Lack of game experience is a problem

mentinmindmaker · October 2019

For RTQ and REQ, lack of game experience is a problem. We get players that have very low gear, that have no idea of basic tactics, that have very little game experience. Lots of wipes are caused by green players that should experience more of the game before they join those.

I would suggest to raise the bar to enter RTQ and REQ somewhat. That would give us a more experienced playerbase, both wrt. game time and gear.

There should be a requirement to have 20 boons to enter REQ.
There should be a requirement to have 40 boons to enter RTQ.

Yes, you get can around this by buying campaign completion, but not everyone does that. And if people do, I am sure Cryptic would appreciate the income

tassedethe13 · October 2019

I think they just should make a proportionnal scaling first so if you have lvl 80 caps you still have it at level 60, then buff the green players ...

oldtimer · October 2019

Buying out campaigns should not have been made possible if you haven't completed the campaign 100% the normal way already in the first place.

I don't think a boon requirement would fix the problem, there needs to be a ton of different requirements before you are eligible to play higher level random queues. New / inexperienced players should be eligible for LESS content, not more.

zimxero · October 2019

mentinmindmaker said:
For RTQ and REQ, lack of game experience is a problem. We get players that have very low gear, that have no idea of basic tactics, that have very little game experience. Lots of wipes are caused by green players that should experience more of the game before they join those.

I would suggest to raise the bar to enter RTQ and REQ somewhat. That would give us a more experienced playerbase, both wrt. game time and gear.

There should be a requirement to have 20 boons to enter REQ.
There should be a requirement to have 40 boons to enter RTQ.

Yes, you get can around this by buying campaign completion, but not everyone does that. And if people do, I am sure Cryptic would appreciate the income

I agree that Random trial queue IL should be raised.

REASON: This is a timed ten player trial. We are seeing a lot of failing missions in which players evacuate. This causes fresh players to get loaded into the failing instance. It is not much fun to get thrown into Tiamat with eight minutes remaining and only one of five dragons brought down. When this happens, the player wastes the consumables they have fired up.. with no chance of a win, can't abandon, and must wait for the mission to fail before entering a real queue.

My suggestion would be up the RTQ by 2000 IL and also add CODG into the mix, for variety.

For dungeons not included in the Random selections... how about adding a special daily completion reward for them.

Castle Ravenloft: 10,000 rAD
Lair of the Mad Mage: 15,000 rAD
Tower of the Mad Mage: 20,000 rAD

Unknown · October 2019

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zimxero · October 2019

i agree Mag... but the AD conversion limit is there to protect us against organized farming and external cash resellers.

I just took my tank into a Random epic orcus dungeon. It was rather pathetic that the tank gets 28 million damgage, while the rest of the team combined gets 24 million damge. We need separation between the top two tiers of randoms, but carrying the whole dungeon is ridiculous. {so cryptic doesn't get a hair to nerf tank dps... let me point out that top end DPS characters double my damage output in LoMM}

Recommend:

Random Epic Trials: +2,000 IL
Random Advanced Dungeons: -500 IL, but 25 boon points are required
Random Skirmish queue: consider doubling the acorns rewarded from Manycoins Bank Heist. It is the hardest skirmish and has low rewards.

poliel · October 2019

problem isn't lack of experience but lack of knowledge how to communicate. or lack of will.

sandukutupu · October 2019

What we need is a 30 minute IQ test before anyone enters any random queues.

You will never learn to do something until you start. Blocking people is not the answer. I have always been dead set against the idea of keeping players out of content based on item level. So how do you fix a broken system like random queues in Neverwinter?
Stop bribing the high level players to run low end basic content. Playing a dungeon should be fun and not a chore. Low end dungeons should reward low level players only and high level players should only venture into these dungeons to assist them. Higher level players should not be blocked from low end content either, just not bribed to perform it.

I stopped playing the random dungeons because of the following reasons;

One high level player (only there to snag the AD) would rush ahead and expect all others to keep up.
Serious lack of ability to chat with other players for instructions or to instruct them.
Repetitive content lacking any purpose other than gaining rough AD and XP.

