They're doing it wrong. There's nothing wrong with players wanting to have the statistically best items. That's what this is about.
Making those items so stupidly rare as to make them meaningless to most players is a bad move. It's the grind without a real carrot.
Cryptic can't be afraid to let people earn loot drops. They can't be afraid for people to have a character with "the best" items.
And if they really, really, really want to make things crazy rare, they can attach cosmetic options to them. What if the "legendary" rings had a 5 or 10% to drop...so they were indeed rare, but a dedicated person could still get them. Then what if you had cosmetic ring transmutes that dropped at the .05% that when used on your character, caused your eyes to grow red, or gave you a glowing aura, or some other sort of "show stopping" cosmetic that made people gather around your toon and ooh and ahh over it.
That would be awesome...and heck, I'm honestly more likely to grind for an amazing cosmetic reward that's somewhat eternal, rather than +5 gear that I know is going to ultimately be obsolete at some point.
Again, just one of the many good idea's that can be found in this thread.
But....
Is anybody listening?????
Is anybody there???
Does anybody care???
Dev's can you hear us yet???
Well, @panderus did put in an appearance back on Page 35 when he said this:
I don't think there is anything I can say that would assuage anyone at this time other than, "We are rolling back the changes." I can't make that call but all of the feedback we have received and HOW it was received is certainly noted. I will certainly talk to some people about the reaction.
I just want to be clear, I am not promising anything, I am just stating, "you have been heard."
Which would suggest that at least one of the devs had been listening at that point. Unfortunately, no further response has been forthcoming on this thread. After that, everything went quiet again until @terramak posted details of the latest Preview Server patch on October 22nd which included a statement to the effect the Chest Key Fix would be present. After a couple of users responses on that thread he then made the following statement, again on the 22nd:
Thanks for the feedback, folks. Most of the changes in this Preview update are from closer to the beginning of this week (as suggested by the build version), and we'll continue to keep an eye on the comments and questions.
As a general comment: As always, please treat your fellow players - your fellow people - with respect. While a significant bug (the dungeon key chest issue) is being addressed this update, as mentioned in the original post, we understand that some players have come to rely on this bug, and the nature of it caused some to perceive it as standard functionality.
I do not expect to pursue use of this functionality as an exploit. We understand that players are still putting time and energy into this content, whether or not they choose to use a key, and some may choose to do so until the moment the live servers go down for the module release.
Personally, I just hope folks don't burn themselves out from the feeling that they have to make optimal use of this bug before the module update.
Perhaps @terramak wasn't one of the people @panderus talked to because his response certainly didn't appear to have taken into consideration any of the feedback on this thread as the intention would seem to be to push on regardless. Not a particularly good approach to this particular problem which isn't going to just die away.
One question for @terramak. While I can understand your continued insistance that this feature is in fact a bug on the PC, could you please explain why a known, 'significant bug' was recreated on both the PS4 and XBox versions of the game rather than being eliminated before it was released ?
If you are just joining us on page 50 of this already dead thread here is a list of things that makes this thread important, even if it is being ignored. Below is a list that try's to summarize the last 49 pages, and i'm sorry if i missed something:
1. The players are upset (mostly) by the tone of the opening thread: http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1223956/dungeon-key-changes/p1. The Neverwinter team happily annouces a bug fix (being able to preview the contents of a chest and declining to use the key). However, most players did not realize it was a bug (I think this is especially true for players that have joined the game after Mod 6). Most think the whole tone of the message is not correct and are very pissed about it.
2. Most players are not really upset about how the new changes work but by the fact that some much of Neverwinters content is hidden behind super rare RnG and keys (that take a while to get or cost money to get). Because of this RnG and key combo it ridiculous hard to advance your character without spending huge time and money investments into the game.
3. Players are also very unhappy by the fact that since Mod 6 went live lots of stuff (leadership AD, coal ward trade bar store, and gateway, just to name a few) has be removed from the game and totally alters there gaming experience. In return of losing this stuff we usually here a standard phase such as "We will be monitoring this changes and make adjustment as required..", despite the feedback that is given to the development team from the gaming community.
