Developer Stream: Bugs and General Q&A

beckylunatic

theonlyopinion said:

Is there any plan to fix the hourly contests in places like the Dread Ring? They have been broken for a long time.

These contests were supposed to be removed by Underdark, presumably because of the overlap with the added HEs. The patch notes say they were "disabled" but all that has accomplished is to disable the scoring... not the spawns. So the actual fix here would be to do what they darned well said they were going to do. This has been bug-reported by me in-game on two separate occasions. It's inexcusable that you didn't just take them out completely at Underdark's release, and worse that you haven't fixed the problem with them still being there in their broken state.

unholydragonking said:

I'd really like to see my Companion get a fix, I've had him since they were first released with the Lock Box, and he goes everywhere with me; my Pseudodragon to me is like Guenhwyvar to Drizzt Do'Urdan! I know I've submitted multiple bug reports about this, but this is the one issue I'd really like to see fixed.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/556801/pseudodragon-wing-clipping-bug-still-unresolved

I agree that what happened to the Pseudodragon's wings is sad. If this is a bug, why can't it be fixed? If it was an intentional change to the sprite... what were you theeeenking!?

silverkelt

1. either add back severe diminishing returns or
2. release new tier content
3. increase rewards, your game has like nothing to farm and play for, when your done with something.. almost no reason to REdo anything! How more unrewarding can you get then that? This is why so many of us are bored, its not that there isnt THINGS to grind.. you can grind from now to the moon comes home, but its not making for engaging or fun gameplay. You have to stop this insane grind and give us reasons to stay in your game above it.
4. bonding stones should stack 3 times also should be stay UP while in combat if you are going to remove it to that limit. They cost too much otherwise. There has to be a balance in this.
5. If lostmouth gets a rework, please look at CW damage, its SO far wrapped into this set its ridiculous, without it, it cannot compete with the hybrid damage dealer (hr trapper) its quite underwhelming otherwise. Losty set is making GWFs gods and CWs look ok. Both of this is a issue. CWs damage was way overnerfed when you hit storm spell.. instead of just redoing losty set at that time. Removal of massive nerf to that set.. you should look at ways to increase cw damage back a little.
6. RP grind is still too much for alt player.. please look into toning it down. My suggestion is 50% less to Epic level and leave epic to legendary the same. This would really help your game.
7. ADD RP to dungeons, edemo and the lick.. PLEASE.. for the love of your game do this.

dargon

How about fixing the companion bug where the Scarecrow cannot equip any items (runestones are fine, but cannot wear a ring or belt of any kind). I have already submitted a ticket in game, but who knows if that does much thus bringing it your attention here for the broadcast.

beckylunatic

dargon#3099 said:

How about fixing the companion bug where the Scarecrow cannot equip any items (runestones are fine, but cannot wear a ring or belt of any kind). I have already submitted a ticket in game, but who knows if that does much thus bringing it your attention here for the broadcast.

Have you tried making the companion inactive and active again? Because this is a fairly common bug with any companion, but also really easily fixed by the affected player.

I doubt they have any idea what causes the bug since it doesn't affect every player equally.

(Seriously a case of "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" for resolving it yourself.)

hustin1

One thing I've been keeping an eye out for is the featuring of new Foundry quests, since that would show that at least someone there has some interest in the Foundry (enough to at least play one). Even that hasn't happened in ages. Players won't play Foundry quests without a really compelling reason, largely because the rest of the game has become so grindy that they can't afford to spend the time. The only way I can get anyone to try mine has been to go to PE and politely ask if anyone is interested in trying it (and hoping for a response, which is pretty rare).

The devs have been making a push toward fixing bugs, so I suspect that somewhere they've got a hefty burn-down list. That's a good thing, but there are many more aspects to this game that need attention. The Foundry is a glaring example.

pelgrax

How about fixing the major LAG issues when in a full 40 player instance .
It's a right P.I.T.A. when trying to do SH dragon fights or Dragon runs when due to the 40 player / poorly designed powers ( prism etc ) .
if your servers CAN'T cope ( which we know they can't ) then change the limits on the instances / design better powers .
And more importantly TEST this stuff better before putting it out there .

rezuron

You guys are right!
- What about balance?
- What about bugs?
- Don't create new content when there is old, bugged. Try to fix this first.
- What is the reason to create new dungeons, when you have Foundry Authors? Think for a moment about How to get PVE players to Foundry Zone.
- PVP has not been working for ages. Period. Close it or start to do some balance!
- Foundry is old and shi***. Bugs, old models, more bugs, there isn't logic "or", bugs, no real reward for playing, no reward for creating, actually there is not even any update for Foundry.

