aulduronMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,351Arc User
Does this mean that you will FINALLY have significantly better gear than Elven and Elemental? I haven't added a new piece of gear since mod 6, nor does any worthwhile gear drop in dungeons anymore. Since mod 1 there has been absolutely no "excitement of earning a new piece of gear". Possibly in Fangbreakers, I don't know, since this new campaign is insanely stupid and I'm skipping it, and will apparently have to also skip the next. It's just not worth it.
@asterdahl sorry, but any increased farming times due to having a mod 5 set bonus would be massively offset by the cost to obtain said mod 5 set.
"...tremendous amount of use out of them, including substantially reduced farming times which lead directly to profit. This is a different case than Lostmauth due to refinement investment and other factors"
As @thefabricant has pointed out, the actual farming times are insignificantly affected by mod 5 set bonuses. I argue groups can run Castle Never faster with non mod 5 set bonuses sans cutscenes compared to mod 5 set bonuses with cutscenes.
People with the Lostmauth set also got a tremendous amount of use out of them, leading directly to profit. I argue the former Lostmauth set bonus damage is superior to any buff received from a teammate using a mod 5 set bonus.
The Lostmauth set could have been dropped into another artifact/waist/neck, mitigating the refinement hit.
I know people who purposefully fully levelled characters and reinforced gear because they had mod 5 set bonuses on said characters.
My argument is not against removing mod 5 set bonuses. I commend you guys for doing so. Please consider compensating those who spent millions on a prevalent issue that lasted 4.5 mods. I may not agree with you, but I respect your decision and thank you for openly communicating with us.
My HV set was one of the few things that made this game (almost) bearable. Now I have to spend more time on grinding boring and repeating quests and HEs that just sucks the life out of me.
But I guess the gear isn't the problem, the uncreative and dull content is. The latest module is the first one were I simply gave up before finishing the boons. I unlocked the new dungeon weeks ago but I still haven't entered and I wont until there is something that feels worth the effort in the chest.
And even without my HV set. I will NEVER use any gear that needs empowerment. NEVER.
gg. I'm still not going to switch to any set that needs empowering. Remove all you like... It's half-dusk/half-something else for me until this empowerment nonsense goes away (again).
As others have pointed out, those with the sets have already gotten a tremendous amount of use out of them, including substantially reduced farming times which lead directly to profit. This is a different case than Lostmauth due to refinement investment and other factors. Equipment was never meant to last this long so we're not currently looking to implement any sort of compensation
Although I understand the reasoning here, it's guaranteed to leave a sour taste in my mouth and for others as well. I suspect the real reason is also that it would take time/effort to code a compensation mechanic that isn't exploitable, and you don't want to dedicate resources to that.
If only for the armor reinforcement kits. I know that you could make the case that we've gotten more than 400K AD worth of value out of the set on each character, but that's still kind of crappy. It's akin to suddenly taking away your car and saying "you shouldn't be sad, you had an exceptionally fast car for longer than intended and you should be able to afford a new car anyway" even if it's true, it's a sadface way of dealing with it.
I understand, but I would urge you to consider letting us recover the reinforcement kits (you have a mechanic for it from the lostmauth vendor).
So, why do those with these Legacy sets think they should get compensation? You spent AD on it? Like players have done on gear since launch? Because you put armor kits on it? Well, people have done that for other, now outdated, armor, too. They got nothing.
I fully support the devs on this. It's old gear. Haul out the salvage anvil and make some pack room.
The decision to remove the mod5 sets is a symbolic one, not a real fix to the underlying issues.
I think I touched on it a bit in a previous post but we have other changes incoming this patch that will continue to address balance issues in regards to players vs. content. While I can't promise we're going to fix all of the issues overnight, we would like to address them.
I want to dispel a popular opinion that's been floating around this thread and discussions on other venues like reddit, etc. The idea that this change was made solely in reaction to player outcry is false. Obviously there is no way to prove this statement as we are in the realm of thoughts and opinions but I can do my best to refute it.
These sets are something we would have liked to remove much earlier; however, there was an underlying fear among some on the team regarding nerfs in general. It's no secret that Module 6 was quite a mess and we have worked hard to try to dig ourselves out from a number of holes. Even if a nerf is made with the overall health of the game in mind, especially when loot is involved, the community reaction can be understandably vitriolic. An attempt to avoid this vitriol in the post Module 6 landscape lead to a lot of issues remaining alive for far longer than they ought to have.
