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Why NW Might Win The Battle But Lose The War
autumnwitch
Member Posts: 1,141 Arc User
I’ve really been thinking about Mod 16 as of late and I think I know where they want to go with the new Neverwinter but I think it’s problematic but not for reasons many people may think.
First off, before we get into specifics we need to establish a few hard facts of life.
* Neverwinter, as it is now, is a sinking ship otherwise these new changes would not be so severe. I think the dev team is really, in all sincerity, trying to make it better. We should be more sympathetic to what they are trying to do. Really.
* With Mod 16 NW will lose a ton of players. There is no getting around that. Depending on what studies you read the loss will be between 30 to 70 percent of the player base but that in itself is not specifically a bad thing. It is, for lack of a better term, trimming the fat because, as harsh as this sounds, if you are not spending money, the powers that be don’t want you playing. You are a drag on the system. The real issue is how many of the 10-20 percent of players that bring 80% or more of the game’s revenue will stay and how many new players will spend. (This issue is really important and I will speak to below more in depth.)
*The devs and system people do not make the big decisions about the direction of the game. The C-level (upper management) corporate suits do that. That is not to say the devs don’t have input (that is very important and taken to heart) but at the end of the day, the bean counters call the shots.
*The purpose of Neverwinter is not only to make money but to make profit. If this doesn’t happen, the game goes away. Cryptic is not a charity. People need to buy Zen for the game to stay viable.
Now, that that is out of the way, we can get more into why I think NW is in real trouble of sinking with Mod 16.
As I said above, people need to spend real money to keep NW afloat. We all know this. This is not a surprise.
I will admit, I don’t know for sure, but I suspect, in the past, there have been only a handful of Zen items that bring in most of the revenue. They are, in no particular order, mounts, companions, coalescent and preservation wards, keys, and to some extent level tokens. As well as people cashing in Zen for AD to purchase things that they can only get in the AH.
Now, in the past, these items have been very significant to the success to our characters. Usually, when we purchased a new item, there was a definable and immediate improvement in our character’s combat or other non-combat mechanics which gives us that reward feeling in the happy centre of our brain. This is, in fact, why we spend money on attaining them in the first place and herein lies the issue with Mod 16's profitability, as I see it.
If you look at the items I listed above, that has historically brought in so much revenue, there is a new common thread amongst them. They have all been nerfed into the ground as far as how much they affect our character.
The devs have mentioned, many times that mechanics in M16, are going to be more inherently important than just flat stats. Indeed, they have taken away many of our ways to affect stats so we will focus on mechanics. Which is all well and good expect, then so much of reasons (motivation) we need/want items such as mounts/companions/enchants are not nearly as immediately rewarding.
In the past if you slotted a new high end item, it was like wow! I can do this or that so much better! Now however, the devs have said in M16 these things will not have nearly as important (read as rewarding) affect on our characters. So why buy them? Or should I say, why buy them as often?
In the past, there was a real, almost visceral, need to upgrade that weapon or armour enchantment. But now? Meh.. Will it be worth it? Or, will it be worth spending real money instead of just waiting to get enough AD to do it for free? I don’t know but from what I have seen, played and read about M16, I have serious doubts.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a population of NW players that will probably spend like the old days but with the population that will drop off after M16, NW will be dependant on new players to a certain extent.
Now imagine being a new player. You have never played NW before and you go ahead and buy some Zen so you can have that shiny new mount or companion but once you have it, was it worth it?
I can tell you the first items I purchased as a new player made such a big difference I was like, “Shut up and take my money!”. But if I was that person playing post M16 for the first time? With as hard as it already is starting out in M16? I would seriously doubt my willingness to spend/invest more in items that don’t seem to make that much of a difference.
So, if this is their actual model to save NW, I’m more than a bit worried. Is it sustainable? Because no matter how great they make it technically, it has to be two things. One, it has to be fun (especially to a new player AND those who stay after M16) and two, it has to be rewarding enough to get people to spend real money.
Will it be? What do you think?
First off, before we get into specifics we need to establish a few hard facts of life.
* Neverwinter, as it is now, is a sinking ship otherwise these new changes would not be so severe. I think the dev team is really, in all sincerity, trying to make it better. We should be more sympathetic to what they are trying to do. Really.
