Official Feedback Thread: Fangbreaker Island (Loot Edition)

treesclimber

So.......why not drop elven equipment it surelly wouldn't take masterwork equipment out of the ah, in fact with the prices of masterwork equipment and the stats of the new relic equipment will make masterwork out of the ah, you do realize that even suposing a new player that plays "heavly" making 50k ad everyday in his character will take over 20 days to get a single piece of masterwork armour? Would you invest at least 100 hours of your life to get some expensive braccers on ah when you can just do the IWD, and make drowcraft elemental just for a bit less stats? My answer to that was no. This game needs fixed values, a lot of them and it's up to you to do this because there are items getting out of control, for example with the launch of mod 10 can you imagine what the price of dwarven spelunkin will be? A book that is required to get a boon in the underdark campain is currently 80k ad.

The biggest source of ad in this game is by post trade, buy 100 wayward wizard by 70k this module sell them on october 1st for exmple by 160k each, 7million invested, 7million profit more or less, final ad 14milion without barelly laying foot in the game, same applies to selling enchants in double rp event. This is why i sugested all items boa on purchase from ah, appart from enchantments, the huge amount of people using post trade would all stetle in enchants and make the post trade effects much reduced.

Leadership providing refinment 2 times cheaper than wandrous bazar with vip R12, because of boting the gateway. This is why i sugested the lower the rp that is a nonsence as it is and cut all the boting from professions. Make professions intended only to reach endgame bop content. So there was a anouncment so time ago saying that you wanted to make it worth for players to run content, still rewards are a scratch of these boters and reselers, if you trully intend what you said, do something about it.

bitt3rnightmar3

thefabricant said:

@asterdahl forgive me for saying this, but for the most part, the gear for fangbreaker island is only BiS if you running fangbreaker island.

Agree- I don't see the point in keeping up this gear on the character I'd run fangbreaker with when I have 5 other alts to play too when the stats aren't better or what I want and item level isn't really that important anyway.

scathias

urabask said:

asterdahl said:

Any direct equipment drops would compete heavily with this market and the drop rates would need to be abysmally low not to crash that market. We want those who have chosen to place a lot of emphasis on professions to have a place in Neverwinter. It's worth noting that this market is not merely represented by those that have invested heavily enough to have obtained masterwork recipe books themselves, but also those that provide materials.

This makes +5 rings sound like the perfect candidate for BoE drops. +4 rings in most cases already outright replace masterwork rings for most players anyways but the abysmal drop rate on +5 rings means most players don't bother grinding content for them. They're in a position where you don't assume the player earned it; you assume they got lucky. To me that sounds like the exact kind of item that should be BoE.

This is exactly what i think of whenever i see a +5 ring. They got very lucky. And anyone who has a +5 ring feels lucky, not that they earned it, just lucky. And many people who have gotten lucky and got a +5 ring feel betrayed and upset as well. +5 drops are so rare that if they get one they are pretty sure that their luck is used up and they are never going to get another one, so if the ring is not good (+5 regen ring? LOL) then they have gotten lucky enough to get a crappy item they can't use, or trade away even to some strange player who might actually want it.

That being said, we understand the sentiment that it would be great to see exciting drops that can be sold on the auction house for large sums. This is an attractive area from a design perspective as well, as items like this have a high value early on and naturally lose value as the supply increases.

There are some issues, such as that drop rates for those sort of items that felt reasonable as party rollable loot tend to feel too low when split among 5 individual players' loot rolls. On the other hand, there's potential for abuse with rollable loot. That being said, we've not given up on including valuable items that can be sold. We're continuing to examine possibilities moving forward.

Here is the thing with BoE high value drops. If they are anything like the 'high value' +5 rings then they are going to be hated nearly as much as the +5 rings are. Because +5 rings are so incredibly stupid rare that you can run content consistently for months and never ever ever see what you want. Before mod 6 dungeons always dropped a piece of BoE loot at the end. not all of it was good, but there were enough high value pieces that your chance of getting some value out of a run was a lot higher, especially if you ran with friends and split the value of the drop after. But you knew that the chance of decent loot dropping was available. +5 drop rates though, and the drop rates of the artifacts, and artifact belts from dungeons, are so low that i easily believe a party running CN 50 times will see no Orcus artifact and no +5 ring.

People complained about not getting their helm after running SP 200 times but at least the option was there so that they could buy the bloody helm once they got frustrated enough. The seal system is a good answer to that endless running complaint because if you put in enough time you can get the item you want, you just have epicly failed to apply this to +5 rings. Make them cost 30k Demonic Ichor so it takes a while, but at least make them available.