When we finally pushed forward on a lot of long outstanding class balance issues—the changes Amenar made before he departed the studio—thanks to the overall positive reaction to those changes we were able to really present to the rest of the team how balance changes and nerfs are necessary growing pains and that not all of you will see these as negative changes.
Couple that newfound sense of confidence in making these sorts of nerfs and changes with the fact that in Module 10 with Fangbreaker we introduced a new tier of difficulty—one where bosses are designed to be longer fights that aim to test adventurers mechanically as well as statistically—and that is essentially the genesis of how this change came to be.
The actual change itself was relatively trivial to implement. Removing a number of set bonuses is easy. Rebalancing player powers that may have similar resistance shredding or power buffing effects is significantly more time consuming. When the systems team began discussing powers that were making it difficult to balance content, either balancing boss encounters or reward rates, we decided that this was finally a good opportunity to pull the sets.
We'd like to continue to make adjustments that make Neverwinter's content more enjoyable and rewarding. And although community feedback regarding what powers are too powerful, not powerful enough, etc. is invaluable, in the end this decision was made not because there was a tremendous outcry, but because we believed that this was the right opportunity to do so, and that we'd like the upcoming trial to not be subject to the imbalance these sets provided. At least with those player powers that might be out of hand, every group potentially has access to that same pool of abilities.
So, why do those with these Legacy sets think they should get compensation? You spent AD on it? Like players have done on gear since launch? Because you put armor kits on it? Well, people have done that for other, now outdated, armor, too. They got nothing.
I fully support the devs on this. It's old gear. Haul out the salvage anvil and make some pack room.
I politely and respectfully disagree with your perspective.
Other old armor became outdated in mod6, when armor kits were also introduced. Nobody spent AD kitting out the other armors, because you only kit out the best armor. It so happened that these mod5 sets remained the best for much longer than intended.
It's a little different because they aren't introducing new armor that someone would voluntarily switch to, they are suddenly making currently effective armor useless. Not the same.
But yes, I'm sure those that have these armors all deserve to get hit with this cost. Because playing the game making use of mechanics so egregiously broken (shaving a couple min off of each run) should be punished. I get it. I get why this community is growing
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
These sets are something we would have liked to remove much earlier; however, there was an underlying fear among some on the team regarding nerfs in general. It's no secret that Module 6 was quite a mess and we have worked hard to try to dig ourselves out from a number of holes. Even if a nerf is made with the overall health of the game in mind, especially when loot is involved, the community reaction can be understandably vitriolic. An attempt to avoid this vitriol in the post Module 6 landscape lead to a lot of issues remaining alive for far longer than they ought to have.
@asterdahl First, it's refreshing to hear your opinion on Module 6. For those who've been around since the beginning, we can all clearly point to the clusterhamster that was Module 6. Whether the changes weren't well-through out or too ambitious for one module, or even pulling way to many strings at once, it's very clear in this community that Module 6 was a low-point for the game. It's been just as frustrating for players as the developers, I'm sure, watching how issues created by the transition from Module 5 to 6 have cascade down through the game for over a year now.
So please, have the confidence and courage to address those. You're going to get complaints and vitriol thrown at you. It's the nature of the beast, here in Neverwinter and every single multiplayer game in existence. I would both challenge and encourage you to keep pushing forward with the changes that are hamstringing the team from making fun, enjoyable content for a majority of the population.
And for those who are going to complain about the "nerfs" are also likely the same people who champion how great the game was in the early modules. I would remind those people that (at least what I'm anticipating better "fixed") are mostly relics of later modules that have perhaps been the roadblocks which have hinder more of the content than helped it.
I can also speculate as to some of the things that are on your "to fix" list, and I know people might consider them sacred cows. But I can tell you this, fixing those imbalances will bring far more players back to the community, as well as continue to encourage new players to pick up Neverwinter, versus the very loud and angry voices you'll hear that loudly declare that you've ruined their game, destroyed their "investment" and that they're quitting forever...even though we know in 9/10 cases, those who loudly declare they're quitting or otherwise make a public show of it often times don't.
"Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
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mrvincent1959Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 740Arc User
Wow, the ink isnt even dry yet on old set bonus removal, and the usual suspects are already calling for nerfs to be made on buffs/debuffs. You guys are fast.
@asterdahl sorry, but any increased farming times due to having a mod 5 set bonus would be massively offset by the cost to obtain said mod 5 set.