You know what? There is a lot of people who want play Foundry, but there is no point of that. I have played 30 Foundrys in one week, however Mr. T has grinded 100000000 AD. Hmm... maybe I should forget about foundry?
No.
I must not.
You have to bring back Daily AD reward for playing foundrys.

:-)

instynctive

This is a super cool thing for them to be doing, and I really hope that people don't screw it up by being butts during the stream.

A lot of folks have been screaming about "communication"... well, here it is. So long as we are civil and somewhat mature about everything, they will keep doing this.. keep hearing our voices and keep improving our gaming experience.

Thanks for setting this up, @strumslinger. I'm looking forward to it!

baeyorn

Thank for taking our questions..

I only have 3 specific comments/bugs/etc to discuss.

1. Bug on Unstoppable for GWF's. I get this every fight without fail. It has something to do with how determination is built up AND the temporary hitpoints cooldown. Somehow a value/flag is getting set incorrectly, when you still have temporary hit points and you still gain determination. Taking a hit that removes all your temporaty hit points and when your determination drops below activation level.. clears the erroneous flag/value and you gain determination again you can activate. It may be adding in a NAND gate style of delay, so that determination cannot be gained for a few secs once you have gained the temporary hitpts.

2. The lag in dread ring. Not a bug I can define, but.. it reminds me of the lingering singularity lag we used to get in all zones. Am wondering if the zone is "remembering" actions taken in the previous 30 mins/hour and still carrying those actions in the memory for the zone.

3. Transmute costs. Not a bug per se, but would dearly like to transmute some of the my gear to resemble some of the leveling pieces. Some of the stuff from earlier zones really looks good. At 50k a pop to transmute, is not something I can afford.

Again, thank you for taking our questions..

extchickenman

Whatever response they get.......they have earned

beckylunatic

Forming the Guild task shows up in level-up rewards permanently and cannot be cleared, basically from start of game.

Icewind Dale Campaign shows up in level-up rewards at max level and cannot be cleared. Both just have option to say "Goodbye!"

You can dismiss the interface, but these items still shouldn't be there. It's sloppy.

hustin1

Mount training definitely needs to be addressed in light of the recent change.

beckylunatic

Relocating "discard" to the bottom of the right-click menu for items was supposed to help prevent accidental discards, but actually resulted in placing it right next to "refine" or "refine enchantment" on everything but my MH and OH, which are buffered by "manage powers". So, on the majority of our stuff, "discard" is now immediately next to the options we need to access the most. Since this change, I've had more near-misses than ever. It's horrible user-unfriendly design. Even with a confirmation, I shouldn't be thrown into a mini-panic every time I go to refine something, because omgwhatifiscrewup?

beckylunatic

You have never addressed the fact that overload enchants with no time consumed won't stack, in spite of the final official Elemental Evil patch notes saying they would. We're still waiting.

glad2bhuman

I was wondering...I have classes that run from 10am through 2pm HST every Tuesday and Thursday which is right when your broadcast starts. Is there a way I can enter for the giveaway? If not its cool, however, if there is a way, I would love to complete any necessary steps to enter. Thanks!

lirithiel

beckylunatic said:

Relocating "discard" to the bottom of the right-click menu for items was supposed to help prevent accidental discards, but actually resulted in placing it right next to "refine" or "refine enchantment" on everything but my MH and OH, which are buffered by "manage powers". So, on the majority of our stuff, "discard" is now immediately next to the options we need to access the most. Since this change, I've had more near-misses than ever. It's horrible user-unfriendly design. Even with a confirmation, I shouldn't be thrown into a mini-panic every time I go to refine something, because omgwhatifiscrewup?

This!

What about having to type the word 'DELETE' before you want to trash something. No accidental discards ever then.

cyberfaust

What i want is to see the SW class fixed.Tune down the ridiculous amount of aggro that they have and increase the dmg output.
With the exception of some bugged dungeons where the soul puppet gets a crazy buff ,the SW will always be last when it comes to dmg.

asthazarf

Difficult to compete with all the posts above, hehe...

