> ToMM(beyond reach for most, because it needs a regular group, voice, and very high gear requirements)
The 'feeling' in the old game and with the old areas was completely wrecked up with mod 16 and the failed experiments with scaling. They failed to understand that yes, people want challenging content, but they also want content they are done with to be easy and done with.
The big fundamental problem seems to be that NWs dev team has been seriously reduced, so they have a very reduced ability to make things now. Mod 18 was disappointingly small even if they spent 2 months extra on making it.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
* Make the boons progression worthwhile again by at least doubling the IL gained from boons.
* Increase the admission IL requirement for dungeons by much more than what the IL increase from boons indicate, create a progression ladder of dungeon access. Most dungeons can have a 2-3k requirement IL increase as they are. You can also increase the rating of a few dungeons to make a more defined progression ladder.
* Make roles more defined to establish more interdependency in dungeons. Take away some dps class defenses, dps class defenses are too high in the dungeons today so tanks and healers are less needed.
* Make roles more defined by making classes chose between dps and survivability. Introduce -20k defense + 10k power items, so people can chose if they want to hit hard or survive(or rely on the tank/healer...).
* Mitigate some of the damage from ToMM by making weapons with ToMM base damage available outside ToMM, but with lesser effects.
And this really needs to come with mod 18, I don't think you have time to wait for mod 19...
I'd leave instantly if regular content was so hard I had to group up with people just to complete it. I really love that I can do 99% of the game solo. As it is, I think changes need to be made for Tales of Old, as it was way too time consuming, and difficult(on xbox anyhow) to get a good group that would stick together for 5 runs.
P.S. Don't be grumpy, you old players, if some one tanks or heals bad. Or have low DPS: Give him nice advice - advice from he can learn something. Not that one - you're bad or you don't know. Even if you failed public "dungeon".
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Honestly, if I hadn't built up all the VIP with prior year drops during things like Winter Fest (2 years to go still) I'd visit much less frequently.