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Downfall of the Solo player ( the quick version LOL )
ddosuks
Member Posts: 16 Arc User
It seems the writing is on the wall. The solo player is being pushed out of Neverwinter.
Lets face it, with 3-5 man regular and Epic dungeons, new Epic weapons and items that can only be obtained from being in a guild ( Strongholds ) and a decent sized guild for that matter, because of resources needed to be high enough levels for the Epic weapon quest and/or the structures, the solo player is slowly being forced out. To enjoy the new Weapons, items or benefits a player is now forced to join a guild. And again, one with reasonable numbers as well.
Its unfortunate because studies prove solo players actually spend a lot of money, which is needed because Cryptic is a subsidiary of Perfect world Entertainment, and with just a 10% profit margin, theyre barely keeping their head above water. So the question is, why is it like that when it doesnt have to be that way.
I am not against Strongholds, and I am in a guild as well, so im not against the new changes overall but there should have been some consideration for the solo player.
Quests can easily be made to solo, or if need be introduce something that has been in Dungeons and Dragons since the beginning, Henchmen.
Henchmen can be used for a solo player or to fill gaps in parties, they can be assorted races and classes and vary in cost depending upon their level and power.
And as for the new Epic weapons and gear, there should be quests designed for the solo player as well to obtain those items, to tell a solo player " just join a guild " is like throwing money away.
Wake up Cryptic, Theres better ways of doing things that wont alienate your current players and will actually bring in the revenue.
Lets face it, with 3-5 man regular and Epic dungeons, new Epic weapons and items that can only be obtained from being in a guild ( Strongholds ) and a decent sized guild for that matter, because of resources needed to be high enough levels for the Epic weapon quest and/or the structures, the solo player is slowly being forced out. To enjoy the new Weapons, items or benefits a player is now forced to join a guild. And again, one with reasonable numbers as well.
Its unfortunate because studies prove solo players actually spend a lot of money, which is needed because Cryptic is a subsidiary of Perfect world Entertainment, and with just a 10% profit margin, theyre barely keeping their head above water. So the question is, why is it like that when it doesnt have to be that way.
I am not against Strongholds, and I am in a guild as well, so im not against the new changes overall but there should have been some consideration for the solo player.
Quests can easily be made to solo, or if need be introduce something that has been in Dungeons and Dragons since the beginning, Henchmen.
Henchmen can be used for a solo player or to fill gaps in parties, they can be assorted races and classes and vary in cost depending upon their level and power.
And as for the new Epic weapons and gear, there should be quests designed for the solo player as well to obtain those items, to tell a solo player " just join a guild " is like throwing money away.
Wake up Cryptic, Theres better ways of doing things that wont alienate your current players and will actually bring in the revenue.
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There was an actual post asking if they are trying to alienate their players. A lot of people think they are but not on purpose. As for soloing the game, i also solo. its one of the things that initially drew me to the game a few years ago. has it gradually become solo unfriendly? i would say so. pre strongholds bis gear was only attainable by farming epic dungeons with near bot-like fortitude to get the currency, then making notable investments in black ice profession(lol?). If bis gear will be attainable through strongholds then this game has just lost a lot of appeal for me.
I've played other mmo's and the one thing i hated above all else is being locked in a 3 hour block of time with anywhere between 20-40 other people hammering on the same boss just to get a 1 in 40 chance of getting an upgrade to my gear. "But you get marks too!"
getting bis gear only through well staffed guilds is starting to point me in that direction again
inb4: "your trying to solo in an MMO?!? trololololololol"
Amen to this. In the same boat. But as to alienation of the people who were suckered in by the increasingly false advertising of solo friendly being deliberate, well, there's a saying: "Do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
The new artifact weapons are only a bit better like the T3 armor. The old Artifact Weapons (mainhand of a TR weapon) grant with set bonus 4.221 stat points while the new one grants 3967 stat points. The damage of the new weapon is 4-5% higher. The Set-Bonus is good +2% outgoing damage, +2% incoming healing, -2% incoming damage for you and all allies with a Stronghold weapon set. This means +10% outgoing damage, +10% incoming healing, -10% incoming damage.
This simply means you are benefit if you run with your guild. Does it make your game as soloplayer harder? No! Like in the case of the T3 Armor it is only a bit better and the difficulty of the game wasn't increased so you are still fine.
Even the new boons that increase rapidly your stats are not necessary either. They are a nice addition but nothing necessary (for the note we played 3-4 month without them).