4. Players are not happy about the grindy nature of the game with very limited ways in which to experience the game. An example of this unhappiness is the fact that when Mod 10 was released a version of the mod 3 black ice empowerment (voninblod) was introduced despite the fact that most players did not desire this as part of there playing experience. Players have very few avenues in which to explore this game and most players are picking the fastest dungeons to achieve a better RoI because the gear and the drops from all dungeons is relatively the same therefore can not justify spending more time in another dungeon that has relatively the same loot value. To add to this even further, playing alternate characters in the game is not even remotely as fun of an experience as it could be because of the grindy nature of this game.
5. The players don't believe they are being heard by the developers because of the limited interaction by the development team with this thread. In fact like so many of the changes before that players did not like, it sounds like nothing will change to help with points 1 through 4 despite all the feed back that we give. So, overall the players feel ignored and alienated, despite being active in this thread. For the most these very same players have been even headed about the change despite the tone of the opening post and the lack of developer response.
But....
Is anybody listening?????
Is anybody there???
Does anybody care???
Dev's can you hear us yet???
I'm sorry if I missed something else this thread offered fell free to add to it that way people still have an idea of the other 50 pages without have to go through them all.
They're doing it wrong. There's nothing wrong with players wanting to have the statistically best items. That's what this is about.
Making those items so stupidly rare as to make them meaningless to most players is a bad move. It's the grind without a real carrot.
Cryptic can't be afraid to let people earn loot drops. They can't be afraid for people to have a character with "the best" items.
And if they really, really, really want to make things crazy rare, they can attach cosmetic options to them. What if the "legendary" rings had a 5 or 10% to drop...so they were indeed rare, but a dedicated person could still get them. Then what if you had cosmetic ring transmutes that dropped at the .05% that when used on your character, caused your eyes to grow red, or gave you a glowing aura, or some other sort of "show stopping" cosmetic that made people gather around your toon and ooh and ahh over it.
That would be awesome...and heck, I'm honestly more likely to grind for an amazing cosmetic reward that's somewhat eternal, rather than +5 gear that I know is going to ultimately be obsolete at some point.
Exactly! Cosmetics is something that can really add to this game and also increase their revenue. Imagine, similar to other game, cosmetics to some spells. I mean the options are pretty much endless and cosmetics could be added to many dungeons, achievements, zen store ect. Farming for BiS items(+5 rings) is like "farming lockboxes" for legendary mount with the difference that the mounts are BoE while rings are BtA, completely insane.
They're doing it wrong. There's nothing wrong with players wanting to have the statistically best items. That's what this is about.
Making those items so stupidly rare as to make them meaningless to most players is a bad move. It's the grind without a real carrot.
Cryptic can't be afraid to let people earn loot drops. They can't be afraid for people to have a character with "the best" items.
And if they really, really, really want to make things crazy rare, they can attach cosmetic options to them. What if the "legendary" rings had a 5 or 10% to drop...so they were indeed rare, but a dedicated person could still get them. Then what if you had cosmetic ring transmutes that dropped at the .05% that when used on your character, caused your eyes to grow red, or gave you a glowing aura, or some other sort of "show stopping" cosmetic that made people gather around your toon and ooh and ahh over it.
That would be awesome...and heck, I'm honestly more likely to grind for an amazing cosmetic reward that's somewhat eternal, rather than +5 gear that I know is going to ultimately be obsolete at some point.
Where are the devs at today? We've been at this for several days now and not a peep from an actual developer other than two posts that answered no questions? So why not do us a favor and go tell one to come on in and have a chat with us?
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lordseth1985Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 319Arc User
As long this "bug fix" is coming alive...
Pls, increase the HAMSTER stupid RNG! Since CN came back, I run it at least once a day, everyday... sometimes even 5 runs just to get the orcus artifact... guess what? Never saw one!
The biggest problem isn't the fix of this bug, but the very very very low drop rate of every good item on the game: +5 rings, orcus shard, demogorgon belt, lostmauth horn... heck, even valindra shard I rarely saw! The name of the game is "Dungeons and Dragons", not "Grinding Dragons" as many players do on WoD; or "Heroic events and Dragons", like many are doing now on the new areas...