Back from 2013 to 2015, I ran dungeons because we enjoyed them. The content was new and rewarding. Those dungeons are gone and replaced with poor clones or offered up as "new content" in Tales of Old. Instead of giving a perpetual item grind, I would like to have seen more new dungeons offered over the last 6 years. Instead of Random Queues, I would love to see Random Dungeons, as in, the dungeon is unpredictable and formed new and different each time it is played.

I understand the issues of wasting time in queues, just to get your teams wiped or losing to the person who isn't even trying. This has always been there with PUGs (pick up groups) and it won't go away. You can't expect players to magically gain knowledge without trying. People who are new need to try and fail before they can succeed.

lordtweety · October 2019

Having the requirement of finishing a campaign to unlock a dungeon was fine. If you want to run Malabogs Castle, you finish Sharandar. It IS the final part of that zone after all. Same goes for all the other dungeons.

This shouldn't block a person for doing randoms - they just don't get dungeons they haven't unlocked. If the experienced players had to unlock the dungeon via completing the campaign, why does a new player not have to?

This kills the problem of new players not knowing how to play. Also helps teach mechanics because a fair number of dungeon mechanics are learned through doing the campaigns. And they have the boons as well.

So an Alt might not have the boons, but it's an alt and you can make the assumption they have run it on their main at least.

It also makes it a little harder for bots and other annoying HAMSTER bags who are there for the free ride.

It seems to be a win-win from my perspective. But my perspective is coloured.

plasticbat · October 2019

lordtweety#3604 said:

This shouldn't block a person for doing randoms - they just don't get dungeons they haven't unlocked. If the experienced players had to unlock the dungeon via completing the campaign, why does a new player not have to?

If RQ is changed to take away certain dungeon character has not unlocked but still allow to do RQ, I can see people can use that to skip 'bad' RQ dungeon.

Can one 'craft' a character (intentionally not finishing certain campaigns) for the sole purpose to only run one or two particular easy dungeon from a RQ group?

i.e Taking out the random from RQ.

lordtweety · October 2019

plasticbat said:

If RQ is changed to take away certain dungeon character has not unlocked but still allow to do RQ, I can see people can use that to skip 'bad' RQ dungeon.

Can one 'craft' a character (intentionally not finishing certain campaigns) for the sole purpose to only run one or two particular easy dungeon from a RQ group?

i.e Taking out the random from RQ.

Good point, and you are totally right. I can see that happening with experienced players, but not with new players. New players aren't going to necessarily know a dungeon is terrible until they unlock it and run it. And that will only be if experienced players tell them. Or, they are bot farmers, which nothing really is going to stop them, they just work out new ways to bot farm.

But that might work in players favor anyway, as we would mostly be getting the faster and more worthwhile dungeons.

jules · October 2019

lordtweety#3604 said:

plasticbat said:

If RQ is changed to take away certain dungeon character has not unlocked but still allow to do RQ, I can see people can use that to skip 'bad' RQ dungeon.

Can one 'craft' a character (intentionally not finishing certain campaigns) for the sole purpose to only run one or two particular easy dungeon from a RQ group?

i.e Taking out the random from RQ.
Good point, and you are totally right. I can see that happening with experienced players, but not with new players. New players aren't going to necessarily know a dungeon is terrible until they unlock it and run it. And that will only be if experienced players tell them. Or, they are bot farmers, which nothing really is going to stop them, they just work out new ways to bot farm.

But that might work in players favor anyway, as we would mostly be getting the faster and more worthwhile dungeons.

The solution is already in the game: dungeons that are account-unlocks.
I mean, theoretically, an experienced player could also create an account to make sure all they unlock is edemo and what the hell else, but if they go the extra mile for that, pls just let them.
Really.
For everybody else, they will unlock most dungeons on their first character anyway. At the harder dungeons, they already know how it works and can make the decision for that themselves.
For more incentive, lock the dungeon with a boon.
I can see myself totally skipping an Omu boon if that means I will never have to see a random codg.