That simply means, if you was before module 7 a incompetent undergeared idiot you will it be now. Module 7 makes no difference. What Module 7 is doing is saying "Hey, you need help gearing up? Get a guild, help each other, get the new shiny best gear (you get automatically the necessary currency by unlocking it while your guild is upgrading), get cool artifact weapons and everyone in your guild with the same weapon set benefits from it! Oh you need more stats? Here let me throw 8K power at you, as a boon."
Simple as that. If you was already BIS then you will deal a bit less damage but you will still kill boss monsters like Lostmauth anyway in under 1 minute, so no biggy.
Info or link on how underdark will improve solo play? for all you know they'll make the gear just a little bit under in stats compared to strongholds gear. I don't like to build on assumptions, and so far the only verified information is stronghold gear is bis.
and lol at "it will only be 3 months or so".
Summer vacation is from june to late august, 3 months - short
Your sentenced to 3 months in solitary confinement - long
you have only 3 months to live - short
hopefully in as little 3 months from now you'll get your new kidney - long
time is always relative. in the case of video games though 3 months is way too long to expect anyone to wait. new titles are released, new expansions come out to other games. even assuming that only 25% of the player population are either solo players who cannot/will not join burgeoning guilds or belong to guilds not large enough to meet requirements, thats 25% of your players not willing to stick it out for 3 months.
this makes the most sense so far. it really doesn't make a huge difference from a fun stand point. but if your a number cruncher and want the best it may bother you. i've always looked at t2 and t3 gear, while just a bit more stats, the amount of effort to get t3 upgrades to armor is something i won't actively pursue. its just not worth the effort. maybe the only saving grace is out dpsing someone decked out in strongholds gear while still sitting in t2 armor. but that opens the "i wasn't really trying" response or "i died early in the fight!!"
it still stands if you want bis you need to join a large guild
That's not the problem. The problem is that Mod 7 brought back boons, and some very powerful ones at that (depending on your class, we're talking about what could be as much as a ~40% permanent health boost) which can only be acquired through guild grinding, as the resources required are so high no single player or small guild will ever be able to achieve it in a reasonable time frame. A high end guild will now *always* have that edge over a solo player or a small guild, even outside of PVP or other game types.
Do you see the potential problem here?
Nope
It's not MSO - massive soloing online.
The game is designed to ensure some socialization, and co-operation just like the old tabletop AD&D. I like that.
Imagine sitting around a table on a Saturday night with all the books, a dungeon drawn out, and then staring at it expecting it to interact with you. Not very successful.
"Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."
"Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
If you can prove what your saying I'll gladly get over it. But as lorddemonrage states, show us the where your getting this info, prove it with a link. I actually hope your right. But until you can, your just talking S---
And that is the problem, the new armors from the Stronghold are better than the Sharandar/Dread Ring/ Black Ice armor (yes you need to do HEs to get the arm piece, but you do not need to be grouped to do it) that you can get by only doing solo content. And that includes the 125 ilevel armors, although the GF ones are not that much better than the black ice ones.
Now if having ilevel 122 gear will be good for Mod8 content then all is good. But if you will constantly get 1 shotted then it will not be so good. Time will tell, I guess.
It means I must be part of a large, successful, active guild, or I will be forever behind someone who is. It doesn't matter how much better gear I get than them, how much more skilled I am than they are, etc. They're always going to have an edge over me. And it'll be a big freaking edge. Look at some of those boons. They're more than an order of magnitude more powerful than any boons that have come before. Seriously, look at them, up to 8000 point stat boosts (bearing in mind that up till now, most boons have offered 400 at the most), or capable of increasing a character's hitpoints by nearly 40%, or huge XP boosts, which means faster overflow levels, which means I likely get power points much faster than someone else that's just having to limp along, meaning I'll be even more powerful than them, likely as not, since I'll have a full Rank 4 loadout. To say nothing of the utility of being able to instantly switch between different ones to adapt to changing situations, which is going to be a massive force multiplier in and of itself.
The end effect? I'll never be as useful to a team as someone running from a high power guild. I'll never pull my weight as well, and god help me if I ever run into one of those chaps in PVP, because no matter how tweaked, or optimized or skilled I am, unless I'm fighting a monkey that has somehow gained access to a computer and a level 70 toon, I'm going to get wrecked. It's like the old level 20 Fighter v. Level 20 Wizard/Cleric issue from 3.5 D&D. It doesn't matter how skilled, how optimized, and how well played that Fighter is. Against even a sub-par Wizard or Cleric played by anyone smart enough to tie his boots without strangling himself, the Fighter is never going to win.