Avestruz.Q.T.Seduz - Rogue, natural born assassin.
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
No, Its a problem, even if they fix the loot, here is why. Up to this point in neverwinter, you could progress without paying them to run individual dungeon runs.
Up to the new raid, this held true, after this mod drops.. it is no longer the case, the RNG factor + removal of peeking, makes it nearly impossible to do this.
The game cannot be called free 2 play anymore, its not even pay to win.. its more like pay to play, which is the hardest truth.
In addition, terramark should be removed from the game for his comments, they are that bad.. a complete insult to this gaming community, that has played and supported this game for years. There most be other assignments in the company he can have, I think this is enough to call for him to be removed from working on neverwinter projects, not asking for anyone to be fired.. but , you know , there has to be somewhere else he can be assigned after this. What a complete jerk.
Again.. this double down on insulting us , while also making changes, that cannot by any reasonable measure , be anything other then monetization scheming, is not endurable .
There is really only one real response that will keep alot of us, and that is.. we understand, we are puting this change on hiatus and we will come up with a approach that works for both the players and the company.
Sadly, I doubt any of this would happen, what will happen is they will be arrogant, stubborn and just do what they want, to whatever detriment to the game, just like they have since mod 6.
feanor70118Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,170Arc User
Give me a break. You abuse us with ridiculous requirements to craft a zillion different keys and when you finally make the REASONABLE decision to let us decide whether or not the RNG has, as it usually does, cheated us out of any worthwhile reward for completing a dungeon and therefore whether we should wait to use the key on a worthwhile reward, months later you tell us it was a bug and we should be happy about a 20% decrease in the zen cost for keys when the ZAX is stuck at 500 with no change in sight. Quit abusing your players, insulting their intelligence and treating them with crass disrespect. While you're at it, make the rewards for running dungeons worth the time.
No, Its a problem, even if they fix the loot, here is why. Up to this point in neverwinter, you could progress without paying them to run individual dungeon runs.
Up to the new raid, this held true, after this mod drops.. it is no longer the case, the RNG factor + removal of peeking, makes it nearly impossible to do this.
The game cannot be called free 2 play anymore, its not even pay to win.. its more like pay to play, which is the hardest truth.
In addition, terramark should be removed from the game for his comments, they are that bad.. a complete insult to this gaming community, that has played and supported this game for years. There most be other assignments in the company he can have, I think this is enough to call for him to be removed from working on neverwinter projects, not asking for anyone to be fired.. but , you know , there has to be somewhere else he can be assigned after this. What a complete jerk.
Again.. this double down on insulting us , while also making changes, that cannot by any reasonable measure , be anything other then monetization scheming, is not endurable .
There is really only one real response that will keep alot of us, and that is.. we understand, we are puting this change on hiatus and we will come up with a approach that works for both the players and the company.
Sadly, I doubt any of this would happen, what will happen is they will be arrogant, stubborn and just do what they want, to whatever detriment to the game, just like they have since mod 6.
no kidding at this point I'd rather they just stopped lying redid everything to not have a paywall and just charge us a freakign subscription
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feanor70118Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,170Arc User
With their current direction I'm surprised they haven't tried to monetize the PS4 login with some more RNG; 100 Zen for five attempts to login with a 10% success rate.
Most of us have had a chance to vent by now. If you're just joining the discussion, feel free to do your venting. For the rest of us, let's try and focus the discussion on productive ways forward.
I'm not trying to close down the discussion with this statement. On the contrary. Cryptic is spending time reading this thread, looking for a way forward that meets their design objectives and also the needs of their customers. It's an opportunity to focus the discussion on helping Cryptic know what players think would be a balanced approach. Let's use it wisely.
What productive way? Please tell me, tell us... when did cryptic EVER listened to feedback, m? Just one tiny example, one. Chineseses NEED money. They are going to bleed this sheep dry until there is none left.
P.S. I just bought Mafia III... just saying. You all can do the same... or buy somethin' else (at this point crystal meth is healthier than this runt), be creative
Cryptic listened to feedback somewhat with the recent HR changes. Amenar specifically undid or altered many proposed changes in response to player feedback. And they fired him for it.