And thank you for the long explanation, we have been waiting for a reason why BoE drops were taken out for over a year now so this is incredibly welcome.

urabask

scathias said:

This is exactly what i think of whenever i see a +5 ring. They got very lucky. And anyone who has a +5 ring feels lucky, not that they earned it, just lucky. And many people who have gotten lucky and got a +5 ring feel betrayed and upset as well. +5 drops are so rare that if they get one they are pretty sure that their luck is used up and they are never going to get another one, so if the ring is not good (+5 regen ring? LOL) then they have gotten lucky enough to get a crappy item they can't use, or trade away even to some strange player who might actually want it.

+5 regen ring would still be worth 12k surplus equipment so it would still at least be worth ~130k just based on that. They might settle pretty high just because of people wanting to finish collections.

rayrdan

urabask said:

scathias said:

This is exactly what i think of whenever i see a +5 ring. They got very lucky. And anyone who has a +5 ring feels lucky, not that they earned it, just lucky. And many people who have gotten lucky and got a +5 ring feel betrayed and upset as well. +5 drops are so rare that if they get one they are pretty sure that their luck is used up and they are never going to get another one, so if the ring is not good (+5 regen ring? LOL) then they have gotten lucky enough to get a crappy item they can't use, or trade away even to some strange player who might actually want it.

+5 regen ring would still be worth 12k surplus equipment so it would still at least be worth ~130k just based on that. They might settle pretty high just because of people wanting to finish collections.

i was all but happy when i got my regen +5..i can assure you

urabask

rayrdan said:

urabask said:

scathias said:

This is exactly what i think of whenever i see a +5 ring. They got very lucky. And anyone who has a +5 ring feels lucky, not that they earned it, just lucky. And many people who have gotten lucky and got a +5 ring feel betrayed and upset as well. +5 drops are so rare that if they get one they are pretty sure that their luck is used up and they are never going to get another one, so if the ring is not good (+5 regen ring? LOL) then they have gotten lucky enough to get a crappy item they can't use, or trade away even to some strange player who might actually want it.

+5 regen ring would still be worth 12k surplus equipment so it would still at least be worth ~130k just based on that. They might settle pretty high just because of people wanting to finish collections.

i was all but happy when i got my regen +5..i can assure you

Just saying that it wouldn't be as bad if they were BoE because there is still some inherent value to them for some people.

thefabricant

@asterdahl I think an easy way of portraying how we feel about the loot system is comparing it to the refining system. We don't like either. When refining, you fail over and over again and burn through wards and eventually you succeed. It doesn't matter if you know that statistically, over time you will use as many wards as the chance portrayed on the label, because it doesn't feel nice to see, "failure" on your screen over and over again. The same is true with the loot in dungeons. It doesn't matter if over time statistically you get a good outcome from a big win, the point is, 99 out of 100 times you feel the sting of failure and it doesn't feel nice. I would very happily go back to the old system, where something drops that has high value, the party rolls on it and 1 person gets lucky. Or, if its class specific, then maybe the person who can use it then wins their item. The point was, every run something dropped and so even if someone else won it and not me, I saw what dropped on every run and I felt like I had a chance to win it. Yes, some people got the raw end of the stick with that system, but you know what, unlike the current one, it felt rewarding. Now, when you win something, it doesn't feel rewarding at all, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth. I would rather see something good every run and only have a 1 in 5 chance to get it, knowing that at least if I do not get it someone else benefits from it, then every so often get something nice.

sleepy725

The loot system is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. I can't tell you how many edemos and CN runs I have had. But I can tell you that I don't play much anymore because I got tired of never winning anything. The devs claim all the time that there is no flag on accounts, however I have personally witnessed people who win multiple things over and over. These people do things significantly less than be and yet they win all the time. This is why I haven't even played long enough to finish an invoke cycle in three months. You want to keep players then you need to make them feel like they are rewarded for their time and money. Giving FBI the same loot as CN minus the armor is silly.

luks707

Feedback: Final rewards

Instead of new seals, would it be an option to distribute some more tarmalune trade bars? I loved that they were included in the raffle and it would be a good way of earning them without going via lockboxes.

rayrdan

thefabricant said:

@asterdahl I think an easy way of portraying how we feel about the loot system is comparing it to the refining system. We don't like either. When refining, you fail over and over again and burn through wards and eventually you succeed. It doesn't matter if you know that statistically, over time you will use as many wards as the chance portrayed on the label, because it doesn't feel nice to see, "failure" on your screen over and over again. The same is true with the loot in dungeons. It doesn't matter if over time statistically you get a good outcome from a big win, the point is, 99 out of 100 times you feel the sting of failure and it doesn't feel nice. I would very happily go back to the old system, where something drops that has high value, the party rolls on it and 1 person gets lucky. Or, if its class specific, then maybe the person who can use it then wins their item. The point was, every run something dropped and so even if someone else won it and not me, I saw what dropped on every run and I felt like I had a chance to win it. Yes, some people got the raw end of the stick with that system, but you know what, unlike the current one, it felt rewarding. Now, when you win something, it doesn't feel rewarding at all, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth. I would rather see something good every run and only have a 1 in 5 chance to get it, knowing that at least if I do not get it someone else benefits from it, then every so often get something nice.

