I would still try and add SOMETHING to the dungeon to make it worthwhile to continue farming it even after we get our weapons. As I have seen others mentioned off of this forum. When we help other players get their Lionheart set from ToMM we are still getting ToMM loot in the meantime. Once I get my weapons and there aren't any other drops to get from this Trial that I cannot get anywhere else I don't even want to help other players do it it's not worth my time and effort teaching people this trial. Also if mastercraft is making a comeback those weapons will be BIS, their set bonus is bar none especially if they will have the same weapon damage compared to the Trial's, if the weapons do not have the same weapon damage you're only going to continue driving the end game players away from your game.
Hey devs, just wanted to thank you for not giving too many rewards for the new trial, for all the reasons you mentioned in your comment about that. I completely agree with you, good job, and I hope you'll keep it this way and won't make it another thing you have to do 8287718172826 times every day if you want to make a profit, like tomm.
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
edited June 2020
@asterdahl you were reticent to add BoE loot to ToMM but finally changed it according to feedback.
It worked very well and still today, there are training groups for ToMM and groups running it even if the prizes are very low.
Why wouldnt you want the same for the new trial? Is so problematic to give players rewards? The best content and satisfaction in this game was like this, since the first dungeons and CN. Then the game started a spiral of Binding items and most of the dedicated players lost interest.... until ToMM arrived.
I really try to understand your decision but I cant. The ONLY reason that comes to my mind, is that players who farm this trials dont spend a dime in the game. I doubt is the case, and still, if you can sell the items, other players will buy that items, some with real money.
Fully agree with you. To be honest in the last mod there has been too much effort in providing content (and rewards) for endgamers and way less for more casual players. The top end dungeon/trial should feel like an achievement, not something you farm. Farmable stuff should be one step below.
So just because the content is for endgamers the loot should not even be looked at? How would you like it if running randoms gave no rough AD, no seals and absolutely no drops? Would you still run it because you might be running content you havent completed before? And would you keep running it? If the endgame is not desireable then what is there to work towards? The reality of the situation is that most endgame groups have already stated they will not run the new trial if the loot does not improve. Is this not enough of a reason to shake things up?
Instead of being afraid that players outside of the endgame category will get upset over the new trial and its rewards, why not cater to both groups and make both versions of the trial desierable and farmable? Why does it always have to be one way or the other? As someone stated, the trial is beautiful and a tough challenge, but it kind of goes down the drain when there is no inscentive to keep running it. I believe I speak for a lot of players when I say this needs to be addressed because many feel discouraged and disappointed by the last statement that was made in regards to the loot.
For now, we do hope that the power and status of having a superior weapon is something that can continue to feel good for tackling the most challenging content successfully.
My reaction to essentially being told that the reward for completing difficult content should be a sense of pride and accomplishment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY9cSFRBzJc If I was into conspiracy theories here I would swear that what was going on is that one of the devs are deliberately setting up a trial to fail to make the argument that there is no reason to have hard content in the game going forward. That, or there is some person up in management who doesn't understand how challenging content should work in relation to rewards, because I cannot believe the person who designed this actually has this philosophy and they are being forced to just go with it.
The difficulty becomes that if those loops feel essential, they feel very punishing for those who cannot participate in that harder content.
The irony is you are failing at this to begin with. The only items that make it "feel essential" to complete hard content are the items that can't be acquired by simply buying them on the auction house. The people that can't run ToMM had the option of buying the rings, they do not "need" to run ToMM for rings. They cannot buy the weapons, so if they want the weapons the compulsion to farm ToMM until they have them exists. The weapons still exist in the new trial and thus the reason for it being "essential to run" effect is still there.
And if this is about the fact that some people (those who can farm) profit more than those who can't, so what? Those who manipulate the market profit more than those who don't manipulate the market, I don't see anyone suggesting that people should be equalized in that area. If you put in the effort, you should be rewarded more. Petty Jealousy is not a good reason to make changes like this and anyone making the argument, "If I can't get something nobody should," should do a bit of introspection and maybe improve as a person.
An achievement is only an achievement the first time you do it and it is purely about the journey to get there, once you have got there, once the journey is over, there is no reason to repeat it. If you want people to repeat it, you need to make there be something worthwhile at the destination.
However, we do appreciate the feedback, and are examining ways in the future we could provide ways to encourage more repeat play of challenging content for those so-inclined.
Even if you don't want the rewards to sell power, you want them to be purely cosmetic, it could work if the cosmetics look good and are unbound and unobtainable elsewhere. For example, if you gained 1 token per run and for 20 tokens you could buy an "alternate art" skill, for instance a Celestial Terrain (Icy terrain but with a celestial effect) then people could farm the trial to buy those to either use or to sell. I can think of quite a few endgame players who would want special cosmetics, especially on skill effects and would be willing to grind for them. Especially if they could sell them.
