Greetings from the Mimic King

mimicking · September 2016

Greetings adventurers, Thomas “Mimic King” Foss here. As the new Lead Designer on Neverwinter, I wanted to introduce myself to all you dungeon dwellers, give you a bit of background on myself and my dreams for Neverwinter, and more importantly to get to know you as well.
First off a bit of background on me and how I got here; I had the privilege of designing the demo quest for Neverwinter and pitching it over 7 years ago. Since then I’ve been on and off the team as a content designer and content lead creating zones, dungeons, skirmishes and PvP. I’ve moved on and off the team onto other projects such as Champions and Star Trek to help them ship, or get onto console, as well as prototyping other games that didn’t quite make the cut… or have yet to be seen… but my heart has always been with Neverwinter. And now I’m back!

But what you really probably want to know is, ”what’s my angle, my skin in the game?” Pretty easy, really. I can sum it up in one sentence. Let’s tell stories. I’ll be honest, I’m not a full on numbers cruncher when it comes to maxing out gear and stats (but we do have people on our team for that!) I’m a story teller, and have been working with the awesome Neverwinter team in creating stories and continuing stories from yore (fancy word for “when we launched”) in which you can adventure. I’m not talking full dialogue trees, but rather stronger story lines that give you more background into the world, how it’s changing, how you – the adventurer- have changed it, opening up new opportunities and catching the eye of larger dangers to Neverwinter and beyond.
Additionally there are many things I’m working to improve upon.
• Dungeon Revamps
• Powers and class Balance
• Strongholds
• PvP
• Professions
• and of course more Mimics
Now comes the fun part. I’ll be doing an “ask me anything“ live stream on Friday the 23rd at 2pm PT where we can get to know each other better. Andy has posted a blog announcement below. In the meantime, I’d love for you to prime the pump and ask questions here. I can’t promise to get to all of them on stream, but I’ll do my best.

Thanks again for being a big part of Neverwinter, and I look forward to our adventures together!

http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/10166833-developer-stream:-q&a-with-lead-designer,-thomas-foss

strumslinger · September 2016

Welcome back to the team, Thomas! With great power comes great responsibility

kolatmaster · September 2016

Welcome! Hope you're ready for a crazy ride, and I look forward to your work improving upon what Neverwinter has to offer!

hustin1 · September 2016

Question: Do you have any plans for the Foundry? For example, there are still no costumes for any class introduced from Mod 1 and beyond, there are still numerous bugs in the editor, and numerous features that we have requested. Also, as it stands today, there is no incentive for players at large to play Foundry quests.

panderus · September 2016

Question: What is your long term plans with Mimics and Mimic related activities?

Unknown · September 2016

This content has been removed.

arbitrarity · September 2016

I second Hustin's question. The Foundry is a tool with an enormous amount of potential in NW, and making incentives to run Foundry quests seems almost trivially easy. Optimally, I'd love to see a seal system with redeemables including Stronghold vouchers, bound artifact/resonance RP, perhaps some campaign currencies. Jiggle the seal rewards based on average mission time, maybe a minor bonus for tipping/reviewing, and you could have a beautifully rewarding system for only slightly more effort than it takes to set up a vendor.

lewstelamon01 · September 2016

Welcome. Please make sure to collect your +6 Plate Mail of the Red Dragon (Legendary grade) to protect you from the many, many flames you may receive. Also, your standard issue roll of bubble wrap is over there....

sudp · September 2016

Is it possible to make player detection more realistic? If feels very strange and inconsistent overall when most of the time 'enemies' I can see don't react at all or if I make a lot of noise from fighting or making things go boom, they don't go to investigate. (Let alone I can't imagine how I must smell sometimes or to some of them.)

beckylunatic · September 2016

Nice avatar.

I have listed to a D&D podcast interview with you, and I think it really came across that you are passionate about this game.

So... there are probably two major things that keep people hanging on to NW no matter how much various development decisions have made us feel kicked in the teeth.

One of those is the combat system. For all the balance issues over the years, it still feels really great and dynamic and people who drift to other games have constantly reported that there's little comparison.