* With Mod 16 NW will lose a ton of players. There is no getting around that. Depending on what studies you read the loss will be between 30 to 70 percent of the player base but that in itself is not specifically a bad thing. It is, for lack of a better term, trimming the fat because, as harsh as this sounds, if you are not spending money, the powers that be don’t want you playing. You are a drag on the system. The real issue is how many of the 10-20 percent of players that bring 80% or more of the game’s revenue will stay and how many new players will spend. (This issue is really important and I will speak to below more in depth.)
*The devs and system people do not make the big decisions about the direction of the game. The C-level (upper management) corporate suits do that. That is not to say the devs don’t have input (that is very important and taken to heart) but at the end of the day, the bean counters call the shots.
*The purpose of Neverwinter is not only to make money but to make profit. If this doesn’t happen, the game goes away. Cryptic is not a charity. People need to buy Zen for the game to stay viable.
Now, that that is out of the way, we can get more into why I think NW is in real trouble of sinking with Mod 16.
As I said above, people need to spend real money to keep NW afloat. We all know this. This is not a surprise.
I will admit, I don’t know for sure, but I suspect, in the past, there have been only a handful of Zen items that bring in most of the revenue. They are, in no particular order, mounts, companions, coalescent and preservation wards, keys, and to some extent level tokens. As well as people cashing in Zen for AD to purchase things that they can only get in the AH.
Now, in the past, these items have been very significant to the success to our characters. Usually, when we purchased a new item, there was a definable and immediate improvement in our character’s combat or other non-combat mechanics which gives us that reward feeling in the happy centre of our brain. This is, in fact, why we spend money on attaining them in the first place and herein lies the issue with Mod 16's profitability, as I see it.
If you look at the items I listed above, that has historically brought in so much revenue, there is a new common thread amongst them. They have all been nerfed into the ground as far as how much they affect our character.
The devs have mentioned, many times that mechanics in M16, are going to be more inherently important than just flat stats. Indeed, they have taken away many of our ways to affect stats so we will focus on mechanics. Which is all well and good expect, then so much of reasons (motivation) we need/want items such as mounts/companions/enchants are not nearly as immediately rewarding.
In the past if you slotted a new high end item, it was like wow! I can do this or that so much better! Now however, the devs have said in M16 these things will not have nearly as important (read as rewarding) affect on our characters. So why buy them? Or should I say, why buy them as often?
In the past, there was a real, almost visceral, need to upgrade that weapon or armour enchantment. But now? Meh.. Will it be worth it? Or, will it be worth spending real money instead of just waiting to get enough AD to do it for free? I don’t know but from what I have seen, played and read about M16, I have serious doubts.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a population of NW players that will probably spend like the old days but with the population that will drop off after M16, NW will be dependant on new players to a certain extent.
Now imagine being a new player. You have never played NW before and you go ahead and buy some Zen so you can have that shiny new mount or companion but once you have it, was it worth it?
I can tell you the first items I purchased as a new player made such a big difference I was like, “Shut up and take my money!”. But if I was that person playing post M16 for the first time? With as hard as it already is starting out in M16? I would seriously doubt my willingness to spend/invest more in items that don’t seem to make that much of a difference.
So, if this is their actual model to save NW, I’m more than a bit worried. Is it sustainable? Because no matter how great they make it technically, it has to be two things. One, it has to be fun (especially to a new player AND those who stay after M16) and two, it has to be rewarding enough to get people to spend real money.
Will it be? What do you think?
Boudica's Sisters - A Guild For Introverts
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Comments
If I don't feel like anything makes a meaningful difference in progression what incentive exists to spend $RM on the game. There must be a business model driving the changes but it eludes my 15 years of playing MMO's, my economics degree and my MBA.
Certainly it is possible that I am blinded by my disdain for the new game mechanics but I have attempted to think clinically about this and gotten no where. Normally, I would be selling the parent company stock short at this point but PWE is exclusively listed on a Chinese exchange I am not comfortable doing business with. They de-listed NASDAQ in the recent past. There is a lot off opportunity selling short against hype. Just go take a look at EA stock last year (pre and post battlefield release).