i remember entire hours on team speak laughing running a dungeon, messing around with people i didnt even know. We were calling us with the worst names in the world but we were all happy because we knew in the end we were going to have a 20% to gain something valuable.
since mod 5 i never logged ts again, my guild died (neverwinterOrder for those who remember). Right now im in a nice guild but i really dont feel the need to log team speak and talk? about what? the game fun is lost, i only speak with people able to theorycraft and thats the best fun/conversion i have...god my hobby in the last 2 years is founding bugs..
bring back something valuable, bring it back...100% chance..2 hours dungeon with no chance to reduce its duration regardless the party debuffs/buffs..let me gain something...let me have that fun again. Longer dungeons are not bad if everyone cant exploit it with party composition... longer dungeons (2 hours, for example i could not run something like that more than 4 times a week all in the weekend.) would not destroy the market...we need gear set (pvp and pve) both in pve content, we need ways to defeat the rng even spending 5 hours in a row (because lets say it....this rng is not really impartial and well coded).

cambo1682

I have to agree with many here, the dungeons need to feel rewarding at the end and the whole BoE removal reasoning has essentially taken the "treasure hunt" excitement away from your game. I don't personally buy the rationale that Cryptic wants us to "earn" the gear as a badge of honor. We got that with titles, I still have some of the old titles like "High Vizier" and "Avatar of War" on some toons. The old system was exciting and bolstered the fantasy aspect of a small group of friends battling their way to riches and glory. While it is likely something that presents a puzzle to the company where gold sellers is concerned, once again the current system almost feels punishing. I've run CN countless times, not one bloody +5 ring. I can echo the sentiments stated above, it's gotten to the point that I just am meh about running your content, and I am a loyal fan of the game! That should be a red flag for the producers.

Please tell me that the collective minds at Cryptic can come up with something better than what we've seen. Hell even removing the filler garbage from your loot tables would be a start. In the highest level dungeon noone should see a +1, +2 or +3 ring drop, EVER. I can spam Throne to get those because I would not be equipping them anyway. T1's actually present a better return on time. Use your imaginations, the rewards should be varied and exciting if they cannot be BoE. Throw some variety in the chest, make it fun. 30K AD, a power point, any and all artifacts, fashion items, vouchers, unbound RP or equipment that we've seen previously in the game, be it as transmutes or artifact main / off hands). It doesn't need to be a 1Million AD helm, but it should be exciting and it should NOT have a chance to royally stiff the player with something like a peridot and a +1 ring. You're just pissing your players off when stuff like that drops.

beckylunatic

asterdahl said:

When you see an adventurer in relic armor, we want you to know that they personally completed Fangbreaker Island. When you see an adventurer in dragonflight armor, we want you to know that they worked hard with their guild to down the dragonflight.
....
That's not to say that bind on equip armor does not have a place in Neverwinter. We introduced masterwork equipment to help fill this gap.

Thanks for the explanation, but in most cases, what you see when inspecting a player's gear is one of two outcomes. Either it's the best stuff they could access easily (often all Dusk/Drowcraft, or some Alliance pieces, or even items bought with other campaign currency), or it's a carefully worked-out balance of items to give optimal stats. It says "I care about my power/crit ratio", more than "I have mad dragonslayer skills".

Item level be kittened, if equipment doesn't have the stats to support your build, it's inherently worse than what you already have on. A Control Wizard running a crit build gets beautiful stats from wearing two pieces of Drowcraft and two Dusk (nevermind the demon-specific bonus from the Drowcraft). They don't want to change that. Optimal gear for a TR mixes 3 different sets, again looking primarily at the actual stats and not the set bonuses (except 2-piece Dusk because that's really strong and universally useful).

BiS gear is about what maximizes your performance, not which has the highest iLvl.

urabask

beckylunatic said:

asterdahl said:

When you see an adventurer in relic armor, we want you to know that they personally completed Fangbreaker Island. When you see an adventurer in dragonflight armor, we want you to know that they worked hard with their guild to down the dragonflight.
....
That's not to say that bind on equip armor does not have a place in Neverwinter. We introduced masterwork equipment to help fill this gap.

Thanks for the explanation, but in most cases, what you see when inspecting a player's gear is one of two outcomes. Either it's the best stuff they could access easily (often all Dusk/Drowcraft, or some Alliance pieces, or even items bought with other campaign currency), or it's a carefully worked-out balance of items to give optimal stats. It says "I care about my power/crit ratio", more than "I have mad dragonslayer skills".