And the other thing is, for lack of a better term, an emotional attachment to how the game makes us or made us feel, particularly back "when we launched". The sense of wonder, adventure, and heroism. Unveiling the stories. I think @commanderander is a smashing storyteller when he has room to push the limits of what you can do in an MMO and with this engine. He's the content designer with whom we've had the most direct content, so he gets to be our example, but he's done some great work. The Maze Engine story quests seemed universally well-received. He's really skilled at commingling humour and weight. But so much is buried and lost in grinding. Farming yet another bucket of RP stones doesn't feel very heroic, but the game is increasingly built around grind your equipment, grind your boons, and just when you think you're done, go back and grind the same stuff because your stronghold needs about a million times as much grinding as your characters ever did. You loved your alts? How unfortunate for you....

I think you said you worked on Ebon Downs (among others), and I have to say, the village was heartbreaking if you were immersed in it. So many lives lost, and the haunted and haunting remnants there to be uncovered. The quest with relighting the hearth fires was exemplary. The ghosts, the snapshots of moments of joy and grief, and knowing that we'll never actually know what we're witnessing. This kind of experience is what drew many of us in the first place. But it's been so lacking for so long.

There are a lot of us that care about stories, or did before so much other "must-do" stuff got dumped on our heads.

And yeah, Foundry. Stories again.

torontodave · September 2016

Question: Will you play my featured foundry quests? I mean - players have no incentive to play them, so here I am - begging for plays. (or perhaps incentive?) They're quite fun. Lots of people say "more fun".. Check the reviews.

2nd Question: Whats something from the original design that you wanted to finish, but were never able to due to time constraints?
[i.e. unfinished spellplague room?, achievement rewards?, etc, anything that never fully made it to alpha/beta builds?]

3rd Question: What are your foundry plans?

mredo2 · September 2016

Are u gonna close neverwinter pc version next couse u are fighting bots and u cant fight bots on so many fronts like ps4,xboxone and pc all at one? or maybe we will get something interesting like foundry and gateway oh wait both of them closed down

maybe before some useless stuff like mimic, stronghold with its breaking pvp boons, only 2 maps of pvp and your breaking balancing when u look at pvp and break pve or u are looking at pve and that way breaking pvp, we will get something so ppl wont be only quiting this game or only playing for like 1-2 months max.

ironzerg79 · September 2016

Here's a thought. A big part of a D&D character's background, story and personality hinge on a couple things: How you look and where you live.

So when are we going to get some revamps to the character cosmetics and appearance system so we can all create genuinely original looks for our characters, and what are your thoughts on player housing? It seems to be like the Foundry is a great tool for player created content, and seems to be the perfect framework for giving your average Joe a very powerful "home instance" creation tool that they can use to build their own little story in Neverwinter.

obsiddia · September 2016

Can you please have a storyline that develops over time? With the current modules
you get the main intro, then dailies/HEs, then the final dungeon.

For instance, why did Cimber have the Ring of Winter to begin with? If he's that
special, why is he not helping? He wonders aloud how they knew how to find him,
but I'd like to hear his guess. What was the cocoon, and how'd they take the ring
if he was sealed in it? Really, how'd they take the ring off his finger without
killing him? Why are goblins trying to defrost dead dragons?

Perhaps everything is answered in the final dungeon, but that's not very satisfying
while grinding 100s of dailies, 100s of HEs praying for lanolin to drop.

(A few side stories developing wouldn't hurt, either)

Unknown · September 2016

This content has been removed.

dupeks · September 2016

Hi @mimicking#6533 and welcome!

My question is: how do you feel about the level of communication and channels that have been used to engage with the community regarding bugs/issues, upcoming features, and the general long-term vision of the game? More specifically, should we expect any change in how issues are announced and discussed, or will it be similar to how we've come to expect it over the years?

I'm trying not to make my question sound negative, but you can probably tell I'm hoping for an answer that indicates some internal awareness about communication lapses in the past and a commitment to improving the dialog with the community in the future.

I think that's one thing that has been sorely lacking over time, and a new captain at the helm is a good opportunity to reengage and rebuild the relationship.

Edit: every game has bugs and challenges. I strongly believe that if you are transparent with the community about your intentions and progress, we can be your allies in improving the game rather than just an angry mob yelling at every decision.

beckylunatic · September 2016

ironzerg79 said:
Here's a thought. A big part of a D&D character's background, story and personality hinge on a couple things: How you look and where you live.