What does this mean? It means the death-knell to small time casual guilds like the one I belong to. There's only a handful of us left after Mod 6, but we had fun and the like. Now? I'm either going to have to jump ship and leave them for a guild I think I'll be compatible with and whose membership I can get along with, or somehow conduct research into the other large guilds, and convince everyone to more or less try to fold our guild into one we can all agree on. And I have to do it fast.
Do you know why? Well, maybe I'm being overly cynical here*, but given the vast level of power these larger guilds will quickly find themselves in control of (i.e. you want the best passive stat boosts this game has ever seen? Boosts that could flat out more than double your power, AP, or the like? You want to stay on the power curve and not be rendered hopelessly irrelevant? You come through us.) I guarantee you they're going to start charging for admission through one of the alternative game currencies ("Want to join? That'll be "X" GMOPs per toon you would like to sign up. Oh, and we'll require monthly payments in the form of X, Y, and Z, or we'll kick you to the curb and you'll lose access to said boons because you'll no longer have access to the guild structure that is a prerequisite to accessing the aforesaid boon.")
That's my problem with this mod.
*(I'm a member of the legal community, which means that given the people I'm exposed to on a routine basis, I expect people to be lying, cheating sons of #$@% until proven otherwise (something I find often holds true in NWO and has generally been a wise policy to abide by), and that I find people in power tend to abuse that power unless there are strong safeguards and regulations to keep them in check, which NWO most assuredly does not have.)
Q: You want the new shiny?
A: Leave your guild.
And if some guild player is not happy about it, he can "get over it already".
Mod 8 is the mod that's following along WotC's release schedule. So, it's basically the same as Mod 6 and Well of Dragons in that regards. They tie into the ongoing campaign that WotC is using with 5E.
Strongholds is ideologically designed by Cryptic. Mod 8 is basically following WotC's whims.
I'm seeing a whole lotta words, but not a lot of proof...
I suppose there's nothing wrong with being a skeptic, but try not to be too obstinate, okay?
When your article starts off by boasting that Elemental Evil was critically acclaimed...yeah... I'm taking that with several heaping mountains of salt.
Look, I'll be blunt. I've born witness to the incompetence of the Devs here. To game mods that were released in a buggy half finished mess (that the players warned them about in advance and which were summarily ignored) that removed huge swaths game's content (which four months later we still haven't seen the return of) and dared to call itself an expansion. I've seen the makers of this game flat out lie to their customers and player base and refuse to keep their word. I've seen lots, and lots of words. But very little in the way of actual deeds to back said words up.
You're bloody well right I'm not giving these guys the benefit of the doubt based off a vague marketing blurb that seems designed to sell itself on the promise of Drizzt Do'Urden (bear in mind, that Elemental Evil was hyped up as this awesome thing that Minsc, probably the third most well known Forgotten Realms character outside of Drizzt and Elminster themselves, would be joining us for in a right, roarilingly fun romp where evil butt kicking and miniature giant space hamsters would be found in abundance. And what did we get? Two five minute missions. That's it. Full stop.)
Yes, mod 8 is in the same boat as mod 6. I never said that it being part of the licensing scheme means that it'll be any good, just that it's the mod that Cryptic has to make. Mod 7 was them trying to make the game into something that it's not (a MOBA) for their own profitability reasons.
... have to wait and see, if they come up with some reasonable changes to this mountain of grind in Strongholds, when they release Strongholds on Xbox too.
*sighs*
Look back at the original context for how this sub-topic started.
Angrysprite said this:
Whereupon Ddosuks, as can be clearly seen, contested that and demanded proof.
You came in, and then linked to a marketing blurb that in no way indicated that it was going to be an actual* solo player mod.
No one is denying that this is a WOTC required update, to their "whims". What we're contesting is that it's going to be a solo-friendly, experience, when Cryptic has thus far demonstrated that they're heading in the exact opposite direction, and that it'll be made to WOTC whims and demands as opposed to a hands off "Here's a few copies of the D&D module book, make a campaign out of this." approach they've taken thus far (they certainly haven't shown enough oversight to stop Cryptic from releasing a godawful mess in April that drug the name of D&D, Cryptic, and WOTC by proxy, through the freaking mud).
Thus, I remain a cynical son of a biscuit eater and as per my profession, I demand more than just words, unless said words are backed up by a signed and notarized Affidavit made under penalties of perjury, and I can also get someone in person under oath to attest to the validity of that Affidavit.