Item level be kittened, if equipment doesn't have the stats to support your build, it's inherently worse than what you already have on. A Control Wizard running a crit build gets beautiful stats from wearing two pieces of Drowcraft and two Dusk (nevermind the demon-specific bonus from the Drowcraft). They don't want to change that. Optimal gear for a TR mixes 3 different sets, again looking primarily at the actual stats and not the set bonuses (except 2-piece Dusk because that's really strong and universally useful).

BiS gear is about what maximizes your performance, not which has the highest iLvl.

Still really confused by their continued insistence on putting recovery on CW gear. They know we're all using spell twisting and that we don't want recovery but they keep replacing crit with it.

qexotic

urabask said:

beckylunatic said:

asterdahl said:

When you see an adventurer in relic armor, we want you to know that they personally completed Fangbreaker Island. When you see an adventurer in dragonflight armor, we want you to know that they worked hard with their guild to down the dragonflight.
....
That's not to say that bind on equip armor does not have a place in Neverwinter. We introduced masterwork equipment to help fill this gap.

Thanks for the explanation, but in most cases, what you see when inspecting a player's gear is one of two outcomes. Either it's the best stuff they could access easily (often all Dusk/Drowcraft, or some Alliance pieces, or even items bought with other campaign currency), or it's a carefully worked-out balance of items to give optimal stats. It says "I care about my power/crit ratio", more than "I have mad dragonslayer skills".

Item level be kittened, if equipment doesn't have the stats to support your build, it's inherently worse than what you already have on. A Control Wizard running a crit build gets beautiful stats from wearing two pieces of Drowcraft and two Dusk (nevermind the demon-specific bonus from the Drowcraft). They don't want to change that. Optimal gear for a TR mixes 3 different sets, again looking primarily at the actual stats and not the set bonuses (except 2-piece Dusk because that's really strong and universally useful).

BiS gear is about what maximizes your performance, not which has the highest iLvl.

Still really confused by their continued insistence on putting recovery on CW gear. They know we're all using spell twisting and that we don't want recovery but they keep replacing crit with it.

It confuses me too but not because of spell twisting which is not used by all CWs. I'd rather have crit than recovery but I also prefer Icy Veins to spell twisting >:)

scathias

By the end of mod 5 the value of T2 gear had tanked. Gear that had sold for 1-2 mil in mod 2 was selling for 50-60k or cheaper. Some of this was power creep because we could run dungeons a lot faster, but a lot more was the loot table of Tiamat. You guys took the T2 loot from the dungeons and recycled it into Tiamat, a piece of content that could be finished multiple times per hour and has to be farmed for a min of 80 runs per character that we want boons.

I imagine by the time mod 5 was released you had already planned out mod 6 and thus didn't care what happened to the BoE drop economy, but you guys were the ones who messed up the economy, not us.

And as beckylunatic says, if in mod 10 i see someone decked out in all relic gear and not running FBI i am going to assume they have no idea what they are doing. Because for the most part, those stats suck. The gwf relic gear has 1 item that is a potential replacement for me right now, and that is only because it has higher, and identical stats to my elemental drow helm. (It could also have a use in SKT because of the 10% damage reduction from giants, but we shall see if that is necessary.)
the other Relic armor items all over stack me on armpen or add loads of recovery that, as an at-will based class, i have absolutely no need for. If there is power and crit gear available I will be using that (and i am) because it provides useful stats

asterdahl

beckylunatic said:

Item level be kittened, if equipment doesn't have the stats to support your build, it's inherently worse than what you already have on.

You make a valid point, after discussing it with the team, we've made the following adjustments:

1. All relic armor of type "raid" is now either power/crit or crit/power.
   
2. A number of relic armor pieces of type "assault" have been adjusted such that they are now recovery/crit, crit/recovery, power/recovery or recovery/power.
   
3. A number of relic armor pieces of type "restoration" have been adjusted to recovery/power or power/recovery.
   

These changes should be reflected by the time the equipment is available on live. I don't mention it above, but we also made changes to a few ward pieces as well.

thefabricant

asterdahl said:

beckylunatic said:

Item level be kittened, if equipment doesn't have the stats to support your build, it's inherently worse than what you already have on.

You make a valid point, after discussing it with the team, we've made the following adjustments:

1. All relic armor of type "raid" is now either power/crit or crit/power.
   
2. A number of relic armor pieces of type "assault" have been adjusted such that they are now recovery/crit, crit/recovery, power/recovery or recovery/power.
   
3. A number of relic armor pieces of type "restoration" have been adjusted to recovery/power or power/recovery.
   

These changes should be reflected by the time the equipment is available on live. I don't mention it above, but we also made changes to a few ward pieces as well.