So when are we going to get some revamps to the character cosmetics and appearance system so we can all create genuinely original looks for our characters, and what are your thoughts on player housing? It seems to be like the Foundry is a great tool for player created content, and seems to be the perfect framework for giving your average Joe a very powerful "home instance" creation tool that they can use to build their own little story in Neverwinter.

Hah.

I'd like to see a working fix for the background bug, seeing as how we are all once again convinced we're Battle-Scarred Veterans of the Dalelands.

nightranger7477 · September 2016

Hello Mimic King and Welcome,

My question is regarding the plans for continued class balance. Which classes are you currently considering for balance and what do you feel is the number one issue that needs to be addressed to stop the trivialization of current and future content? ITF rework was a nice start but nobody should be able to run the most difficult content in game in a matter of minutes even at BIS. And also what are your plans for the fact that several classes in this game are completely not even considered in any end game party due to their lack of viability. (Healers)
Thank you for reaching out to the community and I personally look forward to hearing more about your vision of the future of Neverwinter.

genjundead · September 2016

seals from SCA runs, damarian shepherd, lightfoot thief, loyal gear, daily dice roll, ease of professions, certain guild mechanics

what will happen to these?
when do you plan on adding them to game?
where will we be able to acquire them?

do you actually have any plans on professions? or are you waiting for some of us to give a great idea?
mimic? i would love a real mimic in game, not the lame frost mimic but a real one; one that has the damage, attacks, abilities, survivability of a real mimic in game. so what do you mean more mimics?
what sort of dungeon revamps are you thinking of?

genjundead · September 2016

silvergryph said:
Silvergriffon's Holistic Suggestion Agency

OK, so Gateway is gone. We've lost some QoL stuff, and some items no longer have a home. Here's all my suggestions on the topic, many of which echo or resemble those that others have already given.

Short Term Workarounds

Add Companion Gear and Lightfoot Thief to the Trade Bar store. If you don't want to make them that easy to get, then create a recurring event instead of leaving them in there all the time. " The Lightfoot Thieve's Guild has been hard at work again and some of their best loot is available in the Tradebar Store for a limited time. You could even obtain the services of one of their members if the price is right!"

" Tbar store already makes it hard to get "

A Double RP event would be appreciated as well.

Long Term Suggestions

Professions Re-work: It's time to add some serious QoL enhancements to Professions. It's also a good time to encourage the use of ALL Professions again.

" i agree it would be nice to benefit from getting all professions to max "

Professions and Bound RP

There has been a growing fear lately that you are going to make all Profession RP BtA. I offer a compromise. Make the BtC Containers that the stones come in usable as RP directly, but you can choose to open them to share or sell the unbound stones inside. The catch is that using the character bound container will be a better return on average than you will get out of the stones inside. For example, I suggest that a Resonant Bag could be used as 4,000 refinement points. Opening the bag has a chance to give you a blue stone worth 5,000 RP, but is much more likely to give you a green one worth 2,500 RP or a gray one worth only 500. This will, on average, increase the amount of RP a character can gather for themselves while still making a supply available on the AH or to share. Artifact Paraphernalia bags would grant 4,000 to any Artifact whether it be Power, Stability, or Union.

" a very interesting idea +1 "

Nodes and Resources
Remove Mount Insignia from resource nodes. See Leadership, below.

Remove rare (blue) and epic (purple) profession resources from resource nodes.

Add bounty and campaign currency items appropriate to the zone the resource nodes are in.

Add uncommon (green), rare (blue), and epic (purple) profession resources to the bounty, campaign currency and maybe seal vendors (based on zone or content level).

" that will make nodes useless then, i like having a reason to buy the kits for the nodes (first bullet) "
" i don't quite understand what are you saying here (4'th bullet) "

All Professions
Add "Collect All" Button.

Add "Repeat" checkbox next to the Collect buttons, including new Collect All. This would attempt to re-queue the same task using the same assets. It would require interaction with the button though, not be an infinite repeat button.

" +1 to this, make accepting and restarting the same tasks a little easier "

Leadership

Revamp Leadership to actually reflect being a leader. Rewards should be relevant to those you lead: your mounts and companions. Leadership should not be the primary way to upgrade your gear when we have other Professions that are specifically about gear.
Remove RP tasks from Leadership.