"...tremendous amount of use out of them, including substantially reduced farming times which lead directly to profit. This is a different case than Lostmauth due to refinement investment and other factors"
As @thefabricant has pointed out, the actual farming times are insignificantly affected by mod 5 set bonuses. I argue groups can run Castle Never faster with non mod 5 set bonuses sans cutscenes compared to mod 5 set bonuses with cutscenes.
People with the Lostmauth set also got a tremendous amount of use out of them, leading directly to profit. I argue the former Lostmauth set bonus damage is superior to any buff received from a teammate using a mod 5 set bonus.
The Lostmauth set could have been dropped into another artifact/waist/neck, mitigating the refinement hit.
I know people who purposefully fully levelled characters and reinforced gear because they had mod 5 set bonuses on said characters.
My argument is not against removing mod 5 set bonuses. I commend you guys for doing so. Please consider compensating those who spent millions on a prevalent issue that lasted 4.5 mods. I may not agree with you, but I respect your decision and thank you for openly communicating with us.
I hope the developers keep in mind that due to Strongholds we have to run content like dungeons a lot. Therefore making content too difficult, i.e. too time-consuming, will have a huge impact on progressing the stronghold. There needs to be a balance.
Overall I agree that the buff and debuffing system needs to be fixed. It is ridiculous that my GWF with IBS once did almost 4M damage in a HE while the tooltip says it will do 20k-24k damage. That's a damage multiplier of more than 160. With damage scaling like that I find it hard to believe that content can be balanced at all.
I can accept, although feeling very sad my favorite HP set will be nerfed... I purposely adjust my DC so he can wear the set without much survivability problem... Can we just have an armor trade in just like how lostmauth works? Then we can get a bag of RAD and our reinforcement kit back, except those who bought the set with millions of AD who paid more than us, 4x greater armor reinforcement is 800k+ AD which is not cheap, it is like more than 3 weeks getting full RAD each day. Can we have a simple merchant to cut down our lost since this is a forced nerf? @asterdahl
One of the bigger issues with this game, armor wise, is the god aweful stat distribution and set bonuses that are cranked out now a days. Couple that with terrible "new" mechanics (getting the armor drop, farming all the items you need to restore it so its equippable, then continuing to farm your life away just to keep it empowered) and there's a reason why no one is wearing the new armor but still wearing armor from mods ago.
You really should post about this in the main forum though. You're going to have cranky players who buy the sets between now and then but didn't see this thread.
the change is understandable but it affects a lot of sets that for sure are not skewing any run, so a half ground solution would be putting a long cooldown on the "broken" sets.
It would be great if we could get a full list of the sets that are going to disappear, for example I do own a full Battlefield Skulker set too that I mainly use for weekly missions, is it going to vanish too although it doesn't affect negatively any end content game?
I do hope that if sets are going to disappear you do something like you did with Lostmauth set some time ago and you give something in exchange, for example a Bound to Character item of choice.
Old sets that only buff damage and decrease survivability is bad, and DC Geas that BREAKS all game mechanic(Demo/FBI and etc "we need a stopper DC!") - is fine
Instead moving from the damage to the tactics and mechanics gameplay (Demo and Drufi... oops they can be bypassed) we are involved to another damage rush... Hope that game become players friendly someday...
I just bought the third piece for my HV set. Just to be told afterwards that a high-up in Cryptic said in a thread somewhere that all the sets are going to be made into useless items (set bonus removed). If this is true? Who was that? Why do so game-changing (maybe also game healing) things are said in a side thread of a subforum but not announced on the news page? Why can the items still be traded on the AH? How does Cryptic plan to compensate the players that bought these items for a huge amount of money?
Please help me understand how PWE/Cryptic ticks, because this is really terrible to see. I just wasted1.9 million AD. Now I have the chance to *) try to rip off another poor sod who does not read the forum 24/7 (have not worn it yet) *) suck it up and salvage the item I bought for 1.9m AD for 5.5k AD
I can not even enjoy the set for a few months as so far I don't have the complete set. And I don't plan to get the 4th piece just to wear it for a short time.
Dear @asterdahl I finally found the thread where you explain that the pre-mod 5 sets will be "changed". Thank you very much for giving the players from the preview shard a head start. I am sure I am not the only one totally angry at this moment.
Get rekt? There was no guarantee that the set bonus would remain as is. They made it so they don't drop over two years ago, anyone buying them now should've known the risk involved.