I don't know any actual numbers, but I will not argue the 20% of the players pay 80% of the income, but the rest of the 80% of the players are not a "drag on the system". Those 20% alone are not enough to create an ecosystem. You need a mass of people to group, to drive the economy, the socialize and in large to become an incentive to catch-up by paying.
Removing too many of that segment will crash the game, essentially the same way as removing the paying segment.
About the second point, I would disagree. There is a tendency to blame too much and excuse too much due to incorporeal management. From all their blogs, streams, and any insider glimpses this is not how it works. They are a standalone subsidiary and as long as it's profitable, it is its own manager.
On the inside, each title (Neverwinter in our case) group works the same way, as long as it works as expected, it works.
Each subgroup, systems, software, QA, etc.. have their own lead.
In this overall concept, you have a meeting, usually by the relevant leads (or all of them), where issues are brought up, and prioritized. The on a followup meeting, solutions are 'pitched', presenting what is wrong now, how you can improve it, how long it will take, how many resources needed from each department.
For example, one such meeting around mod 12-13 can be "Professions sucks", "we can allocate some time for it towards mod 15", then a new, one or more, design is proposed which will take some UI design, some software changes, and a lot of systems time. It's pitched, some changes probably proposed, iterations, further refinement of ideas, until eventually it's 'signed' bottom to top, systems, lead NW and it goes into the schedule.
Higher will oversee, but I don't believe there is that level of micromanagement that warrant that level of blame. The idea is more of, if too many things fail, leads replaced.
So they all part of the decision making process, they all have responsibility. It is true, that not everyone will like they decided outcome, or 'voted' for it, but still the group leads are those responsible for those ideas and their implementation.
Bean counters do not understand counter-stats, class balance, group content, vs zones, etc.. It's not their job, their interest is the bottom line. Retention, income, and expenses.
Mostly though, I think people overreact. Neverwinter is going to keep on keeping on, y'know?
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
And technically is a fail.. and a big one.
Game in preview atm is full o bugs exploits and things that dont make sense at all.
Will be taking them months and months to fix everything.
That is never gonna happen cos, as we know, in all theese years they were never able to fix simple bugs and issues that still persist in the game atm.
often results have nothing to do with intent.
Jade - Cleric - Healer Main - The Freak Core - Xbone
Magnus - Fighter - Tank for queues - The Freak Core - Xbone
Loverboy - Ranger - Alt - 9 3/4 Unbuffed - Xbone
Nomnomnommm - Wizard - Alt - Droppin Crits on Fools - Xbone
I Am The Wall - Paladin - Alt - Droppin Crits on Fools - Xbone
Xeros - Rogue - Alt - 9 3/4 Unbuffed - Xbone
RIP bad name - Warlock - Alt - 9 3/4 Unbuffed - Xbone
Bardholomew - Bard - Alt - 9 3/4 Unbuffed - Xbone
Sirona - Cleric - Alt - 9 3/4 Unbuffed - Xbone
Jade - DC - Shadows of Gauntlgrym - PC
I have a ton of long time gaming friends so, I tracked one down for an experiment. This person has a considerable amount of gaming experience with MMOs and SP based games. Way more than me actually, but has never played Neverwinter just by chance. But he has played most of the major MMOs over that last 15 or so years. He is also quite knowledgeable about D&D.
What I wanted him to do was to get a first-hand experience at playing Neverwinter both Mod 15 and Mod 16 and see if maybe his experience would be a better gauge of the two systems.
So, this was the parameters. First we got him set-up on the preview server and went trough the process of CC and all that. We choose a Wizard because, like me, he as always preferred “magic users” in MMOs. And (although I didn’t tell him so much) Wizards are pretty squishy in NW and I wanted him to live through one of the tougher classes to start from.
Without boring you all with too much details, he played from the beginning to a decent level (well into the double digits) to where he had a few mounts, companions and all that. He also did a number of runs with other players.
His impressions? He loved Neverwinter, the place. He loved the stories and campaigns and all that. Loved the look and feel of things and albeit, it’s wasn’t cutting edge technically, it was more than entertaining enough from that POV. However, his thoughts on actually playing? Three words that kept coming up, tedious, boring and unrewarding.