Add tasks that reward Companion XP Tomes.

Add tasks that reward Companion Upgrade Tokens.

Add "Mounted Combat Drill" task that rewards containers with random Mount Insignia inside.

Add "Dead or Alive" tasks that send soldiers into various Zones to collect the Bounty items for that zone.

Add a "Recruitment Drive" task that rewards a container that holds a random Event Companion, including a chance for the Lightfoot Thief.

Add tasks that reward the same Bags of Goods that drop from Quartermaster's enchantments. (Donate to stronghold or open for goods.)

" add a way to gain a tier of rewards so that higher tiers can earn higher quality rewards. like if you have enough for tier 3 you have a chance for epic mount insignias, tier 2 for rare, tier 1 for common "
" would be nice to improve the ways to gain the companion upgrade tokens "
" not bad but i think this should only be active when the event companion is up, perhaps a way to improve would be... rare task: event. chance to drop event companion, drops medallions of battle, and a rarer chance at lightfoot thief and damarian shepherd (make shepherd a blue drop)"

Alchemy
Add a task that rewards Thaumaturgic Bags.

Artificing
Add a task that rewards Artifact Paraphernalia bags.

Jewelcrafting
Add tasks that reward "Gemstone" RP (Sapphires, Pearls, Rubies, Peridot).

Leatherworking/Tailoring/Mailsmithing/Platesmithing/Weaponsmithing
Add a task that rewards Resonant Bags.

" move the artifact paraphernalia bags to jewelcrafting or make the artifact paraphernalia bag gained frmo weaponsmithing and artificing "
" i think weaponsmithing and artificing should give a bag that has a chance drop for cubes of augmentation and a guaranteed drop for resonance stones "

Longer Term Suggestions

Account Panel

Create an account panel that shows all your characters, like the guild roster. Select any character to do all of the following:
Manage the professions queue of any character.

View the character sheet, mail, and inventory of all characters.

VIP accounts get a fully functional version of mail as if at a mailbox.

VIP accounts get an Account Bank tab.

VIP accounts can move items and gold from any character's inventory in and out of the Account Bank.

Also add AD to the Account bank for VIPs so they can move or consolidate it without the ZAX.

SCA Mini-Game

Make Sword Coast Adventures a mini-game playable in game. Possibly launched by interacting with a Well-Informed Harper since they tend to hang out in taverns where one might play games. If it's too server intensive, maybe make it available occasionally as an event.

" or make 2 npc's in the moonstone mask (one inside vip room and one outside- or none outside and make it a vip treat; you will have tons more players buying vip then.). keep npc's by a counter or table with a board game nearby, let us interact with the board game to teleport us, so we don't stand their using the space blocking others from use it too, can teleport us to one of the spare rooms inside moonstone mask or at the door entrance. once we are teleported a window will open that lets us play SCA. just an opinion "

" comments in yellow ", +1 to the post
" +1, +1, +1. give us more reasons to get vip, cause right now its not been worth it really, 1 enchanted key a day which always gives me lame loot. "

silvergryph has great ideas and here is one from the forum gateway closing.

theguiido · September 2016

What sort of things will you be doing to PvP? New mods and maps? and what will you be doing on Class Balancing in the future?

greywynd · September 2016

obsiddia said:

For instance, why did Cimber have the Ring of Winter to begin with? If he's that
special, why is he not helping? He wonders aloud how they knew how to find him,
but I'd like to hear his guess. What was the cocoon, and how'd they take the ring
if he was sealed in it? Really, how'd they take the ring off his finger without
killing him? Why are goblins trying to defrost dead dragons?

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/The_Ring_of_Winter_(novel)

zebular · September 2016

An obsidian black parchment magically appears and unfolds before you revealing ancient elven-written words in white letters that shift to Thorass for common reading:

"Oh great Mimic King, well met thee are!

Yer humble Lord, I do beseech thee... as Mystra is back in the Realms, evident by what we encounter in the Well of Dragons, why is Mystra nay a deity choice for thy newcomers to the City of Neverwinter on its Official Roster and what are thy plans to fix the disparaging small list of deity choices the people are presented with? Surely this is a religious injustice that ye can mend with ease by having a discussion with the pretender.. I mean "Lord Neverember."