For now, we do hope that the power and status of having a superior weapon is something that can continue to feel good for tackling the most challenging content successfully.
I am fairly well connected within the community. I won't pretend I speak for everyone, but I can to some degree represent the interests of a small subset of the playerbase and in particular, I can represent the interest of the type of player who wants difficult content. I looked at their reaction to being told they were to run the trial with only the weapons to show for it and here were their responses:
My group - Won't run it.
My guild - Won't run it.
The Holy Crusaders - Won't run it.
Loothochdruck - Won't run it.
The groups in Lazy Roy's Discord channel - Won't run it.
Some of the larger groups on Xbox and PS4 - Won't run it.
This is a survey of ~200 of the endgame players in Neverwinter. The people who DO want content like this. They are telling you, if you do not change the rewards of this trial this trial will fail, because the people it is intended for won't run it. Now, I don't know how many endgame players Neverwinter has (nor do I know how many players complete ToMM) but I do know that even if we assume this sample represents even only 1% of the total people interested in this type of content, it is still somewhat of an indicator.
it's okay if once you have the primary reward from the content you don't feel the compulsion to farm it continually.
"At our restaurant it is ok if customers never come back, so long as they enjoyed the dish once." This sounds like a failure of a business model to me.
In addition to all of that, you haven't addressed the real issue, which is the thing which will doom this ideal to failure before it even starts and that is the cost of running the trial. In order to have any hope of finishing the trial, you need to surpass certain stat thresholds. This means that if you are not already at those thresholds, you are going to need to invest in your character. Of the people in that list above, I would hazard a guess that at most 20-30 of them can swap around gear to achieve those thresholds on the live server without it costing them anything (myself included). For everyone else on that list, they will need to spend AD in order to become trial viable.
For a lot of players, the amount of AD they would need to invest in order to become trial viable is not insignificant, we are talking conservatively 20-30 million AD, which means that if you are not recouping your investment somehow in the process of running the trial (through selling something that is acquired in the trial), then these weapons and this "sense of pride and accomplishment" essentially has a 20-30 million AD price tag.
There are very few players who are willing to spend that much AD on what is essentially a status item. There are even fewer players who are willing to spend that much on a status item, who will also be able to complete this trial.
Most of the feedback I can submit for the trial has already been posted by other players, so I'm not going to go into that. The trial needs to be harder, and it needs a way to not be a waste of resources. What I do want to say, is that if you indeed want to follow the "it's okay if once you have the primary reward from the content you don't feel the compulsion to farm it continually." path, don't waste your time on making adjustments to phase 5 or the rest of the trial. Realistically, you're not going to make the trial hard enough that keeps the endgame groups occupied for a large portion of the mod, so that beating it is an actual achievement and a journey to be enjoyed. Most likely, the Trial is going to be cleared in the first couple hours of being available on Live, assuming there are 10 players willing to spend the resources needed to clear it on Live. There really is no point tweaking and polishing a Trial targeted to end-game players, that's not going to be played by endgame players. Dev time would be better allocated into projects that actually fulfill their purpose and meet the requirements of their target audience.
To continue the dialogue about the proposed rewards and to add on to @thefabricant post - I'm in an end game guild and the general agreement is, if the current rewards make it to live, to get the weapons for guild, friends, alts and head back to ToMM. I think there have been multiple valid suggestions which won't impact power creep made which will add some desire to replay the trial. I do hope that you're listening.
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
To continue the dialogue about the proposed rewards and to add on to @thefabricant post - I'm in an end game guild and the general agreement is, if the current rewards make it to live, to get the weapons for guild, friends, alts and head back to ToMM. I think there have been multiple valid suggestions which won't impact power creep made which will add some desire to replay the trial. I do hope that you're listening.
Which is pretty much the target according to @asterdahl
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
I will be the first person to say it. Might as well get the complain train going.
This trial needs better loot. ToMM rings are not a good enough incentive to continue running it after people have acquired their weapons. I suggest either new pet gear or something else otherwise the trial will be a failure.
This is hilarious Bis players are complaining that they are not getting Multiple BIS drops from BIS content when the vast majority of player base will only see this in one year and are still struggling with LOMM. really hilarious
There are more than BIS players in this game 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)
> @mynaam said: > (Quote) > This is hilarious Bis players are complaining that they are not getting Multiple BIS drops from BIS content when the vast majority of player base will only see this in one year and are still struggling with LOMM. really hilarious
Sorry to tell you but without us grinding ToMM and posting the”bis” rings on the AH you won’t be hitting your stat caps for ToMM , really you saying “thank you” to us would be appropriate 🤷🏻♂️
> This is hilarious Bis players are complaining that they are not getting Multiple BIS drops from BIS content when the vast majority of player base will only see this in one year and are still struggling with LOMM. really hilarious
Sorry to tell you but without us grinding ToMM and posting the”bis” rings on the AH you won’t be hitting your stat caps for ToMM , really you saying “thank you” to us would be appropriate 🤷🏻♂️
Comments like that is why I avoid feedback.