Let's put it this way: while this stream is unnecessary for the purpose of fixing what's broken, it's appreciated and needed in order to give your players some peace of mind, provided you actually are prepared to give punctual answers to what's coming your way. (I do hope you're ready for this)

Someone stated it quite nicely, above: answers in the form of "we'll do this soon" or "it's in our schedule" won't attract a positive reaction. You need to have a scheduled plan which you can freely share to the public in hand when organizing something like this; because a lot of time has passed since the voiced majority has seen fulfilled requests, causing more and more impatience to settle. Only point-answers will deal with this impatience.

All that aside... if your greatest concern is income, heed the following words, which have been uttered more times than you can count on these forums (figuratively speaking, of course): Quality of Live is everything. QoL includes but is not limited to:

1. Game performance.

Lag has been explained on multiple occasions and needs to be addressed properly.

2. Game experience.

2.1. Astral Diamond market.

The nature of implemented AD siphons to fight bot-caused inflation has a side effect: it also siphons out players. There are ideas to turn this around. I've went through very few forum posts to find quite a bunch of these ideas, several of which actually seemed viable.

Examples:
- AD/rAD rewards for proper foundries;
- old dungeons brought back in order to, at the very least, diversify the road to AD/rAD income;
- proper rewards for over leveling: 5 enchants for ~2-3 hours of game play - and this is if you're grinding levels, otherwise you have 5-6 hours - are really inappropriate.

Now that Leadership no longer bots insane amounts of AD/rAD into the game, I don't see why you can't have actual playable content rewarding at least some part of it. And no, the 4/6 available dungeons/skirmishes (unsure on the numbers) aren't enough to keep folks from getting frustrated and/or bored, especially when... read the 2 sub points below and put them together.

2.2. Class balancing, equipment/environment fixes.

With the release of M6, I took a 7-8 months break. Upon returning, I abandoned my other builds and stuck to my main - a TR. This happened due to grind requirements. (different issue; will be addressed later) So in no way am I overly qualified to speak about class balancing. However, there are certain aspects which are obvious even to one not playing other classes.

Your lack in class vision is more than obvious. You don't have a plan for classes.

You introduced OP, making GF obsolete. Sure, a GF can boost the party, but there's no point to that when a OP-DC combo will buff and keep a party alive in any circumstance. How about nerfing that perma-bubble a little, eh? Brings back memories related to perma-something-else? Anyone? Anyway... not having a non-stop invincibility ray attached to you in dungeons which are supposed to be difficult will give GFs some space.

HR and SW are only viable if you know how to exploit them, based on what I read here and there on the forums, as well as seen in action. (I might be wrong, since I haven't played either)

GWF got overpowered due to.. I have no idea what. Some say it's the LoL set that pushed their DPS through the roof. I ran a PoM with a GWF who was bugged in such a way that his APs wouldn't drain, causing perma-dailies... what..?

Damage output increase, or perma-bubble builds make crowd control unnecessary -> control CWs become unnecessary.

Note that not all players join chat rooms in which class, spec, IL etc. aren't relevant. This is part of what sends a portion of new players away:
- difficulty in solo content for some classes;
- difficulty in finding people willing to party up in order to help;
- lack of difficulty in party content because powers stack with "n" other powers creating the Power Rangers.

On the basis of A affects B, which in turn affects C and turns to D producing E... I can not stress this enough... set aside new stuff and create feasible base lines for classes first and foremost. Continue along the path you're on and you'll never fix classes. Major minus to "game experience". (and I'm repeating myself with this paragraph)

With the above in mind, I disagree with modifying equipment/environment prior to balancing classes. I'd like to see equipment made for classes, not vice versa. What was the intended purpose of the LoL set? Did you have a specific class in mind when you created it? If so, add that class as a requirement for using that set. In fact, do this with all sets you design for certain classes only. LoL set gives STR and DEX, leading me to believe it's meant for TR, possibly GWF - damage dealers in general. Or, here's a different suggestion: limit the number of targets the set bonus can affect a time. (see Feytouched enchantment)

2.3. Grind.

Someone had a very nice post on this subject. (+instynctive, if I'm not mistaken)

Right now, the D&D in Nevewinter translates to Demons and Dragons. Folks are currently doing tons of demonic HEs for the fast rAD ring farm, but they'll get over and bored with it, same as they did with the few available dungeons. Again: old dungeons back with tweaked rewards = rAD to compensate the time spent in the dungeon, since AD needs to be obtainable again, or perhaps consumables one can use or profit from; better yet, a chance at one or the other. The current dungeons are ok from a reward-point-of-view. Tweak those for the more challenging re-releases of older dungeons.