I would actually find this really enjoyable.

For the new players: There are a mass of dungeons they wouldn't unlock in the first place, because they all haven't done that much campaigning. MSP, FBI, Codg, even Tong.
Let them all run Lomm, if they don't want to play the game.

lordtweety · October 2019

The thing is though, for a random queue all you need is the ilvl. No experience needed. No knowledge of game mechanics needed. Heck, you can almost do it without a keyboard. Just hotkey/macro some mouse buttons and set follow on some poor dupe, sit back and drink coffee.

That's the type of scenario in which having the campaign completed before unlocking that particular dungeon in the random queue would start to favor real players. If all we got was edemo because no one was unlocking msva for example, who would complain?

(I know, someone will always complain.)

schietindebux · October 2019

I really would like to post a screenshot in this thread. 10 player lying repeatedly dead on the floor at thiatmats white head, smashing their buttons instead of walking out of read area... due to this bahaviour the run was lost

propulsion · October 2019

mentinmindmaker said:
For RTQ and REQ, lack of game experience is a problem. We get players that have very low gear, that have no idea of basic tactics, that have very little game experience. Lots of wipes are caused by green players that should experience more of the game before they join those.

I would suggest to raise the bar to enter RTQ and REQ somewhat. That would give us a more experienced playerbase, both wrt. game time and gear.

There should be a requirement to have 20 boons to enter REQ.
There should be a requirement to have 40 boons to enter RTQ.

Yes, you get can around this by buying campaign completion, but not everyone does that. And if people do, I am sure Cryptic would appreciate the income

you shouldn't be soo quick to judge those players(as) they are most likely new to the Neverwinter games and trying to get a feel for the controls etc. so you need to learn some respect in that regard and actually be patient instead of jumping the gun and talking bad about new players like this w/o even talking to them and offering to help them etc.

schietindebux · October 2019

propulsion said:

mentinmindmaker said:
For RTQ and REQ, lack of game experience is a problem. We get players that have very low gear, that have no idea of basic tactics, that have very little game experience. Lots of wipes are caused by green players that should experience more of the game before they join those.

I would suggest to raise the bar to enter RTQ and REQ somewhat. That would give us a more experienced playerbase, both wrt. game time and gear.

There should be a requirement to have 20 boons to enter REQ.
There should be a requirement to have 40 boons to enter RTQ.

Yes, you get can around this by buying campaign completion, but not everyone does that. And if people do, I am sure Cryptic would appreciate the income
you shouldn't be soo quick to judge those players(as) they are most likely new to the Neverwinter games and trying to get a feel for the controls etc. so you need to learn some respect in that regard and actually be patient instead of jumping the gun and talking bad about new players like this w/o even talking to them and offering to help them etc.

I don't feel respect for player ignoring anything like big huge aoe zones repeatedly again and again and again, dying in a row 10 times doing so. And instead releasing and rejoining the fight, they press for help endlessly 10 times in a row, expecting teammates to join them inside that oneshooting aoe zones at tiamat.
This has nothing to do with a learning process.
Maybe I rant about player running bots inside RED. If so cryptic please take care of it.
Beside all this, the Itemlevel-system is completely HAMSTER, where I can join any queue I want on my junk Barbie at 17k+ IL and stats that make me me feel ashame tbh.

jules · October 2019

@lordtweety#3604 I completely agree.

Imo, this could solve other issues:
Players with many/all campaigns completed wouldn't feel punished/not rewarded enough for running all the campaign content, for example, if rewards were not just adjusted to time spent in the dung/skirm/trial but also to the time spent on unlocking it and the difficulty of mechanics, for example (which I don't see at all in RQs now?)