I'm glad not only to hear that you want remove old sets, but I really like that you presented your thoughts and opinion on the matter. I must say I can see some fresh air in players & developers community. Very good change
@asterdahl you have defnitely right on the removal and the thing about making new sets an appealing reward... there is a major flaw there too: no set will result appealing anymore if everytime a new module comes we have to spent a million ADs in reinforcement kits. let us remove them and use again !
Its really amusing to see all the ppl crying for nerfs. Remove the old sets, nerf buffs/debuffs mechanics... Apparently its so exiting to spent 50-60 minutes on one FBI run when in reality its no longer than elol. Juts millions of hp on everything so it would seem long. Oh and to what end? Have fun wasting an hour only to find out a half-eaten apple in the chest. Balancing out the rewards? Common.. What rewards? Last time we had rewards in the game... Mods 1-4 with old GG/T2s & old CN around. Before all this bind to char/artifact gear. Today spoiled apples all the way. Or you seriously calling farming for salvage & running same content 200-300+ times for a chance to get a good ring or artifact rewarding?
Comments
"...tremendous amount of use out of them, including substantially reduced farming times which lead directly to profit. This is a different case than Lostmauth due to refinement investment and other factors"
As @thefabricant has pointed out, the actual farming times are insignificantly affected by mod 5 set bonuses. I argue groups can run Castle Never faster with non mod 5 set bonuses sans cutscenes compared to mod 5 set bonuses with cutscenes.
People with the Lostmauth set also got a tremendous amount of use out of them, leading directly to profit. I argue the former Lostmauth set bonus damage is superior to any buff received from a teammate using a mod 5 set bonus.
The Lostmauth set could have been dropped into another artifact/waist/neck, mitigating the refinement hit.
I know people who purposefully fully levelled characters and reinforced gear because they had mod 5 set bonuses on said characters.
My argument is not against removing mod 5 set bonuses. I commend you guys for doing so. Please consider compensating those who spent millions on a prevalent issue that lasted 4.5 mods. I may not agree with you, but I respect your decision and thank you for openly communicating with us.
But I guess the gear isn't the problem, the uncreative and dull content is. The latest module is the first one were I simply gave up before finishing the boons. I unlocked the new dungeon weeks ago but I still haven't entered and I wont until there is something that feels worth the effort in the chest.
And even without my HV set. I will NEVER use any gear that needs empowerment. NEVER.
▁ ▂ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █ Gankdalf The Icehole █ ▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▂ ▁
If only for the armor reinforcement kits. I know that you could make the case that we've gotten more than 400K AD worth of value out of the set on each character, but that's still kind of crappy. It's akin to suddenly taking away your car and saying "you shouldn't be sad, you had an exceptionally fast car for longer than intended and you should be able to afford a new car anyway" even if it's true, it's a sadface way of dealing with it.
I understand, but I would urge you to consider letting us recover the reinforcement kits (you have a mechanic for it from the lostmauth vendor).
I fully support the devs on this. It's old gear. Haul out the salvage anvil and make some pack room.
I want to dispel a popular opinion that's been floating around this thread and discussions on other venues like reddit, etc. The idea that this change was made solely in reaction to player outcry is false. Obviously there is no way to prove this statement as we are in the realm of thoughts and opinions but I can do my best to refute it.
These sets are something we would have liked to remove much earlier; however, there was an underlying fear among some on the team regarding nerfs in general. It's no secret that Module 6 was quite a mess and we have worked hard to try to dig ourselves out from a number of holes. Even if a nerf is made with the overall health of the game in mind, especially when loot is involved, the community reaction can be understandably vitriolic. An attempt to avoid this vitriol in the post Module 6 landscape lead to a lot of issues remaining alive for far longer than they ought to have.
When we finally pushed forward on a lot of long outstanding class balance issues—the changes Amenar made before he departed the studio—thanks to the overall positive reaction to those changes we were able to really present to the rest of the team how balance changes and nerfs are necessary growing pains and that not all of you will see these as negative changes.
Couple that newfound sense of confidence in making these sorts of nerfs and changes with the fact that in Module 10 with Fangbreaker we introduced a new tier of difficulty—one where bosses are designed to be longer fights that aim to test adventurers mechanically as well as statistically—and that is essentially the genesis of how this change came to be.
The actual change itself was relatively trivial to implement. Removing a number of set bonuses is easy. Rebalancing player powers that may have similar resistance shredding or power buffing effects is significantly more time consuming. When the systems team began discussing powers that were making it difficult to balance content, either balancing boss encounters or reward rates, we decided that this was finally a good opportunity to pull the sets.