@d66723225 its time to start raging about your masterworks gear

beckylunatic

Well, I guess my work here is done.

lwedar

beckylunatic said:

Well, I guess my work here is done.

that'll do pig, that'll do

treesclimber

lwedar said:

beckylunatic said:

Well, I guess my work here is done.

that'll do pig, that'll do

I Cri Evrytiem.

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ghoulz66

There's not much point in grinding for the new gear anyway. Just a tiny ilvl and stat boost. Just like empowering the epic gear with BI, it's really not worth the trouble for so little benefit.

Should really focus on sets of gear in the old style with unique set bonuses that encourage builds and actually working towards them. You had all the set bonuses of the past, purified/corrupted BI weapon sets, the new weapon sets of today's meta. But really haven't branched out to armor. With what few set bonuses for gear there are now, they're not special or really innovative.

Back then it worked. People were using the ancient garbage, and some with newer sets of gear like the draconic Templar. Not mentioning HV or HP, but it would be nice to go back in that direction, but aim towards more utility/defensive bonuses that can have an impact.

New gear, just exists to grind the dungeon and nothing else. Same as Drowcraft. They're extremely frustratingly pointless sets of gear. What happens If this game goes on for another 10 modules? Will we have 7 sets of gear on our stash that are only useful for the content they came out with?

loboguild

asterdahl wrote: »

I also want to address briefly some concerns that have been expressed in regards to the new equipment. We currently have no plans to produce a number of similarly-powered sets that must all be kept alongside one another to deal with different encounters.

Then I don't get why the unempowered Frostborn sets (130) start below Dusk and the unempowered Relic sets (140) below Dragonflight. I personally am not really looking forward to add another bullet to my daily routine in hunting for Voninblood only to keep my new armor on par with my old one. Voninblood is a massive addition to session time needed, because it does not replace something else. You still need to do daily dungeons and skirmishes, do Influence runs, old campaigns for coffers and RPs etc.

Now you also need to grind for your armor sets? No thanks. I was really glad when I could throw away my Black Ice armor in Mod 4/5 and am likewise looking forward to Mod 12+. There's no point to wear Everfrost sets in other content than FBI. Because either the sets are worse to what you already have or you need a substantial amount of time to keep them empowered for a tiny boost that the content doesn't require. Both is not really desirable.

I think players will switch between Everfrost for FBI and their old sets for solo/other content. An elegant way to deal with the issue would be a switch on empowered armor so we can choose when to use Empowerment without the need to put off the set. So you could run old/solo content with the same armor set, but without the timer ticking. The same btw. would be nice for Overload slots. I pretty much don't use them because it's too annoying to replace the Enchants every two hours... And part of the issue is that my Demon Slayer also ticks while I'm doing my dailies. That makes zero sense.​​

loboguild

urabask wrote: »

What you should want is an increase in guaranteed salvage. Dropping a guaranteed piece of salvage on each boss and a guaranteed two from each chest would already put it ahead of CN. IMO they should also have them all function like Orcus where he can drop an enchant, RP, and salvage. I mean lets say they all drop a blue/green piece of RP, a rank 7 enchant, and a piece of salvage; that would put it miles ahead of any other dungeon without really affecting the AH much.

That's very true. You need to think daily routines here a bit. Most players do exactly two dungeons per day because that's what the game wants them to do. Those two dungeons currently won't be FBI because length/salvage gained. It's not only the "raid" rewards that matter.​​

aidek0

asterdahl said:

beckylunatic said:

Item level be kittened, if equipment doesn't have the stats to support your build, it's inherently worse than what you already have on.

You make a valid point, after discussing it with the team, we've made the following adjustments:

1. All relic armor of type "raid" is now either power/crit or crit/power.
   
2. A number of relic armor pieces of type "assault" have been adjusted such that they are now recovery/crit, crit/recovery, power/recovery or recovery/power.
   
3. A number of relic armor pieces of type "restoration" have been adjusted to recovery/power or power/recovery.
   

These changes should be reflected by the time the equipment is available on live. I don't mention it above, but we also made changes to a few ward pieces as well.

@asterdahl I would like to add, a lot of the new FBI gear for the OP has regen on it. People do not like regen, it is really not that usefull. Are you able to look at that, with the team as well?

jaysun1977

@asterdahl

It is quite easy to suffer from tunnel vision during the design process. Happens to me in my own design work as well. This is especially true when it comes down to mechanics. Throughout the last several modules it seems that you have fallen into this trap yourselves, paired with a severe disconnect from your actual playerbase and what it means to provide rewards.
I think one of the main reasons for that is flawed communication and flawed expectation management. So, pleae allow me to present a different viewpoint to your arguments:

asterdahl said:

While it is true that Fangbreaker will be the most difficult content at the time of release, keep in mind that this is still content that you will be able to run repeatedly and that after mastering the mechanics won't necessarily take an extraordinary amount of time.