Randoms are a core issue, as they are now even more so. (Tanks/Heals capping by ~2 random runs, neither of them endgame or endgame for the last mods?) Other than running dungeons for certain events/times there is not that much use of it now, not that good of an decision when ppl are already waiting for a new mod again.

tribbulater · October 2019

Kinda agree with @sandukutupu here: If high IL players weren't entering low level dungeons to get the rewards, zooming through them and dashing to the end and then starting kick actions to remove the slowest player from the team, maybe some of those 'newer players' would have a chance to learn how to do dungeons rather than just follow a high IL players heels.

So sure, bump up the requirements for high level randoms, and remove too-high IL players from RLQ and RIQ.

mentinmindmaker · October 2019

tribbulater said:

So sure, bump up the requirements for high level randoms, and remove too-high IL players from RLQ and RIQ.

Well.. I have the feeling that that removing the high-IL crowd from the low RQ actually already is taking place in reality. Currently you get your 100k by running RTQ and REQ, there is no need to run the lower RQs. And the few times I have run a low alt through those, it feels like that is what is happening. A lot less high-IL people carrying the run and people to a much larger degree needs to work for their AD(and thereby gaining game experience).

The problem arises when those low-experienced and low-geared people also are unhappy with the low AD and signs up for RTQ amd REQ, which they have neither the gear nor the game experience to run.

A core principle of mmorpg's is you have to work for your progress. Currently it feels in NW like you level to 80 and immediately are allowed into the most challenging stuff. There is no real progress requirement - the required IL is way too easy to get.

By requiring boons to access RTQ and REQ you would bring back some progress requirements, and give people a reason to run campaigns again. Since the boons are fairly weak, there really is not that much reason to run the campaigns at the moment.

Unknown · October 2019

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tribbulater · October 2019

I am fine with having a gatekeeper requirement for running higher level randoms, although personally I don't think boons would do the trick. There is really nothing in most of the boon campaigns that teaches you what you need to know for running the tougher randoms.

In The Secret World they used to have an actual 'Gatekeeper' mission to unlock the harder dungeons. You had to run it solo, and you had to demonstrate enough awareness/ability at various mechanics as well as a certain amount of DPS delivery in order to complete it.

If not that, then it could be something like 2 successful runs of dungeons X and Y unlocks RTQ, 2 success in dungeons W and Z unlocks REQ. That still doesn't prevent someone from getting carried by his guild or friends and then running dungeons without the necessary skills, though.

marvyn · October 2019

I'm sorry but setting artificial hoops - e.g. number of boons acquired - to unlock random dungeons will not solve the problems.

The campaigns are basically an extension of the levelling process. There's little to nothing in them that teach any new player about their chosen role in group content.

And this also isn't about a lack of knowledge of a particular dungeon.

The problem with players at maximum level is not so much about lack of experience, but the wrong sort of experience.

If you're a tank and you do a few levelling dungeons to learn your role - how to mitigate damage, keep aggro - it's completely pointless. Whatever group you are placed in can power through the content leaving you little opportunity to learn your class and role. Same for healing.

It's no wonder that you then get players at maximum level - gifted a set of gear at the start of the Undermountain campaign - who are unable to deal with the basics of group content.

callumf · October 2019

marvyn#9793 said:
I'm sorry but setting artificial hoops - e.g. number of boons acquired - to unlock random dungeons will not solve the problems.

The campaigns are basically an extension of the levelling process. There's little to nothing in them that teach any new player about their chosen role in group content.

And this also isn't about a lack of knowledge of a particular dungeon.

The problem with players at maximum level is not so much about lack of experience, but the wrong sort of experience.

If you're a tank and you do a few levelling dungeons to learn your role - how to mitigate damage, keep aggro - it's completely pointless. Whatever group you are placed in can power through the content leaving you little opportunity to learn your class and role. Same for healing.

It's no wonder that you then get players at maximum level - gifted a set of gear at the start of the Undermountain campaign - who are unable to deal with the basics of group content.

Yes this.

I agree 100%.