He pointed out that it never felt as if he was getting better, as in more powerful. Even though he got all the best gear he could from playing, he never felt, even with new spells/abilities, it made that much of a difference. Sure new spells did more damage but because the scaling was so severe and cool downs were so long, he never enjoyed his new equipment/spells because he never felt more powerful. It was the same slog over and over and the rewards were extremely lacklustre. He said a few times, playing “just wasn’t fun.”
Next, we got him set up on the current (Mod15) version. Same class and we tried to keep the variables as close to the first run as possible. We ran him through the same level he did the first time.
The results this time? He loved it all. While playing he kept saying, “Now, this is more like it!” and “This is how a fantasy MMO should be!”. Matter-a-fact, we had to drag him away from it to ask about how he liked it compared to the first version.
Basically, he said, there was no comparison. He did agree the MOD15 version was more confusing in a few ways, even a bit overwhelming at times, but as the fun factor went, the MOD15 version was off the scale compared to the MOD16 version. He even said he couldn’t believe he hadn’t played before and was going to keep playing. (As a side note, I got no less then 10 messages from him later asking me stuff about the game because he was still playing it the next day!)
Sadly, he said now that he had played MOD15 version, he had little to no desire to play the MOD16 version.
Admittedly, this wasn’t a scientific test and it was only one person. So, as far as how valid it is concerning our worries about MOD16? I don’t really know, but it is serious food for thought.
Your story doesn't really offer up anything in the broader scheme that hasn't been said already. And you kind of threw your friend into what you essentially knew was a broken mod that is still undergoing many changes.
It's not only unscientific, but wholly subjective. As such it's not much of a meal to waste much though on.
I also question how much you value this friend since you decided to subject him to Neverwinter in any form
It if were made into either a more strategic MMORPG _or_ a more action oriented game to target people who grew up with action based games (including those of other genres) it would all make a lot more sense to me. But Mod 16 is more like taking the pace from Dark Souls and the strategy of a Musou.
Now, I am hoping things will improve before this goes live, because otherwise there is a risk of some players leaving for some other, less boring game,
Then, the game continues, the players come in, the money starts flowing, and the challenge of creating a 'brave new world' slides into that of 'tweaking things to make them better, or adding something a little new this month to keep players engaged'. At this point, real visionaries and designers and creators tend to start getting bored, and the 'bean counters' tend to start making noises about 'why are we keeping all these expensive people on staff when they aren't really needed any more'?
(By the way, bean counters and management do not set the tone of game changes in any dev company I am aware of... they may set targets and issues directives like "we need 50% more cash shop items", but they have nothing at all to say about things like "You know, rolling your stats for each character just isn't efficient. Stop that." But they do greatly affect ongoing game quality when they say "Hey, we need to cut staff costs by 20%.")
After a while, the creators are gone, the designers are gone, the guys who can really make the code work are gone... and you are left with the crowd that just cut-and-pastes old code, copies it forward, makes some tweaks, and can't even get the new code to count to 10!
(An odd thing is that while losing the above people, most games manage to hang on to quite good quality art, environment, and visual design people. Apparently everyone thinks if it looks cool, it will sell.)
You get left with a team that thinks "Lets trim all this old stuff we don't understand anyway, and just make things simpler. Simple is good, right?". You get left with a team that thinks advertising "New profession system with over 200 unique artisans to choose from!" will sell the game, and that people won't notice that 120 of those '200 new unique' artisans are completely useless and will be rejected every time they show up, again and again and again, asking for a job. (+200% Commission combined with -50% speed? Yeah, I hire a lot of people like that...)
D&D has always been about 'making your character'. He may not be perfect, he might not be min-maxed, but he's yours and you built every part of him. Remember how well all those official D&D pre-made generic character sheets sold? Yeah, me neither.
Well, now we all get, free, official, pre-made, generic Neverwinter characters. Which we can play in the new, official, pre-made, generic "Just Like Your Friends!" combat system. And you can select from among 200 New Unique Combinations of Mount/Companions/Boons/Feats, of which only 10 are actually valid, and those 10 are all "More of the Same!(TM)". Compete with your friends to see who can be the Most Same! Run dungeons with other Same-Alikes and all do the same things at the same time! It will be awesame!