Those dungeons... add some twists to them? 3-way path in LoL is a good example. Here's a thought: create separate spawn points for each of the 5 players, giving them solo content until they meet up (not necessarily all in the same spot; first 2, then next 2, then the 4 need to do something to "free" the 5th so that they can finally enter boss area; make sure you can't enter boss area w/o full party) then scale the difficulty appropriately. Develop twists, not grind. You want to earn a player pool? Concentrate on this in particular, after you've solved 2.2.

As for the RP grind... what's done is done. All I can say is, don't further it. (+katamaster81899)

The amount of grind in this game will keep a new player busy for years! You need to earn the devotion of these new players, first. You need to give them the incentive to commit to such a grind. Adding more grind takes that incentive away. It's simple logic.

How else to remove the grind? I'm baffled at the fact that so many people state how you're sitting on a gold mine, yet they all seem to go unnoticed. The Foundry can offer so much diversity to the game, if only players are given the tools to make it happen. The same system you used to determine if a Foundry mission was eligible for rewards or not can be used to determine the reward quality for foundries to come, which can turn into player made dungeons. [rant] You will have players doing your job for you! They (foundry authors) will keep a very large chunk of your player pool entertained while you get some spare time to take a look at all the fixes required to stop us from bitching so much! [/endrant]

2.4. Bots.

Attracting new players by leaving them as prey to chat and/o friend request spammers will never happen. It's that simple. Suggestion (repeating myself again): proper automated chat filter.

2.5. Communication.

This stream is a nice step towards this point. Another (better) step is providing the schedule you've prepared to the public, preferably on the forums. Link them in-game as well. Announce failures in the schedule before they come to pass. Talk to us about certain (not probable) actions to come and you'll notice a much calmer audience.


I have more to say, but I'm at work and can't arrange the ideas (most of which are taken from existing threads) in order. so I'll stop here for now.

stpensive

cyberfaust said:

ith the exception of some bugged dungeons where the soul puppet gets a crazy buff, SW will always be last when it comes to dmg.

Other than the scorpions in LM, I am unaware of any consistent example of this that can't be explained by party buffs.

Other than some GWFs in my guild, I consistently lead the pain chart in most dungeons, especially TOS. Average about 112-120 million in damage there with a 2.9 IL, Soulbinder Damnation.

I used to believe as you but the higher I have gotten, the less I feel that way. My gripes with the class have more to do with the long cast times of just about everything.

zukn75

Ok let's do some questions
Let's get this one out of the way 1) Can you give us any new information on the state of the dungeon rework? An eta, which ones are being worked on and estimated difficulty and rewards would be greatly appreciated.
2) Any information on what is planned for the mount system now that the training manuals have been removed?
3) Do you have any plans to adjust the AD cost of: A) Boons
b) Reinforcement Kits
C) Stronghold advancement
D) Transmutation costs
4) Do you have any plans to introduce content aimed at 3k+ Item level players?
5) Any news on the class balance pass that has been mentioned for SW and Pallies?
6) Do you feel the dps increase from the Lostmauth set is working as intended since it seemingly so outperforms every other artifact set?
7) Are the bonding runestones working correctly in allowing so many stacks if the companion dies and revives?
8 ) Any plans for a new season of the NCL?
9) Any chance the CTAs could be updated to have two versions the current lvl 60 version and a lvl 70+ version with refreshed rewards and greater challenge?
10 ) Have you got any Venezuelan beaver cheese?
11 ) Any idea when you'll be announcing the title of the next mod?

urabask

beckylunatic said:

Relocating "discard" to the bottom of the right-click menu for items was supposed to help prevent accidental discards, but actually resulted in placing it right next to "refine" or "refine enchantment" on everything but my MH and OH, which are buffered by "manage powers". So, on the majority of our stuff, "discard" is now immediately next to the options we need to access the most. Since this change, I've had more near-misses than ever. It's horrible user-unfriendly design. Even with a confirmation, I shouldn't be thrown into a mini-panic every time I go to refine something, because omgwhatifiscrewup?