Players aren't taught their role properly through levelling NOR the mechanics of specific content.

i.e. Random Trials q

Svardborg - I have run this with randoms 6 or 7 times - no win so far. For game content over two years old this is stupid that we cant complete it. Destroy the frozen permafrost on players, avoid big red splat areas and hide from the icy blast. I have yet to be in a PUG that gets even close to finishing.

Tiamat - its about a 25% success rate IF you get players who know to trim the heads first run, avoid dragon breath and use the protection stones properly. Also I tank the dragon heads standing shield up to protect as many toons as I can. Do other tanks do this?

eDmogorgon - its about 75% success rate if you get a decent amount of DPS. I tank Demogorgon, aggro him and keep my shield up and taunt him. Sometimes DPS come over and try to kill him and take aggro and get squashed.

SO frankly in a PUG its pretty hard at the moment. Some rewarding runs, but mostly failures that aren't fun and waste time.

Getting 10 players co-ordinated isn't always easy, lack of experience, players ignoring chat, players ignoring instructions/help, language problems sometimes and also not enough item level AND scaling back of higher item level toons contributes to an unpleasant taste in the mouth when running the Trials.

darthpotater · October 2019

Now Random Queue is a Lotto for new players. They queue. If the rest of the group is good, free 50k AD. more chances to win in trial because there are more players. The game should be more progressive to get AD.

This game needs a teaching system that gives rewards both the teacher and the new characters. I dont know how it should be done, for sure not something that the teacher carry you through a minidungeon.

Should be something that involves some class knowledge ... Hard to do a not abusable system but well, I feel the new players need some help.

asterotg · October 2019

First of all, I play for fun and I dont feel obligated to carry ignorant and illgeared players.

This is no magic, but basic mechanics. These are some of the basic rules, that get ignored. Tanks should tank, healers should heal and dps should deal dmg. Red area, get out of it. If you are ignorant of the mechanics, READ the advice of other players. It is not your fault, if you dont know mechancis, when you run a dungeon for the first time, but you have to be really dense, if you run a dungeon for weeks, in 4 of 5 runs someone explains the basic mechanics and you still play like an idiot.

Besides these basics, there a a few more points, players have to know:

Tiamat: 5 on the left side and 5 on the right side. Get a sphere and use it. There is no more to it.

SVA: After the fist phase, get behind the pillars. Get ppl out of the ice. Dump AoE areas away from your group.

Demigorgon: 1st phase: One tank and heal on the boss. The rest opens purple portals and kill the critters. 2nd phase ignore charges or aim for yellow portals, CWs, dont use repel. Dont tank or pull mobs into the wells.

If anyone says, it is to much to ask your party members, to know this few basic rules, good for you. I for one, would prefer the old dungeon rules, when you did build your own group and were able, to kick AFK or ignorant players.

lantern22 · October 2019

Everybody is a newb at some stage, shouldn't be too hard to help/carry a new player every now and then. No need to be nasty about it.

Not everyone has played a MMO before, or knows that you can use Utube to learn a Dungeon mechanics. Not everyone has a guild or Alliance to help them out when they first start. etc. etc. etc.

Having said all that, there are some tests of reasonableness that need to be applied. If players refuse to listen to advice etc. then patience has it limits.

hexngone · October 2019

Much of the frustration of unprepared players in PUGs is brought on by the mechanics in place to allow existing players to quickly level their alts to approach their main. I understand the need, but for those who have not yet traveled through all the quests on all the levels and done all the campaigns, the mechanic works against them. In many cases the XP mechanic also works against the game mechanics too. Dungeons and skirmishes removed from the various areas have also disrupted the story lines and are still not 'cleaned up' (as in text removed from dialogs inviting players to join said skirmish/dungeon) by the developers.

Examples:
If you join a guild and want to aid the stronghold by doing 'Doing the Rounds' and 'Doing Your Part' quests, you will be shoved out of the level to do the quests by the XP granted for completing either one of the quests.

At level 11 you are encouraged to invoke, if you do, you will quickly be higher level than the quests you are trying to complete.