We'd like to continue to make adjustments that make Neverwinter's content more enjoyable and rewarding. And although community feedback regarding what powers are too powerful, not powerful enough, etc. is invaluable, in the end this decision was made not because there was a tremendous outcry, but because we believed that this was the right opportunity to do so, and that we'd like the upcoming trial to not be subject to the imbalance these sets provided. At least with those player powers that might be out of hand, every group potentially has access to that same pool of abilities.
Other old armor became outdated in mod6, when armor kits were also introduced. Nobody spent AD kitting out the other armors, because you only kit out the best armor. It so happened that these mod5 sets remained the best for much longer than intended.
It's a little different because they aren't introducing new armor that someone would voluntarily switch to, they are suddenly making currently effective armor useless. Not the same.
But yes, I'm sure those that have these armors all deserve to get hit with this cost. Because playing the game making use of mechanics so egregiously broken (shaving a couple min off of each run) should be punished. I get it. I get why this community is growing
So please, have the confidence and courage to address those. You're going to get complaints and vitriol thrown at you. It's the nature of the beast, here in Neverwinter and every single multiplayer game in existence. I would both challenge and encourage you to keep pushing forward with the changes that are hamstringing the team from making fun, enjoyable content for a majority of the population.
And for those who are going to complain about the "nerfs" are also likely the same people who champion how great the game was in the early modules. I would remind those people that (at least what I'm anticipating better "fixed") are mostly relics of later modules that have perhaps been the roadblocks which have hinder more of the content than helped it.
I can also speculate as to some of the things that are on your "to fix" list, and I know people might consider them sacred cows. But I can tell you this, fixing those imbalances will bring far more players back to the community, as well as continue to encourage new players to pick up Neverwinter, versus the very loud and angry voices you'll hear that loudly declare that you've ruined their game, destroyed their "investment" and that they're quitting forever...even though we know in 9/10 cases, those who loudly declare they're quitting or otherwise make a public show of it often times don't.
Overall I agree that the buff and debuffing system needs to be fixed. It is ridiculous that my GWF with IBS once did almost 4M damage in a HE while the tooltip says it will do 20k-24k damage. That's a damage multiplier of more than 160. With damage scaling like that I find it hard to believe that content can be balanced at all.
You really should post about this in the main forum though. You're going to have cranky players who buy the sets between now and then but didn't see this thread.
the change is understandable but it affects a lot of sets that for sure are not skewing any run, so a half ground solution would be putting a long cooldown on the "broken" sets.
It would be great if we could get a full list of the sets that are going to disappear, for example I do own a full Battlefield Skulker set too that I mainly use for weekly missions, is it going to vanish too although it doesn't affect negatively any end content game?
I do hope that if sets are going to disappear you do something like you did with Lostmauth set some time ago and you give something in exchange, for example a Bound to Character item of choice.
Thanks a lot.
Instead moving from the damage to the tactics and mechanics gameplay (Demo and Drufi... oops they can be bypassed) we are involved to another damage rush... Hope that game become players friendly someday...
Just to be told afterwards that a high-up in Cryptic said in a thread somewhere that all the sets are going to be made into useless items (set bonus removed).
If this is true?
Who was that?
Why do so game-changing (maybe also game healing) things are said in a side thread of a subforum but not announced on the news page?
Why can the items still be traded on the AH?
How does Cryptic plan to compensate the players that bought these items for a huge amount of money?
Please help me understand how PWE/Cryptic ticks, because this is really terrible to see. I just wasted1.9 million AD.
Now I have the chance to
*) try to rip off another poor sod who does not read the forum 24/7 (have not worn it yet)
*) suck it up and salvage the item I bought for 1.9m AD for 5.5k AD
I can not even enjoy the set for a few months as so far I don't have the complete set. And I don't plan to get the 4th piece just to wear it for a short time.
Cryptic, please help me!
I finally found the thread where you explain that the pre-mod 5 sets will be "changed".
Thank you very much for giving the players from the preview shard a head start.
I am sure I am not the only one totally angry at this moment.
For those who don't know please read
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1218370/high-prophet-and-knight-captain-set
I must say I can see some fresh air in players & developers community. Very good change
there is a major flaw there too: no set will result appealing anymore if everytime a new module comes we have to spent a million ADs in reinforcement kits. let us remove them and use again !