Anything that contradicts what the 1% want is IMMEDIATELY jumped on by people like this and attacked with comments like, "I noticed you don't have TOMM weapons" followed by personal insults and the moderators are nowhere to be seen.
This leaves CDP , gameplay or preview feedback feeling like walking in a field of landmines and a complete waste of time. The last thing I want to do is thank you. You should be thanking me for my AD.
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
I will be the first person to say it. Might as well get the complain train going.
This trial needs better loot. ToMM rings are not a good enough incentive to continue running it after people have acquired their weapons. I suggest either new pet gear or something else otherwise the trial will be a failure.
This is hilarious Bis players are complaining that they are not getting Multiple BIS drops from BIS content when the vast majority of player base will only see this in one year and are still struggling with LOMM. really hilarious
But if the content is not for you (thats fine) why would you have any problem with that content having a reason to run it more times (not neccesary better loot?) You dont want that rich people get richer? they are rich anyway, dont need more. And the weapons are there so the differences between players will get bigger anyway.
So BIS players will be MEGABIS and people who struggle with LOMM will still be in the same spot.
I could understand that you want more content for lower power players, but we are not in that boat, the trial is here, will be released the way it is.
So because the content is not for you, you preffer an useless content instead of an interesting one? You will farm it one time, maybe not now, but you could one day, the same as lot of people is farming TOMM now and they couldnt the first month.
Is a very poor way of thinking and does nothing for the game or any player.
I will be the first person to say it. Might as well get the complain train going.
This trial needs better loot. ToMM rings are not a good enough incentive to continue running it after people have acquired their weapons. I suggest either new pet gear or something else otherwise the trial will be a failure.
This is hilarious Bis players are complaining that they are not getting Multiple BIS drops from BIS content when the vast majority of player base will only see this in one year and are still struggling with LOMM. really hilarious
If this content and its rewards don't interest you and don't affect your gameplay, why are you pretending to offer feedback on it?
Are you that person who watches content they don't like on YouTube so that they can leave negative comments and run away?
I will be the first person to say it. Might as well get the complain train going.
This trial needs better loot. ToMM rings are not a good enough incentive to continue running it after people have acquired their weapons. I suggest either new pet gear or something else otherwise the trial will be a failure.
This is hilarious Bis players are complaining that they are not getting Multiple BIS drops from BIS content when the vast majority of player base will only see this in one year and are still struggling with LOMM. really hilarious
This dog in the manger style petty attitude is what causes content to fail. "If I can't run the content it shouldn't give rewards" is such a great, positive attitude. It shows real maturity and it isn't petty jealousy at all is it? You know what I think? I think that if your first reaction to this thread is, "I can't run this content therefor I should make sure that it gives nothing to the people who can" then you should do us all a favor and vacate this thread. You are not the person this content is aimed at, you are not going to be running this in the first place so stop trying to undermine it for the people who are.
I am not going into the PVP threads and trying to undermine everything for PVP players because I don't PVP. If there was some new piece of content aimed at newer players and it had unbound rewards I would not go in there and try to undermine that because its boring and I don't want to run it, I would just buy them off the AH if I needed them and go about my business. But because you personally don't engage in this type of content you want it to fail? Go rain on someone else's parade.
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
edited June 2020
And to all the people silently questioning, "why should the drops be unbound and exclusive to 1 piece of content," but not taking the time to comment on the thread, here are the reasons why.
Being unbound offers a number of advantages. Firstly, it means that it is obtainable to people who are unable to complete that piece of content, meaning that nobody has to feel pressured into running that specific piece of content to acquire a specific piece of gear needed to complete their build. Secondly, it means that it allows people to recoup the time they invest into farming a specific piece of content. In the case of Zariel, the cost of getting to 500k+ HP as well as meeting the stat caps, in addition to the AD they burn in the process of learning the trial is not insignificant for a lot of players and if there is no way to recoup all that at the end of the road then it will heavily discourage people from participating in the content.
Thirdly, it provides additional incentive for players to continue running the content after they have acquired whatever it is they are looking for. This is good for the long term lifespan of a piece of content, as if you look at ToMM, it had a much longer lifespan than other pieces of content as a result of this. Fourthly, it makes it easier for players who were not part of the initial rush to get into a piece of content to get into the content later. If there is no incentive to continue running a piece of content after you have what you want, then as people move from the group of people that don't have their gear but need their gear into the group that do have their gear and don't need their gear, the pool of players available to run with becomes smaller, making forming groups harder. Sitting on a white horse and claiming these players should be altruistic is nice and all, but that isn't the way the world works.