At mod 16 the Journal was modified to make any linkage between sub-60 area and a dungeon disappear. Other than a final quest in each area, there is no indication that a specific dungeon 'completes' the quest story. This was all done when the Third Eye/Sybilla tokens were removed from the areas and provided for completing the Orb quest. The list of quests given by Knox is also *not* in order of difficulty/level, so new players are a bit lost.

One of the most educational skirmishes for new players was Illusionist Gambit. The random sequence of battle 'puzzles' taught evasion, health management, importance of the tank/healer/dps roles, and provided companion gear to lower levels who just got their companions. All that is now gone.

When the introduction of Ravenloft and access to gear in Barovia *without pre-requisite skills* pushed low skill players into higher level content without completing campaigns/boons. That was repeated with the Mod 15 AI campaign starting at level 15 and the current undermountain 'free gear'. All of these mechanisms, while helpful for existing players bringing in their alts, has devastated the experience/skill level of the players allowed into mid-late level content.

Item level doesn't represent experience or skill. Character level (if XP creep is removed) does but needs to extend into the post-lvl 70 areas to be meaningful. Gating with boons as proof of campaign completion would help as suggested above. Buyout packs should only be offered to existing players (or perhaps be double the price for new ones). The change to level 80 should have been a conversion of IL 9000-25k into levels 71-120 so 'level' is consistent and reflects progress through the game quests/campaigns rather than gear score alone.

Otherwise the developers have done a great disservice by modifying the game to trivialize the majority of the existing content and made the game less fun to play (as in the satisfaction of earning your level) and more disruptive to existing players (all the discussion of unqualified pug participants).

msharp95 · October 2019

Hello everybody,
one of the early posts mentioned an education system, another game which I ll not bother naming, has a system that teaches you your class role its prity simple and could prity easily be brought into the NW environment.
when you reach the point where you have to do your first Dun you have to do a set of missions which teach you the basics of your class.
in this case tanks learn the powers/skill to use to aggro the boss to move the boss and so on,
healers learn to remove "affects" and to keep a single and then a group alive
dps learn to do damage on a single target, move out of the red zones, such

there are say 10 missions each one is a simple short instanced fight that covers various mechanics it starts simple and then ends with a Mini dungeon with a group of npc's and depending on your class it puts together than 9 other mission in a single run to make sure you understand them I ve never failed to do it but I suppose if you did you would probably have to go back and re learn "that aspect". This could be a good way to teach basic mechanics. Whilst it wont solve many of the other issues mentioned it is a possibility to help in at least a small way.

dionchi · October 2019

mentinmindmaker said:
For RTQ and REQ, lack of game experience is a problem. We get players that have very low gear, that have no idea of basic tactics, that have very little game experience. Lots of wipes are caused by green players that should experience more of the game before they join those.

- snip -

Players get game experience by running content and watching how veteran players navigate and use character mechanics when they play and this experience begins in the lowest leveling queues where new and low level players run with veteran players and can watch and learn from more experienced players.

Of course that's nearly impossible when some veteran players try their damndest to run ahead of the party, confront mobs on their own or ignore them leaving mobs for following players, often with less experience, skill and knowledge of tactics and mechanics.

Ultimately some players are complaining about a creature of their own creation...

If some veteran players run ahead of their party in lower level queues, think it is beneath them to take the time to travel with their group and show or even suggest proper tactics and mechanics to lesser experienced players, they shouldn't be complaining about whole group of players who don't understand "how to play their characters"

Just my opinion~

Unknown · October 2019

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gonzakotwi · October 2019

> @magdalena#1708 said:
> RAD?
> Who needs more RAD?
> I wonder what genius was behind the communist idea of 100k RAD for everyone?
> Do you want to work more , better, smarter? You can do it but your salary stays the same.
> In fact- we pay you to work less.
> That worked so well in history that some genius brought it to the game.
> So the AH will get higher for some items, so what? It will go as high as players want to pay and not more.
> .

Stalin would be proud

Lack of game experience is a problem

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