I did quite a bit of playtesting for the Maze Engine mod while it was on preview... when I realized that the campaign progress was time-gated, I predicted that I would quickly lose interest in it.
While some might say that was a "self-fulfilling prophecy", my prediction came true.
What is available is.. "ok" ..but there is a lot of "go kill these" and "go kill these".. walk 20 yards and fight a mob. Another 20 yards and fight a mob.
Honestly, the design is crushingly uninspired. My over-geared GWF is plowing though all the content with zero difficulty, even though the devs upped the difficulty. The time-gate is, honestly, just lazy.
I guess I don't understand why it is so difficult for a team of full-time personnel to come up with a more "flowing" storyline with longer, more immersive quests. Instead of time-gating things, why not create a more D&D-inspired adventure? I .. yeah.. I just don't know.
Anyway.
I got nothing. :-(
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
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this is why IWD was great.. you could save all quests .. do them all when you had time , just do the 1 daily to progress .. then collect what you needed later.
Dread ring same way more or less.
The real issue is how they decide that 1 quest every 12 hours or something isnt just plain boring to wait for.. i just want to blow through this HAMSTER.. and hope they never release another campaign again..
In fact I will start a NO more campaigns ever!
we seriously do not need any more boons ever..
I dont mind a story quest, rewarding a open gate to a DD or something(account wide!).. similar to other games.
the chapter quests system (that again seen from other games as well.. is also better then what they had previously.
But meh.. more boons =P ..
no reason to keep throwing these at us..
That's what kills me. I played the old Neverwinter-Nights PC game, where they gave you a level builder that was spectacular (even if it did require a background in programming to use it)...I had such high hopes for the foundry. Unfortunately, the foundry is so neutered, you can only build the same type of "if it moves, kill it" quests that Cryptic turns out. If they'd give the tools, the foundry community would probably turn out enough content to fill the gaps between modules without needing time-gates. (and one of those tools needs to be the ability to have actual meaningful drops, even if that takes the form of 'foundry seals' or something else to farm)
Yeah. Foundry Authors could single-handedly make this game mindblowing.
As opposed to mindnumbing.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
Ah, hubris... you always get your man, don't you.
I have this sense that someday someone will be making another MMO of some kind and stumble across the foundry concept here. "Hey! Remember that one game that came out in 2013 or whatever? Wasn't there some thing they bragged about where the players could make their own content? Why don't we do that instead of copying what phone games do?" Perhaps they might laugh at what happened with NWO as they successfully implement their own version of it.
^^^^^^^^Yes
Cryptic's response: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
Cryptic could consult Wizards of the Coast if an advice is needed.
Some basics:
Kudos to whoever fought/thought for and implemented this. The metrics must be awesome!
Neverwinter is, still very much, a long way from that point. And Cryptic, despite its other problems, seems a place very unwilling to shut down any of its games.
Every other campaign is time-gated: although some make it easier to pile up daily quests and run once a week, there is still no way to finish the campaign faster than a set number of days (without using Zen boosts).
Most campaigns give you 10-20 minutes of work to do daily, with no added storyline after the first day. With multiple characters, this leads to 1-2 hours daily per campaign.
With the Maze Engine, you get interesting quests interspersed with super-fast dailies. So I staggered when my alts started the campaign, and I'm making regular progress on several characters without it taking a ton of time. 10 minutes when it's time for a chapter, and less than a minute other days (yay for VIP signpost to speed up travel one way).
Add in great exp and other rewards, and I think this might be the best campaign yet.
> (The following comment contains minor spoilers of the Maze Engine Campaign.)
>
> (Spoiler)
Seeing that makes me happy at least but I do have to agree with the general consensus that the game seems uninspired and lacking... depth. Cryptic has the right idea but they need to decide what direction they want this game to go and fix the simple mistakes that have been made. For example, squishing monster camps so close together and then giving them *incredibly* fast respawn rates (as well as the inconsistent aggro ranges) is just bad decision making in an MMORPG. It practically screams poor design, as if it was hastily thrown together without given any real thought. If there had been an iota of effort these issues wouldn't even exist. I genuinely want to like this game but it desperately needs focus. It's so busy trying to do everything that it ends up really doing nothing well. As an experienced D&D player I have to say that there are *far* too many attributes and the item enhancement system is one of the most boring and unimaginative that I have ever seen. It's almost similar to the old City of Heroes style of "upgrades" where you just keep dropping higher level enhancements into slots, as if the dev team just couldn't be bothered to even come up with an actual upgrade system at all. I'm not sorry to say that it's not enjoyable "socketing" your items constantly and, quite frankly, doesn't make even the slightest bit of sense from a D&D standpoint. Simply relocating mob camps, increasing respawn timers, and a new (and interesting) system for upgrading equipment would be such a massive improvement on it's own. It feels rushed and sloppy for the considerable potential it has and that is so incredibly frustrating.
I think this excessive travelling is a tactic to get people to buy VIP. For me, one trip of travelling is already painfully long. Non VIPers need to do a round trip.
A little bird in Russia refused to join the pack which was flying south for the winter. It refused to listen to its' parents and elders thinking it can tough it out.
Winter came and It was so cold so the bird froze and fell to the ground covered with snow. A cow came by and dropped some dung on the bird. The pile of cow dung warmed the bird and brought it back to life. It lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.A passing cat heard the bird singing took the bird out of the pile of cow dung, and ate it.
So, be happy while you have Lostmauth' set power, for it won't last for a long time once it get's fixed, and neither will the companion's gift agenda. It will arguably reduce your power by more than 50%, so play wise.
I still adventure on all the lvl 70 maps every day... but when this mod is completed it seems it will be done.
In future please have a map with the mod