Now, as to why drops should be exclusive to 1 piece of content. This is because it makes it easier to ensure that the content is desirable. I would actually like to see this for all content in the game, not just endgame trials. If you have 1 item available from multiple sources, not only does it cause the value of the items to decrease, but it also introduces the danger of 1 source of the item being significantly more efficient than the other sources, resulting in the other sources of the item becoming obsolete. The more sources there are of an item, the harder it becomes to balance drop rates of 1 piece of content against another as the time to kill, the entrance threshold, the difficulty and the audience for the different pieces of content differ wildly.
If for example epic pet gear was unbound and (still) only came from MEs, WEs and the like, then people who wanted to farm those could farm and sell them and make money off of that. If there was something unbound in regular dungeons that was worthwhile farming and exclusive to them, then people who enjoy running those could make money off those. I believe that all content should have its own set of unbound and unobtainable elsewhere loot, so that the people who enjoy running that content can have something to show for it.
Finally, a reason which combines both the unbound and the unobtainable elsewhere into 1. It acts as an AD sink. Items which are sold on the AH consume 10% of the value they sell for, which means that the combination of being unbound, unobtainable elsewhere and desirable to the general community ensures that people will be buying these items, which means that AD is being transferred in the process and thus being consumed.
Now in regards to the trial, I would prefer if the weapons were unbound and sellable but there were a range of transmutes (like the celestial terrain I mentioned earlier) which were bound. The reason I prefer this route is because it completely removes the pressure to run this type of content for the people who don't want to run it. If a PVP player wants to be competitive they have to have the newest weapons and thus they feel like they have to run the trial. Likewise a lot of other players feel pressured to run a piece of content they don't actually want to participate in. This is why I would prefer if the power pieces were the pieces that could be sold and cosmetics (or other vanity items) remained the items which you had to show to "prove you completed the content."
Players primarily run content for loot. If the content difficulty doesn't have relevant loot, it's dead and no one wants to touch it. After a few months the limited value of loot in cr dropped, so it pretty much became a ghost town. Not many wanted to touch it, especially with all the broken mechanics. It's viability quickly ran out as relevant content.
Two things are very likely to happen with the new trial, players will get bored quickly and venture off to play other games with lackluster content and incentive. Then, the only relevance it will have is reinforcing toxic behavior and people "selling" spots for weapon runs. It's easy enough to stomp out toxic behavior and "selling" tomm runs with training and carry groups, since the cost of running is recoverable by everyone in a group...from relevant and desired loot.
Good deeds and feelings of accomplishment for a bauable prize rarely motivates people to invest time and money, or help other players without a chance to recoup the cost. Not sure if your target audience will invest in this ideology.
Also, why would devs expect players to be happy going through the effort with this weapon set bonus that is unbalanced and primarily benefitting an arcanist and arbiter over all other classes?
Even now, there are a lot of PvP players that don't want to or can't (e.g. only have a PvP build, which is completely different from a PvE one and requires no companions) run TOMM, which puts them at a serious disadvantage. This will get worse with the new weapon set from this trial.
As has been mentioned before, the weapons (and all other gear) from the trial should be unbound. Cosmetics like transmutes or vanity pets can remain bound. That way everyone is happy -- PvE players get AD and fun from running the content, PvP players go on playing PvP without needing to worry about being at a disadvantage, and more AD sinks are created in the AH. On top of that, changing the binding status of the weapon set is (hopefully) effortless.
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tassedethe13Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 806Arc User
edited June 2020
Just to quote my self experience:
In my alliance a new player level 74 wanted to run malabog but had hard times to find people. I joined him and we ran the dungeon. Then he said "What piece of stuff can I get here to improve myself ?", I was shocked because I only was able to tell him "Nothing, you are making this dungeon for nothing". This guy was right, what's the point of running something if you can't improve your stuff or money, or whatever... Will he run again malabog? I bet not.
Same thing will happen with Zariel + The threshold to be able to run it is very expensive.
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
Looking at the rest of content in the module my feeling is that they want us to farm other stuff (hunts and Zariel's missions) before jumping into the trial. The trial is meant to be run only for the weapons at the end of the module's content )and possibly with the Blessed set). This module seems to be meant for a wider audience than that of the endgamers jumping straight into the trial as soon as they can. Personally I second it as in my guild almost nobody is going to jump into Zariel straight and basically everybody will work thorugh the rest of the content.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
Looking at the rest of content in the module my feeling is that they want us to farm other stuff (hunts and Zariel's missions) before jumping into the trial. The trial is meant to be run only for the weapons at the end of the module's content )and possibly with the Blessed set). This module seems to be meant for a wider audience than that of the endgamers jumping straight into the trial as soon as they can. Personally I second it as in my guild almost nobody is going to jump into Zariel straight and basically everybody will work thorugh the rest of the content.
Here is a novel concept for you. Why can't both the campaign and the trial be rewarding? Really bizarre idea I know. It totally has to be a case of 1 vs the other doesn't it?