This is the first one: set a clear design goal for rewards. I am not talking about X amount of AD/h, as that doesn’t take difficulty into account, but we could approximate something like this:

Baseline AD/h * * (IL Gate / 1000)^2
e.g.:
eLoL: X AD/h * 0.5h * 1.6^2 or 1.28X AD
CN: X AD/h * 0.5h * 2^2 or 2X AD
eDemo: X AD/h* 0.33h * 6.25 or 2.08X AD
FBI: X AD/h * 0.5 * 3.1^2 or 4.81X AD
Where X = Baseline desired AD reward/h for overall game content.

Based on the Shores of Tuern I would therefore recommend a base reward value of 5K AD/h

This would result in the following reward averages for a single instance run based on above formula for a unified reward system:

Lvl 60+ Skirmish: 0.7K AD (slashed in half for sub-70 for no other reason that because I said so)
Lvl 70 Skirmish: 1.3K AD
1.6K Skirmish: 3.2K AD
T1 Dungeons: 6.4K AD
T2 Dungeons (incl. CN): 10K AD
eDemo: 10.4K AD
T3 Dungeons (FBI): 24.1K AD

asterdahl said:

If it turns out completing Fangbreaker on average is about three times as long as Castle Never, we will be working to ensure the rewards match that relationship. We'll be tweaking Fangbreaker to ensure that it is notably rewarding for content of its length and difficulty.

You should design on the time it should take instead of just looking at average numbers. Pick a difficulty and stick with it.

asterdahl said:

Please keep in mind though that we will not be dramatically changing the scale of rewards over previous dungeons.

This is, why you should settle on a unified system for dungeon reward evaluation.
That all said, a second point of concern next to reward estimation is incentive. Players need an incentive to play through your content. Your content is not a god given gift that is to be appreciated. It is, however the work of hard labor and blood, sweat and tears and as such you should make sure that players appreciate it accordingly. Why waste months of effort in creating new content, if no one will be playing it as the reward is simply inferior to other alternatives?
It’s simple math: If the rewards are not in line with the added effort, then people won’t partake in the new content. And it’s not just a matter of matching numbers. If I get exactly the same AD/h out of CN that I get out of FBI, I will still be choosing CN over FBI, just because it’s easier, faster and can be played with 5 strikers, if need be. Try running FBI with 5 strikers…

Case in point: if FBI takes 3 times as long as CN, it needs to provide MORE than 3 times the reward, or players will still pick CN over FBI.

asterdahl said:

Since bind on equipment armor is such a popular suggestion I want to take some time to address this particular topic. Bind on equip armor dropping directly from dungeons has not been a part of Neverwinter since the level cap increase and we have no current plans to reintroduce it, I want to talk about why we made that decision. Forgive me for the length of this explanation.

There are a number of sources of power in the game right now that one can buy off the auction house. Equipment (namely those pieces which are displayed on your character) is an area that we would like to represent your own personal achievement. When you see an adventurer in relic armor, we want you to know that they personally completed Fangbreaker Island. When you see an adventurer in dragonflight armor, we want you to know that they worked hard with their guild to down the dragonflight.

The reasons for this extend beyond simply preserving these slots as a status symbol. We want these slots to represent an area that can drive you forward to obtain something truly epic that you can use immediately upon obtaining it, and that in most cases, it's always going to be better than what you could've bought on the auction house, without having to upgrade it. We want you to run Fangbreaker to get the loot from Fangbreaker.

That's not to say that bind on equip armor does not have a place in Neverwinter. We introduced masterwork equipment to help fill this gap. Before masterwork, professions were in a sad state in terms of tangible, non-consumable items they could create. Mastework did not solve everything, and to be clear we don't intend to only introduce new recipes through the masterwork system. However, we are quite satisfied with how well masterwork items have continued to maintain their value. Not only have these items maintained their value but their value is entirely tied up in the work of numerous players who collaborated, directly or through the auction house to bring those items to market.

Any direct equipment drops would compete heavily with this market and the drop rates would need to be abysmally low not to crash that market. We want those who have chosen to place a lot of emphasis on professions to have a place in Neverwinter. It's worth noting that this market is not merely represented by those that have invested heavily enough to have obtained masterwork recipe books themselves, but also those that provide materials.