IMO they should get rid of "discard" on anything you have equipped.

The "Destroy enchantment/Runestone" option should just be removed along with the unslotting cost. Shouldn't have to risk destroying a weapon enchant every time you want to swap it to another character.

scathias

Here is an issue with quests displaying (the yellow question mark for a new quest alert) for characters that are over-leveled for the quest.

The daily quest Common Cause in the Tyranny of Dragons campaign requires you to pick up an additional quest from one of 5 people around Harper Boward. Now the lv cap is 70 and these lair quests needed to complete common cause are also level 70, however, something somewhere is still tagging the quests as level 60 because once you accept the Common Cause quest you either have to talk to each of the 5 people to find out which common cause it is that day, or go check out the common cause quest in your journal to see which person you need to talk to.

This is really annoying after 8 months.

Also, would it be possible to change the mechanics of how these quests display in Elemental Evil? If i want to go back and do those quests again i need to talk to all the npcs in the area to find out who gives quests, this is annoying when i am trying to farm for Unified Elements or when i just want to earn some XP for overflow rewards.

To be honest, quest markers vanishing after you level past them are just a poor mechanic in general i think. It makes the game feel smaller. I am sure there are quests that i missed on some characters (like the racial/class quests) but since i am overleveled for those quests i can't do them unless i know exactly where to go in order to start them.

It makes the game feel smaller, and with less content then there really is

beckylunatic

scathias said:

To be honest, quest markers vanishing after you level past them are just a poor mechanic in general i think.

I agree and was going to bring this up, so thanks for saving me some typing. There's no reason to do this. It was also causing the problem with TRs not being able to finish their class quest if they had overlevelled it, because that hid the NPC completely (which you did apparently fix).

But why should a quest be hidden if it still exists? I have had to walk so many people through the steps in Neverdeath because they missed getting their bag and can't figure out who they need to talk to. Why do this to us? Why not just let players decide for themselves if they want to bother with lower level quests? And why keep the mechanic when it actively interferes with quests that we're still encouraged to be doing when we're capped? It's obsolete. You should get rid of it.

vteasy

@strumslinger

Can you post a compiled list of questions/bugs that will be brought up? On many of hte streams I think that important topics get lost due to the live nature of the event. If you can post a list beforehand, it will be helpful to stay on track and we can see what needs to be added.

Just a suggestion

Unknown

This content has been removed.

beckylunatic

Customer service seems frequently unaware of very common bugs and has practically no understanding of Neverwinter's gameplay, and their script is to direct players to post on the forums, where other players generally know what the real story is and can either tell them how to work around a bug or problem, tell them that their issue is actually WAI, or tell them that their issue really is something broken that may or may not ever be fixed.... How can CS reps be better equipped to actually be helpful and not rely on a canned non-answer so much of the time? Even when they acknowledge something is a bug and has cost the player in some fashion, their script says that they do not compensate for player losses due to bugs, although you can sometimes politely argue your way into receiving better treatment. On the whole, word of mouth has gotten around that the CS experience is bad and usually not worth bothering about, better to just suck up a loss. This isn't good for your reputation.

beckylunatic

If you were looking at rings like that "around a week ago", you probably put a bid on a cheap one and won it because nobody else could be bothered bidding on it, then forgot, because you ended up buying one out. Occam's Razor.

scathias

I suspect that what you did was accidentally place a bid on that ring you thought you bought instead of buying it outright. Then this morning the auction expired and you were still the highest bidder so you won the auction for the ring.

Also, please remove the players name from your post, there are forum rules against naming and shaming, which is what your use would fall under

zukn75

Is @Panderus ok? his last post was in NOVEMBER

mynaam

scathias said:

I suspect that what you did was accidentally place a bid on that ring you thought you bought instead of buying it outright. Then this morning the auction expired and you were still the highest bidder so you won the auction for the ring.

Also, please remove the players name from your post, there are forum rules against naming and shaming, which is what your use would fall under

Occam's Razor is not a players name ,but a sientific term