Looking at the rest of content in the module my feeling is that they want us to farm other stuff (hunts and Zariel's missions) before jumping into the trial. The trial is meant to be run only for the weapons at the end of the module's content )and possibly with the Blessed set). This module seems to be meant for a wider audience than that of the endgamers jumping straight into the trial as soon as they can. Personally I second it as in my guild almost nobody is going to jump into Zariel straight and basically everybody will work thorugh the rest of the content.
Here is a novel concept for you. Why can't both the campaign and the trial be rewarding? Really bizarre idea I know. It totally has to be a case of 1 vs the other doesn't it?
Because end-gamers corner the ad market once again with items from the trial? I was an end-gamer until SKT and that's what I saw. Why should "normal" gamers pay millions to end-gamers for items they can farm on their own while having fun?
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
Looking at the rest of content in the module my feeling is that they want us to farm other stuff (hunts and Zariel's missions) before jumping into the trial. The trial is meant to be run only for the weapons at the end of the module's content )and possibly with the Blessed set). This module seems to be meant for a wider audience than that of the endgamers jumping straight into the trial as soon as they can. Personally I second it as in my guild almost nobody is going to jump into Zariel straight and basically everybody will work thorugh the rest of the content.
Here is a novel concept for you. Why can't both the campaign and the trial be rewarding? Really bizarre idea I know. It totally has to be a case of 1 vs the other doesn't it?
Because end-gamers corner the ad market once again with items from the trial? I was an end-gamer until SKT and that's what I saw. Why should "normal" gamers pay millions to end-gamers for items they can farm on their own while having fun?
And what exactly is the problem with this aside from you being jealous?
You don't need to be BiS to do dailies and weeklies. You don't need to be anywhere close to BiS in order to run anything but ToMM and Zariel.
If both campaign content and endgame content is rewarding I can guarantee you those same "endgame" players you hate so much would be buying gear from you so that they did not have to do it.
It makes perfect sense that the people who enjoy running a specific type of content are the ones who should be able to "run the market" on it so to speak. The people who like professions run the professions gear market, the people who like endgame dungeons the endgame dungeon market, the people who like farming nodes the masterwork map market, etc.
You clearly aren't the target demographic for this content so how about you go and be constructive and ask for worthwhile unbound rewards in whatever "midgame" content floats your boat, in the thread for the content aimed at you. So long as it doesn't undermine other player types I'll even support you even though ghasp I have no intention to run it and I would literally be buying items from you to skip doing it.
Here, ill give you a head start. See, I am even asking for stuff for you so that you can farm cloak tower all day if you so desire to and still make money off of it without raining on other people's parade because you are feeling "left out."
I think you pretty much showed your agenda. Have fun!
Yeah, my agenda is for content to not be dead on arrival. I said exactly the same things about IC and its amazing "drop pool" and it wasn't even aimed at me (the devs responsible for it literally told us, "this piece of content is not aimed at you"). Guess what, IC is pretty much dead and was dead when it came out, but hey, the only people campaigning for the content that was aimed at YOU to be worthwhile were also the "evil" people who are campaigning for their own content to be worthwhile. The people that you are now trying to shaft. The irony is through the roof.
Imagine believing that because you can't do a piece of content nobody else should be rewarded for it.
Yeah, my agenda is for content to not be dead on arrival. I said exactly the same things about IC and its amazing "drop pool" and it wasn't even aimed at me (the devs responsible for it literally told us, "this piece of content is not aimed at you"). Guess what, IC is pretty much dead and was dead when it came out, but hey, the only people campaigning for the content that was aimed at YOU to be worthwhile were also the "evil" people who are campaigning for their own content to be worthwhile. The people that you are now trying to shaft. The irony is through the roof
I have an objection : IC is what make people not having access to Tomm stay in the game. People with good stats but not Tomm-ready or not having a big friend list to find a Tomm group (or not knowing/using the custom channels). This represents the vast majority of not-so-badly geared players. Sorry for the offtopic but of course developers also have to create new dungeon or trial content for the biggest pool of players to retain them. I was hopeful on the baby version of Zariel's challenge but it seems it will be only a story-mode
The idea @thefabricant posted about having the trial drop unbound companion gear is excellent! I would gladly throw my AD at the endgame grinders to get out of the repetitive hell that is ME farming for alts.
Now that legendary mounts have been replaced by mythic quality ones, why not have the older legendaries drop in the trial aswell?
Yeah, my agenda is for content to not be dead on arrival. I said exactly the same things about IC and its amazing "drop pool" and it wasn't even aimed at me (the devs responsible for it literally told us, "this piece of content is not aimed at you"). Guess what, IC is pretty much dead and was dead when it came out, but hey, the only people campaigning for the content that was aimed at YOU to be worthwhile were also the "evil" people who are campaigning for their own content to be worthwhile. The people that you are now trying to shaft. The irony is through the roof
I have an objection : IC is what make people not having access to Tomm stay in the game. People with good stats but not Tomm-ready or not having a big friend list to find a Tomm group (or not knowing/using the custom channels). This represents the vast majority of not-so-badly geared players. Sorry for the offtopic but of course developers also have to create new dungeon or trial content for the biggest pool of players to retain them. I was hopeful on the baby version of Zariel's challenge but it seems it will be only a story-mode
do you agree that the loot in IC is pretty lackluster and it could have been done alot better?