*As opposed to the 'in theory only, if you've got two to three times the recommended IL for this area of the game, preferably with full legendary artifacts, full rank 10+ enchants, and at least one legendary companion"** solo player mod that Elemental Evil was proclaimed to be.
**Offer not valid for Non-Trapper HR's, and any SW that hasn't invested enough time in this game to qualify it for second full time job status and/or has invested enough money into the game for Cryptic's CEO to build a mansion out of other, smaller mansions.
Sorry had to point this out because its just to lol for me:
your comparison to table top d and d is inaccurate. table top d and doesn't have pre programmed hostile ai's that react in various ways and doesn't have timers for simulated events which utilize said ai's. i'm pretty sure there are other differences but those are the only ones i feeling like pointing out.
in the end its a video game, and just like the first games out there had a single player/story mode for when your friend didn't want to come over and pick up the second controller, some people crave the feeling of just going out and doing whatever it is they feel like doing, on their terms, on their time table.
not "Guild Message: everyone log in 1130pm EST have your vials and scrolls ready, if you don't have at least ilevel3k don't bother. Bring kits and make sure you stock up on health stones. Be prepared to set aside 3 hours. Catheter is not required but recommended"
I said what I said, and you asked for proof, so I gave proof of what I was saying. I'm not going to read over the entire thread to see what they said. You asked for proof about what I said, so I provided it, and you got snippity.
Basically, sounds like you read into what I was saying and projected your own assumptions.
Anyway, at least we can all agree it was simply a failure to communicate.
> your comparison to table top d and d is inaccurate. table top d and doesn't have pre programmed hostile ai's that react in various ways and doesn't have timers for simulated events which utilize said ai's. i'm pretty sure there are other differences but those are the only ones i feeling like pointing out.
> in the end its a video game, and just like the first games out there had a single player/story mode for when your friend didn't want to come over and pick up the second controller, some people crave the feeling of just going out and doing whatever it is they feel like doing, on their terms, on their time table.
> not "Guild Message: everyone log in 1130pm EST have your vials and scrolls ready, if you don't have at least ilevel3k don't bother. Bring kits and make sure you stock up on health stones. Be prepared to set aside 3 hours. Catheter is not required but recommended"
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This^^^^^^^
Even games like Rift, Wow, D2, D3 and GW/GW2 allow players to complete quests and level/gear their characters w/o a team with the hateful, cruel, verbally abusive cyber-bully trolls of the general public.
Rift even allows you to SOLO LEVEL a guild. Gosh,...the implications... so astounding....
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
>
> What type of player has bis gear every new module? What type of player can afford a new orange Artifact MH+OH every few months? The consistent inconsistency is whats killing this game. Bring new equipment sure, but also bring more and more ways to procure the raw items needed for that equipment. Also dont just render the old gear obsolete when it takes so much effort to level it.
>
> So, what type of player can be bis here? => botter, whale, old-time cheater/exploiter and old-time Leaderships army guy. Which one are you? How many of you are there? Are you enough to keep Nvw online and where does the casual gamer with a normal monthly gaming budget fit in all this? So many questions, so little dev response...
>
> Whatever
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Yup.
Works for me. I don't feel like arguing about it. I've got enough problems trying to figure out how the heck my toon and guild is going to survive (the latter of which the answer is increasingly looking like 'it bloody well won't') without arguing the minutiae.
*gestures to his above posts*
If so, then it's one of the most backwards, inept, and moronic ways of doing it. This isn't a mod meant to make guilds relevant. It's a mod that flat out makes an elite, high powered/high membership guild absolutely mandatory and places a vast amount of soft power into the hands of individuals the majority of whom I absolutely expect to abuse it and anyone who doesn't have that is up a certain creek without a certain implement.
Or are the Devs going to implement the same Stronghold advantages for solo players only with Underdark?
Stronghols would not be that bad, if you could get all the basic structures in a Stronghold with some gold and AD.
Upgrading the structures could still cost a lot of resources, but there would be at least a chance to have a small Stronghold with some benefits.
Besides, why would any solo player even consider to come back with Underdark?
A solo player will not be able to catch up to any guild player by then... so what would be the point?
Most solo players will by then be settled in other games... and the Steam Chart numbers do show that clearly.
Even if they reduce the grind for Strongholds with the release of it on Xbox, by then it might be too late.
Neverwinter is still a free2play game. Can you really blame the company for a bit more grindiness in exchange?