This a trap you set for yourself because of short-sighted game design decision and it is hardly fair to punish your paying customers over it. Guild Armor and Master Crafted armor serve as a design hard cap for you, for if you exceed them, they and the investment required to get them becomes instantly obsolete. The moment you create a set that outshines master crafted armor, the market with instantly disintegrate anyway. It was terrible design to begin with and it will continue to haunt you until you can force yourself to outshine the mastercrafted sets and let them drown out.
And what would be wrong about crashing that market? That solid gear costs less than 4M AD a piece? You think those numbers are reasonable given how stingy you are with loot in general? It’s a ridiculous argument and you know it. Moreso, you know that we know it and it’s insulting that you would even go as far as use it. Face it: mastercrafted professions were a bust, still are a bust and should get buried as soon as possible, so you can finally have some creative freedom in future equipment designs again.

asterdahl said:

Hopefully this gives a bit of background into why we have continued to not include bind on equip armor in dungeons. That being said, we understand the sentiment that it would be great to see exciting drops that can be sold on the auction house for large sums. This is an attractive area from a design perspective as well, as items like this have a high value early on and naturally lose value as the supply increases.

There are some issues, such as that drop rates for those sort of items that felt reasonable as party rollable loot tend to feel too low when split among 5 individual players' loot rolls. On the other hand, there's potential for abuse with rollable loot. That being said, we've not given up on including valuable items that can be sold. We're continuing to examine possibilities moving forward.

Here’s an idea: make legendary rings BoE! Alternatively, increase their drop rate. Also, you can add legendary mounts a dungeon drops, even at the regular (abysmal) drop rate.
Also, when it comes to drop rates: keep in mind that the population for which you originally designed them is not even remotely available anymore. You should increase the drop rates accordingly, unless you think that legendary mounts going for anywhere between 20M and 50M AD is in any way, shape or form sane or desirable.

I think that streamlining your reward system would not only help you out in the current situation but most importantly in the long run of your development cycle.

Cheers.

jaysun1977

asterdahl said:

beckylunatic said:

Item level be kittened, if equipment doesn't have the stats to support your build, it's inherently worse than what you already have on.

You make a valid point, after discussing it with the team, we've made the following adjustments:

1. All relic armor of type "raid" is now either power/crit or crit/power.
   
2. A number of relic armor pieces of type "assault" have been adjusted such that they are now recovery/crit, crit/recovery, power/recovery or recovery/power.
   
3. A number of relic armor pieces of type "restoration" have been adjusted to recovery/power or power/recovery.
   

These changes should be reflected by the time the equipment is available on live. I don't mention it above, but we also made changes to a few ward pieces as well.

That is good news. Thanks for the effort.

bitt3rnightmar3

I'm happy with the changes to stats on the armor but- is there any way to make the armor last longer than 1-2 hours? As it stands right now it's only useful while doing FB island. If we took a page from Black Ice infused PVP armor from mod 3 and increased the empowerment time to 6-8 hours or so it might actually be worth using in other places and then logically replacing armor pieces without having to take your gear off every time you're not running this dungeon. I think ultimately that is what is most annoying about an empowerment system- they are just temporary replacements for gear made even more temporary by the very short time limit.

gankdalf

asterdahl said:

While it is true that Fangbreaker will be the most difficult content at the time of release, keep in mind that this is still content that you will be able to run repeatedly and that after mastering the mechanics won't necessarily take an extraordinary amount of time. We're still working out the exact rewards as more data comes back from playthroughs. Your continued playthroughs and feedback are invaluable.

If it turns out completing Fangbreaker on average is about three times as long as Castle Never, we will be working to ensure the rewards match that relationship. We'll be tweaking Fangbreaker to ensure that it is notably rewarding for content of its length and difficulty. Please keep in mind though that we will not be dramatically changing the scale of rewards over previous dungeons. While we've worked hard to make sure that Fangbreaker provides new and interesting challenges, and worked to implement boss fights that require coordination, this is still an epic dungeon.

We know that the rewards for every piece of content have not always been commensurate with the effort or time required. We're working hard to make sure that happens less and less often and rectify it when it does.

ghoulz66 said:

People running this dungeon are already decked out. People will be using rank 9s/10s for this dungeon. Rank 8s as a reward is kinda insulting.

As Urabask pointed out, when you receive an enchant, it's primarily meant to serve as refinement for your current enchantments or at worst, an item to be sold to others and that money converted into whatever you currently need in order to advance. Giving out an enchantment strong enough to be equipped immediately at any noteworthy interval would collapse the market.

Simply put, this is the way the enchantment system in Neverwinter works. This is not particularly unique to Neverwinter, in many games—MMORPG and otherwise—once you've begun to invest in a gem or equivalent socket-able item system, generally you aren't liable to pick one up that will serve as an outright replacement. In fact, it would be almost discouraging to level one up if you were likely to earn an outright replacement.

Equipment on the other hand, is replaced outright, and Fangbreaker will absolutely include new, worthwhile equipment. The relic armor in Fangbreaker should offer a number of new best in slot pieces for many classes. When fully charged, relic armor is item level 150, edging out masterwork and dragonflight.