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
I have an objection : IC is what make people not having access to Tomm stay in the game. People with good stats but not Tomm-ready or not having a big friend list to find a Tomm group (or not knowing/using the custom channels). This represents the vast majority of not-so-badly geared players. Sorry for the offtopic but of course developers also have to create new dungeon or trial content for the biggest pool of players to retain them.
And it would be much better received if it actually rewarded you for your efforts. I don't want to run IC - But I do want it to reward people who do want to run it. I would be perfectly fine buying some BiS item which only came from IC, the value of which could maybe come from the number of runs required to gain it (say 1 run gives a token on completion, 50 tokens buys bis item). I would be fine with purchasing something like that from someone who does run IC but right now, the only vaguely desirable pieces of gear in IC are gear pieces which are bound and can arguably be replaced with other gear.
Encouraging trading between players is in my opinion nothing but a good thing. The ideal situation would be there are 20+ pieces of viable content people need to farm to achieve "bis" and as you only have so many limited hours in the day to actually play, you choose which ones you enjoy most and then buy the others.
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Alts:
Saxy Healz Paladin (Oathkeeper) [Xbox and PC]
Saxon Ranger (Warden)
Yuri Wizard (Thaumaturge)
Member of the guild: Legacy (Xbox) and Strawberry Yakuza (PC)
It worked very well and still today, there are training groups for ToMM and groups running it even if the prizes are very low.
Why wouldnt you want the same for the new trial? Is so problematic to give players rewards? The best content and satisfaction in this game was like this, since the first dungeons and CN. Then the game started a spiral of Binding items and most of the dedicated players lost interest.... until ToMM arrived.
I really try to understand your decision but I cant. The ONLY reason that comes to my mind, is that players who farm this trials dont spend a dime in the game. I doubt is the case, and still, if you can sell the items, other players will buy that items, some with real money.
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Elemental Evil Survivor
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Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
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Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
If I was into conspiracy theories here I would swear that what was going on is that one of the devs are deliberately setting up a trial to fail to make the argument that there is no reason to have hard content in the game going forward. That, or there is some person up in management who doesn't understand how challenging content should work in relation to rewards, because I cannot believe the person who designed this actually has this philosophy and they are being forced to just go with it. The irony is you are failing at this to begin with. The only items that make it "feel essential" to complete hard content are the items that can't be acquired by simply buying them on the auction house. The people that can't run ToMM had the option of buying the rings, they do not "need" to run ToMM for rings. They cannot buy the weapons, so if they want the weapons the compulsion to farm ToMM until they have them exists. The weapons still exist in the new trial and thus the reason for it being "essential to run" effect is still there.
And if this is about the fact that some people (those who can farm) profit more than those who can't, so what? Those who manipulate the market profit more than those who don't manipulate the market, I don't see anyone suggesting that people should be equalized in that area. If you put in the effort, you should be rewarded more. Petty Jealousy is not a good reason to make changes like this and anyone making the argument, "If I can't get something nobody should," should do a bit of introspection and maybe improve as a person.
An achievement is only an achievement the first time you do it and it is purely about the journey to get there, once you have got there, once the journey is over, there is no reason to repeat it. If you want people to repeat it, you need to make there be something worthwhile at the destination. Even if you don't want the rewards to sell power, you want them to be purely cosmetic, it could work if the cosmetics look good and are unbound and unobtainable elsewhere. For example, if you gained 1 token per run and for 20 tokens you could buy an "alternate art" skill, for instance a Celestial Terrain (Icy terrain but with a celestial effect) then people could farm the trial to buy those to either use or to sell. I can think of quite a few endgame players who would want special cosmetics, especially on skill effects and would be willing to grind for them. Especially if they could sell them. I am fairly well connected within the community. I won't pretend I speak for everyone, but I can to some degree represent the interests of a small subset of the playerbase and in particular, I can represent the interest of the type of player who wants difficult content. I looked at their reaction to being told they were to run the trial with only the weapons to show for it and here were their responses:
- My group - Won't run it.
- My guild - Won't run it.
- The Holy Crusaders - Won't run it.
- Loothochdruck - Won't run it.
- The groups in Lazy Roy's Discord channel - Won't run it.
- Some of the larger groups on Xbox and PS4 - Won't run it.