Safe travels,
~Archmage Zebular Ilyturials, Terraseer of Mystryl

P.S. This parchment is actually a Lesser Mimic Scroll and once ye turn thy gaze from it, its magical restraints shall unbind it. I hope ye enjoy this pet gift, M'lord... I call her "Eyebiter" and finding her was no easy task, so say the least. Do mind yer eyes, she gets a bit nippy. I do suggest to feed her imp eyes... indeed. They seem to calm her and I find them in abundance around Helm's Hold, albeit attached to imps.

The Realms are known for their gods and goddesses, having such a small and outdated list is quite disappointing to lore-fiends and hard-core Forgotten Realms fans like myself. For example, Amaunator is once again called Ilmater. It would be nice to have a full deity choice and the ability to re-choose our deity afterwards.

blairre · September 2016

Leadership is fine just make the tasks take longer with a bigger reward since they screwed us over with the gateway

vteasy · September 2016

+1 to what blairre said.

question on radiant damage that was introduced with Lion mount/companion. Are there any plans to add more items that add stack of this or is it one and done with that lockbox? Personally i like the idea of having items that add that damage maybe mixed with other stats

dragoness10 · September 2016

1) When can we have a player designed/suggested mount and/or companion?

2) When can we get more wings, PLEASE? (Fairy is very old by now. Fashion item is fine.)

3) Would it be possible to get some of the VERY old Featured Foundries taken out of circulation so other Authors get a chance? ("Tired of Being the Hero" whilst it was good back in the day, has has it's day I think.)

4) I think the last PvP "pug only" que was alright. It was an interesting concept. However, when is 1 vs 1 PvP going to be in a Que?

Those would be the top 4 questions from me. Thank you.

Unknown · September 2016

This content has been removed.

iandarksword · September 2016

@mimicking#6533 First, welcome and congratulations on your new position. I'd like to add to those calling for taking another look at the Foundry. I've always considered the ability to create and share stories with your peers, whether that be at the tabletop or through the digital means, an incredibly important part of the Dungeons & Dragons experience. Those of us in the Foundry Community simply seek to tell those stories, and with a greater selection of up to date assets (gear, clothing, creatures, objects, maps, etc.) could create quests that could best compliment the current content that the Neverwinter team has produced.

zeatrex · September 2016

- Question -
When are you guys planning on adding the ability of disable weapon/armor enchants effects? I'm sure this has been asked/told time and time again in the past and yet... We are still without it. Are you people planning to ever adding it, please tell me you aren't going to wait six years like the Star Trek Online staff does to add things that should of been in the game at the very start!
¬.¬"

coolcarcrash1 · September 2016

Welcome (back) Mimic King!

How about the AH?
There seems to constantly be problems with bots trawling the AH and controlling certain items.

Why not look to systems like the Market in Eve Online? You already have the mechanics in the AD/Zen Exchange.
I've never liked not being able to put up an offer for an item, this way you'll get a nice flow in the market, and ensure that bots doesn't profit as much anymore.

-Stump

whyrat · September 2016

What are your thoughts on power creep? Right now the difference between a well geared (and well build and well played) character compared to a more "average" build is literally an order of magnitude.

Right now you can see one player out damage the top 4 others combined in places like eDemo. Or players soloing epic dungeons. Is this the sort of scaling you intend for the game? Specifically at issue seems to be certain power combinations, with various classes have their "golden build" that vastly outperforms others. There's also certain item combinations... the pre-fix lostmauth set comes to mind; but still in the game are things like the shadow demon / owlbear cub, which have certain interactions which seem to not be working as intended (or at least, not to scale with other companions). Another example would be bonding stones which carry a very high price, but eventually bring *significant* benefits beyond any "regular" runestones.

Related to power creep are also the campaigns; with each giving ~1K stat points, ~1-3K HP; and some other utility choices... but since we're now sitting on 7(!) campaigns [Sharandar, Maze Engine, Dread Ring, Elemental Evil, Icewind Dale, Tyranny of Dragons, Storm King Thunder] the baseline for stats keeps bumping up... and each time the old content then becomes a little more trivial.

The most obvious impact of all this is on PvP; where tenacity gear is thrown into the mix as well... leading to undergeared players being *quite literally* useless against well geared ones.

Greetings from the Mimic King

Comments