When you think about whether a rank 8 enchant feels good or not, obviously there are other factors playing into that feeling. How long did the dungeon take? How hard was it? Out of your runs, how often did you see a rank 8? When choosing what to reward, we could of course give out a smaller enchant more often, or a larger enchant less often.

The same concept applies to equipment progression. In the Underdark, equipment progression was primarily earning demonic ichor. There was a steady reward there, you knew how long it would take to progress. With the new relic armor set, there's an element of predictability to some of the components you'll need to restore your armor, but then there's the base piece, and you'll need to obtain that drop from Fangbreaker.

Obviously, when you get a piece of loot that you've been hunting after, there's a feeling of exhilaration. On the other hand, when you are steadily earning what you need to get that piece you've been wanting, there's a contentedness with knowing you're on track. Neither system is perfect, and opinions on which system is superior will vary from adventurer to adventurer.

We'll continue to attempt to strike a balance between the two.



I also want to address briefly some concerns that have been expressed in regards to the new equipment. We currently have no plans to produce a number of similarly-powered sets that must all be kept alongside one another to deal with different encounters. Currently we don't have the systems in place to support this and we know that switching between and maintaining multiple sets is incredibly inconvenient. While I can't talk about our plans post-Storm King's Thunder, it was pointed out in another thread that if this is the case, what about set bonuses like those anti-Demogorgon set bonuses on drowcraft armor?

When we re-approached set bonuses we wanted something that could still feel meaningful without having the sort of gamebreaking impact that a lot of the old set bonuses had. Tying set bonuses into current content was a good solution, however, as adventurers move on to new sets they may not want to lose those valuable advantages against old content. We understand that and we're looking into adjustments to help ease the situation.

ghoulz66 said:

DEVs, you really should turn back to hard content with BoE rewards. Take CN back in mod 2 for example.

Since bind on equipment armor is such a popular suggestion I want to take some time to address this particular topic. Bind on equip armor dropping directly from dungeons has not been a part of Neverwinter since the level cap increase and we have no current plans to reintroduce it, I want to talk about why we made that decision. Forgive me for the length of this explanation.

There are a number of sources of power in the game right now that one can buy off the auction house. Equipment (namely those pieces which are displayed on your character) is an area that we would like to represent your own personal achievement. When you see an adventurer in relic armor, we want you to know that they personally completed Fangbreaker Island. When you see an adventurer in dragonflight armor, we want you to know that they worked hard with their guild to down the dragonflight.

The reasons for this extend beyond simply preserving these slots as a status symbol. We want these slots to represent an area that can drive you forward to obtain something truly epic that you can use immediately upon obtaining it, and that in most cases, it's always going to be better than what you could've bought on the auction house, without having to upgrade it. We want you to run Fangbreaker to get the loot from Fangbreaker.

That's not to say that bind on equip armor does not have a place in Neverwinter. We introduced masterwork equipment to help fill this gap. Before masterwork, professions were in a sad state in terms of tangible, non-consumable items they could create. Mastework did not solve everything, and to be clear we don't intend to only introduce new recipes through the masterwork system. However, we are quite satisfied with how well masterwork items have continued to maintain their value. Not only have these items maintained their value but their value is entirely tied up in the work of numerous players who collaborated, directly or through the auction house to bring those items to market.

Any direct equipment drops would compete heavily with this market and the drop rates would need to be abysmally low not to crash that market. We want those who have chosen to place a lot of emphasis on professions to have a place in Neverwinter. It's worth noting that this market is not merely represented by those that have invested heavily enough to have obtained masterwork recipe books themselves, but also those that provide materials.

Of course, we also introduced the dusk set with Underdark, and now the frostborn and warborn sets with Module 10. We want to give players an option to quickly gear up so that they can play with their friends, but we don't want those options to represent the best available equipment.

Hopefully this gives a bit of background into why we have continued to not include bind on equip armor in dungeons. That being said, we understand the sentiment that it would be great to see exciting drops that can be sold on the auction house for large sums. This is an attractive area from a design perspective as well, as items like this have a high value early on and naturally lose value as the supply increases.

There are some issues, such as that drop rates for those sort of items that felt reasonable as party rollable loot tend to feel too low when split among 5 individual players' loot rolls. On the other hand, there's potential for abuse with rollable loot. That being said, we've not given up on including valuable items that can be sold. We're continuing to examine possibilities moving forward.

Masterwork will not maintain value in mod10..... Masterwork rings only has value because the droprate of the legendary rings are insane. Its like I rather pay 1-2m AD then farm CN 200+ times. And the armors will not maintain any value in mod10. At all.


And Armors dont need to be BoE but the legendary rings DO since the droprate of those are ridiculously low. Or you want the players to know when a player has farmed CN/Edemo 500 times to get the rings?.. This sounds more like you being cheap and dont wanna give us anything that takes away from your $$. Even when the cost is a worse game.