This is a survey of ~200 of the endgame players in Neverwinter. The people who DO want content like this. They are telling you, if you do not change the rewards of this trial this trial will fail, because the people it is intended for won't run it. Now, I don't know how many endgame players Neverwinter has (nor do I know how many players complete ToMM) but I do know that even if we assume this sample represents even only 1% of the total people interested in this type of content, it is still somewhat of an indicator. "At our restaurant it is ok if customers never come back, so long as they enjoyed the dish once." This sounds like a failure of a business model to me.In addition to all of that, you haven't addressed the real issue, which is the thing which will doom this ideal to failure before it even starts and that is the cost of running the trial. In order to have any hope of finishing the trial, you need to surpass certain stat thresholds. This means that if you are not already at those thresholds, you are going to need to invest in your character. Of the people in that list above, I would hazard a guess that at most 20-30 of them can swap around gear to achieve those thresholds on the live server without it costing them anything (myself included). For everyone else on that list, they will need to spend AD in order to become trial viable.
For a lot of players, the amount of AD they would need to invest in order to become trial viable is not insignificant, we are talking conservatively 20-30 million AD, which means that if you are not recouping your investment somehow in the process of running the trial (through selling something that is acquired in the trial), then these weapons and this "sense of pride and accomplishment" essentially has a 20-30 million AD price tag.
There are very few players who are willing to spend that much AD on what is essentially a status item. There are even fewer players who are willing to spend that much on a status item, who will also be able to complete this trial.
What I do want to say, is that if you indeed want to follow the "it's okay if once you have the primary reward from the content you don't feel the compulsion to farm it continually." path, don't waste your time on making adjustments to phase 5 or the rest of the trial. Realistically, you're not going to make the trial hard enough that keeps the endgame groups occupied for a large portion of the mod, so that beating it is an actual achievement and a journey to be enjoyed. Most likely, the Trial is going to be cleared in the first couple hours of being available on Live, assuming there are 10 players willing to spend the resources needed to clear it on Live. There really is no point tweaking and polishing a Trial targeted to end-game players, that's not going to be played by endgame players. Dev time would be better allocated into projects that actually fulfill their purpose and meet the requirements of their target audience.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
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)
> (Quote)
> This is hilarious Bis players are complaining that they are not getting Multiple BIS drops from BIS content when the vast majority of player base will only see this in one year and are still struggling with LOMM. really hilarious
Sorry to tell you but without us grinding ToMM and posting the”bis” rings on the AH you won’t be hitting your stat caps for ToMM , really you saying “thank you” to us would be appropriate 🤷🏻♂️
Anything that contradicts what the 1% want is IMMEDIATELY jumped on by people like this and attacked with comments like, "I noticed you don't have TOMM weapons" followed by personal insults and the moderators are nowhere to be seen.
This leaves CDP , gameplay or preview feedback feeling like walking in a field of landmines and a complete waste of time. The last thing I want to do is thank you. You should be thanking me for my AD.
So BIS players will be MEGABIS and people who struggle with LOMM will still be in the same spot.
I could understand that you want more content for lower power players, but we are not in that boat, the trial is here, will be released the way it is.
So because the content is not for you, you preffer an useless content instead of an interesting one? You will farm it one time, maybe not now, but you could one day, the same as lot of people is farming TOMM now and they couldnt the first month.
Is a very poor way of thinking and does nothing for the game or any player.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
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Are you that person who watches content they don't like on YouTube so that they can leave negative comments and run away?
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I am not going into the PVP threads and trying to undermine everything for PVP players because I don't PVP. If there was some new piece of content aimed at newer players and it had unbound rewards I would not go in there and try to undermine that because its boring and I don't want to run it, I would just buy them off the AH if I needed them and go about my business. But because you personally don't engage in this type of content you want it to fail? Go rain on someone else's parade. He is. Real contributing member of the NW society.
Being unbound offers a number of advantages. Firstly, it means that it is obtainable to people who are unable to complete that piece of content, meaning that nobody has to feel pressured into running that specific piece of content to acquire a specific piece of gear needed to complete their build. Secondly, it means that it allows people to recoup the time they invest into farming a specific piece of content. In the case of Zariel, the cost of getting to 500k+ HP as well as meeting the stat caps, in addition to the AD they burn in the process of learning the trial is not insignificant for a lot of players and if there is no way to recoup all that at the end of the road then it will heavily discourage people from participating in the content.
Thirdly, it provides additional incentive for players to continue running the content after they have acquired whatever it is they are looking for. This is good for the long term lifespan of a piece of content, as if you look at ToMM, it had a much longer lifespan than other pieces of content as a result of this. Fourthly, it makes it easier for players who were not part of the initial rush to get into a piece of content to get into the content later. If there is no incentive to continue running a piece of content after you have what you want, then as people move from the group of people that don't have their gear but need their gear into the group that do have their gear and don't need their gear, the pool of players available to run with becomes smaller, making forming groups harder. Sitting on a white horse and claiming these players should be altruistic is nice and all, but that isn't the way the world works.
