Greets to all my gaming folks and developers. I've been with Neverwinter since mid-2013. Because of my arthritis, I am finding it impossible to make it through any of the endgame dungeons/quests/trials, and, as a result, I am missing out on some of the the goodies. I think it would be beneficial to us old folks if Arc would sell anything not easily attainable during the regular game/module, AFTER moving onto the next/new module. I am spotlighting seniors here, but could be used by anyone who loves the game, but may be limited in playtime. Plus, this would give Arc an additional source of revenue. My two cents.....$$$$$$$$$ Geo
The Changes
With this release, we’re making some adjustments as to how we give out rated stats on gear. Existing gear is not affected. This only affects new gear starting with M30 and going forward.
Here are the basics:
1) New gear will give out stat ratings in different amounts depending on the stat.
** For example, a piece of gear that before might have given 1000 stat points (regardless of stat) might now give out 700 points of Power, or 1300 points of Accuracy.
** The idea is that gear will give out equal amounts of value in different stats. You’ll get more of a weaker stat, or less of a stronger stat.
** Under the new system, at a given item level, gear that gives out Power or gear that gives out Accuracy now have a more equal chance to be valuable.
** In some cases, direct percent grants (“+5% to Deflect Severity”) will be scaled in the same way.
2) Player stat caps for many stats are increased.
** The following 8 stats now have a cap of 60% from ratings to a max of 120% (up from 50% and 90%):
Power, Defense, Critical Severity, Combat Advantage, Deflect Severity, Forte, Incoming Healing, and Outgoing Healing
Why Are We Doing This?
Many players faced limited gear choices under the existing system. Some stats were just better than others, so gear stat choices often reduced to chasing the best stat for your role, getting it to cap, then chasing the next best stat, and so on. Many pieces of gear that could have been good were unappealing because they didn’t fit into this narrow pattern. And the caps were low enough that players with the best gear were often capped on most of the stats they cared about, which made it even harder to find good pieces of gear for their characters.
Our hope is that by scaling the stats in proportion to their value, and raising some of the stat caps, we’ll be able to make more pieces of gear that appeal to more players.
Why Lift the Caps on Just these 8 Stats?
Some stats didn’t make sense past 100%, because they represent an actual chance for something to happen (Critical Strike, Deflect Chance).
Some stats are “opposed stats” or “counterstats”: they work in opposition to another stat. We could have increased those, but it wouldn’t have helped unless we increased the corresponding stats on enemy creatures, and that’s something we didn’t want to dive into just yet (it would alter the game’s balance in ways that could be unpleasant if not handled well). But we might consider increasing the caps on the so-called “counterstats” in the future (Critical Avoidance, Awareness, Accuracy) along with a tuning pass to enemy creatures (perhaps we’d only apply that tuning to new creatures, or only to creatures in dungeons – there are multiple possibilities here!).
Lastly, Control Bonus and Control Resist were left alone simply because number tweaking alone won’t bring these two stats in line with the other stats. (It would take a larger rework of the control system as a whole.)
Technical Wonkery
Some people will want to know how exactly we’ve tuned the stats. Since I know people like arguing about “how much of stat X is worth how much of stat Y”, here are the CURRENT values we are using (they might change!).
7 Power = 13 Accuracy = 8 Combat Advantage = 12 Critical Strike = 12 Critical Severity = 7 Defense = 8 Awareness = 11 Critical Avoidance = 15 Deflect = 15 Deflect Severity = 9 Forte = 12 Incoming Healing = 8 Outgoing Healing
(Control Bonus and Control Resist would be at 10 on the above scale, but that just represents “no change”, as discussed above.)
Keep in mind an individual piece of gear can have (for example) 40% of its rated stats devoted to, say, Accuracy, and 60% devoted to Awareness, or any other combination, so it can be a bit tricky to just look at various pieces of gear and deduce the above numbers.
Is This a Nerf?
It's not intended to be.
Note that no existing pieces of gear have changed. This just changes how we will give stats out on gear in the future. The average amount of stats you get will be the same; it's just that things will be parceled out in a way that should, if everything works well, lead to the various stats all being viable. (Note that what the stats do in the game isn't changing either; it's just the proportions in which they are given out relative to each other.)
The fact that the stat caps are increasing should mean that player power level will in fact go up some amount. Also, in addition to the caps going up, it should be easier to avoid hitting the caps in the future, because there will be more stats "deserving of investment": you won't have to keep investing in the one best stat (and thus capping it), because the other stats (or, more exactly, the other stats that are still relevant for your role) will also be worth investing in.
Also, more gear that seems like it might be good for your character will have a chance to actually be good. It should happen less often that an otherwise appealing piece of gear is "ruined" because it has a "bad" stat on it. Now, that piece of gear will have enough extra points of that formerly "bad" stat attached to it that it won't be bad after all. Ultimately, the ability to have more good pieces of gear is the reason we're making these changes.
The Future
Hopefully the immediate result of these changes are more interesting pieces of gear and more player flexibility in gear choice.
Be aware it will take some time for all this to shake out properly. Aside from any tuning issues, there’s also just a bit of oddity as we transition from the old system to the new one. For example, some older pieces of gear that focus on the old “too good” stats (e.g., Power, Defense) might stay good for another module or two, whereas new M30 gear that gives formerly “bad” stats (Accuracy, Deflect Severity) might be quite a bit better in M30 than similar gear from previous modules. That should just be a temporary issue, though.