(Please note: Hyperbole provided free of charge as a public service. You're welcome!)
I feel like a lot of players forget that video game companies are private companies and-at least in America-the legal obligation of a corporation is to the shareholders, which means maximizing your ROI.
*Well, no, not really: there are other stakeholders, and it's troublesome that America's corporate structure requires a fiduciary duty to shareholders as the ultimate concern, but I don't wanna get too political.
s
Probably not especially HELPFUL feedback, but feedback.
Basically it says:
MOD 16 gives far less incentive to spend money (or grind for AD) because
- the options to significantly improve your character's performance with a couple of purchases do not exist any more
- this might take the "fun" aspect out for many players, because there is no way to "speed up" the terrible grind that lies ahead every fresh (new) player via intelligent choices.
In MOD 15 there have been a couple of "high benefit" purchases (from AH or Zen shop), that my dps toons have bought or were looking forward to get, such as:
- unparalled weapon enchant - effectively doubles dps
- Razorwood companion - significantly improves dps up to 30% (depending on improvements I already have)
- Legendary mount - combat power can provide significant boosts in many circumstances
Similar "high benefit" purchases exist for support classes.
In MOD 16 the intent is to "level the field", which has the effect that character improvement will be nearly linear.
This might or might not be intended.
However, it will have the following effect:
In MOD 16 the main "source" of character improvement will be, to bring the 30+ "normal" enchants to max-level, because companions and mounts and weapon/armor enchants only provide very small improvements compared to a full set of maxed "normal" enchants.
The problem with that is, that it has taken completely the fun out of playing, to the extent that I am not sure if MOD 16 will be worth any effort (=playtime) at all. And this is not just a theoretical concern. It already happened, as far as I myself am concerned, because I have virtually stopped playing on live, and I rarely play on preview because it is so terribly frustrating.
I do not see any reason why I should grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and ... and grind for minimal results. A game must be enjoyable, and that is an emotion. My gut (emotion) tells me very clearly, that MOD 16 will be far less enjoyable than MOD 15.
I cannot play long enough to even hope to ever get to bis-IL with one of my characters. But via intelligent choices concerning companions, gear and mounts I have been able to come within ~50% of near-bis players. MOD16 will likely put me at 20-30% effectiveness compared to a bis-player. I already found the grind in MOD 15 almost unbearable. It is absolutely obvious, that MOD 16 will be a far larger grind. My gut tells me, its not really worth it. Of course, my gut feeling might be wrong, so I will look into MOD 16 when it goes live and will take a final decision then.
It is rather obvious: For those players that
- have 24/7 free time,
- have enough time left to post on the forums, and
- that do not mind the mindless grind, because of their huge stock of free time
MOD 16 will not be too much different than MOD 15.
The question is, are these players the main source of income, that will keep the game running?
And if not, will the players that actually are the main source of income be enthusiastic about
- having all intelligent choices taken from them
- replaced by a monumental mindless grind that is - rather obviously - required?
So while individually many changes do make sense (stat rework, streamlining feats & boons), it doesn't really add up for the whole picture... playing the same game and content except it feels like you're level 1. Even if things go well we won't have new dungeon, skirmish & trial or raid made for Mod 16+ limited design at least for another year or 2.
If they want to succeed on Switch they need to make weapons breakable
Spending money will not help you to be able to compete with elitist or older players. Spending money will give you enchants that are meh, it will give you mounts that will not help, it will not help you get into end game content in fact this EXP ONLY rubbish is killing the game.
They should for the first month remove private q and in my opinion group q'ing too. this will force bis players to help lower il players. In my opinion Blind PUG q is much more fun than running with a team that will melt the content. but sadly again the wrong people are being listened to and those people are just out to look out for no 1
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
Q's are broken and will ever remain broken. Sadly they should have thrown out Q's along with everything they lobotomized from the prior 15 mods. Unfortunately what we have left in MOD 16 does not look sufficient to hold onto the player base. It is just too dumbed down. Too simplistic. The illusion of choice has been removed. How anyone can think this is a winning strategy is beyond my imagination.