Now, as to why drops should be exclusive to 1 piece of content. This is because it makes it easier to ensure that the content is desirable. I would actually like to see this for all content in the game, not just endgame trials. If you have 1 item available from multiple sources, not only does it cause the value of the items to decrease, but it also introduces the danger of 1 source of the item being significantly more efficient than the other sources, resulting in the other sources of the item becoming obsolete. The more sources there are of an item, the harder it becomes to balance drop rates of 1 piece of content against another as the time to kill, the entrance threshold, the difficulty and the audience for the different pieces of content differ wildly.
If for example epic pet gear was unbound and (still) only came from MEs, WEs and the like, then people who wanted to farm those could farm and sell them and make money off of that. If there was something unbound in regular dungeons that was worthwhile farming and exclusive to them, then people who enjoy running those could make money off those. I believe that all content should have its own set of unbound and unobtainable elsewhere loot, so that the people who enjoy running that content can have something to show for it.
Finally, a reason which combines both the unbound and the unobtainable elsewhere into 1. It acts as an AD sink. Items which are sold on the AH consume 10% of the value they sell for, which means that the combination of being unbound, unobtainable elsewhere and desirable to the general community ensures that people will be buying these items, which means that AD is being transferred in the process and thus being consumed.
Now in regards to the trial, I would prefer if the weapons were unbound and sellable but there were a range of transmutes (like the celestial terrain I mentioned earlier) which were bound. The reason I prefer this route is because it completely removes the pressure to run this type of content for the people who don't want to run it. If a PVP player wants to be competitive they have to have the newest weapons and thus they feel like they have to run the trial. Likewise a lot of other players feel pressured to run a piece of content they don't actually want to participate in. This is why I would prefer if the power pieces were the pieces that could be sold and cosmetics (or other vanity items) remained the items which you had to show to "prove you completed the content."
Two things are very likely to happen with the new trial, players will get bored quickly and venture off to play other games with lackluster content and incentive. Then, the only relevance it will have is reinforcing toxic behavior and people "selling" spots for weapon runs.
It's easy enough to stomp out toxic behavior and "selling" tomm runs with training and carry groups, since the cost of running is recoverable by everyone in a group...from relevant and desired loot.
Good deeds and feelings of accomplishment for a bauable prize rarely motivates people to invest time and money, or help other players without a chance to recoup the cost. Not sure if your target audience will invest in this ideology.
As has been mentioned before, the weapons (and all other gear) from the trial should be unbound. Cosmetics like transmutes or vanity pets can remain bound. That way everyone is happy -- PvE players get AD and fun from running the content, PvP players go on playing PvP without needing to worry about being at a disadvantage, and more AD sinks are created in the AH. On top of that, changing the binding status of the weapon set is (hopefully) effortless.
In my alliance a new player level 74 wanted to run malabog but had hard times to find people. I joined him and we ran the dungeon. Then he said "What piece of stuff can I get here to improve myself ?", I was shocked because I only was able to tell him "Nothing, you are making this dungeon for nothing". This guy was right, what's the point of running something if you can't improve your stuff or money, or whatever... Will he run again malabog? I bet not.
Same thing will happen with Zariel + The threshold to be able to run it is very expensive.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
- You don't need to be BiS to do dailies and weeklies. You don't need to be anywhere close to BiS in order to run anything but ToMM and Zariel.
- If both campaign content and endgame content is rewarding I can guarantee you those same "endgame" players you hate so much would be buying gear from you so that they did not have to do it.
- It makes perfect sense that the people who enjoy running a specific type of content are the ones who should be able to "run the market" on it so to speak. The people who like professions run the professions gear market, the people who like endgame dungeons the endgame dungeon market, the people who like farming nodes the masterwork map market, etc.
You clearly aren't the target demographic for this content so how about you go and be constructive and ask for worthwhile unbound rewards in whatever "midgame" content floats your boat, in the thread for the content aimed at you. So long as it doesn't undermine other player types I'll even support you even though ghasp I have no intention to run it and I would literally be buying items from you to skip doing it.Here, ill give you a head start. See, I am even asking for stuff for you so that you can farm cloak tower all day if you so desire to and still make money off of it without raining on other people's parade because you are feeling "left out."
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Imagine believing that because you can't do a piece of content nobody else should be rewarded for it.
Sorry for the offtopic but of course developers also have to create new dungeon or trial content for the biggest pool of players to retain them. I was hopeful on the baby version of Zariel's challenge but it seems it will be only a story-mode
Now that legendary mounts have been replaced by mythic quality ones, why not have the older legendaries drop in the trial aswell?
Farmable gear/mounts = win/win for everyone
Encouraging trading between players is in my opinion nothing but a good thing. The ideal situation would be there are 20+ pieces of viable content people need to farm to achieve "bis" and as you only have so many limited hours in the day to actually play, you choose which ones you enjoy most and then buy the others.