A lot of friends are leaving this game, and one of them said something about that. He was leaving bc nerfs to op, and he said: "I can stay and adapt myself, but i lost all trust i had on devs, so because this i'm leaving". This is the worst thing that can happen with a game, players distrusting the devs, and devs didn't doing anything to reverse that, and worse, only improving this. This key changes is only their first step, they can come on next mod, or before, "fixing" (nerfing) some feature that we had, just in name of money (that they will lose even more with those arrogant changes).
With their current direction I'm surprised they haven't tried to monetize the PS4 login with some more RNG; 100 Zen for five attempts to login with a 10% success rate.
Most of us have had a chance to vent by now. If you're just joining the discussion, feel free to do your venting. For the rest of us, let's try and focus the discussion on productive ways forward.
I'm not trying to close down the discussion with this statement. On the contrary. Cryptic is spending time reading this thread, looking for a way forward that meets their design objectives and also the needs of their customers. It's an opportunity to focus the discussion on helping Cryptic know what players think would be a balanced approach. Let's use it wisely.
What productive way? Please tell me, tell us... when did cryptic EVER listened to feedback, m? Just one tiny example, one. Chineseses NEED money. They are going to bleed this sheep dry until there is none left.
P.S. I just bought Mafia III... just saying. You all can do the same... or buy somethin' else (at this point crystal meth is healthier than this runt), be creative
Cryptic listened to feedback somewhat with the recent HR changes. Amenar specifically undid or altered many proposed changes in response to player feedback. And they fired him for it.
I thought he left because he had a more tempting job offer?
0
lantern22Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,111Arc User
They're doing it wrong. There's nothing wrong with players wanting to have the statistically best items. That's what this is about.
Making those items so stupidly rare as to make them meaningless to most players is a bad move. It's the grind without a real carrot.
Cryptic can't be afraid to let people earn loot drops. They can't be afraid for people to have a character with "the best" items.
And if they really, really, really want to make things crazy rare, they can attach cosmetic options to them. What if the "legendary" rings had a 5 or 10% to drop...so they were indeed rare, but a dedicated person could still get them. Then what if you had cosmetic ring transmutes that dropped at the .05% that when used on your character, caused your eyes to grow red, or gave you a glowing aura, or some other sort of "show stopping" cosmetic that made people gather around your toon and ooh and ahh over it.
That would be awesome...and heck, I'm honestly more likely to grind for an amazing cosmetic reward that's somewhat eternal, rather than +5 gear that I know is going to ultimately be obsolete at some point.
100% agree (along with all of your comments on this post).
It shouldn't be so hard to get +5 rings, or Lostmauth horns, or Orcus Shards, or Eye's of Lathander etc. fair enough make it hard, but don't make it near impossible. In 3 years of playing this game I have got 2 horns, one eye, one Shard and one +5 Ring. Virtually everything else has been trash. I would have opened 1000's of chests.
I can't see that increasing the drop rates will reduce Cryptics income, all it will do is lower prices in the AH. We still need to buy pres wards and coal wards to refine this stuff and with the Zen Exchange up over 8mil, it doesn't seem like people are buying Zen to convert into AD anyway. So what's in place now isn't working.
Who in their right mind is going to pay for things that are likely going to get Nerfed in a mod or two
Fashion is probably the easiest way for them to make some $$, heaps of ppl are begging for it. Recently I went through what was available on the AH and it was mostly terrible.
Every mod it seems that something is taken away from the game and either removed completely or put behind a pay wall. If they surgically remove bits and pieces from the game for long enough, there will be nothing left. Where the heck are the old Dungeons, ffs.
I see in one of the other threads that POM will still be bugged, but hey at least the chest at the end of it won't be bugged anymore - yay.
There is no point providing feedback in the Preview section, the only time Cryptic has ever changed anything on Preview before going live was if it introduced more nerfs to "free to get" stuff, everything else gets ignored. And comments from the Dev's like @terramak either show that they are somewhat socially ignorant or are subtlety trying to rub the players noses in it even more . . . . idk
With their current direction I'm surprised they haven't tried to monetize the PS4 login with some more RNG; 100 Zen for five attempts to login with a 10% success rate.
Most of us have had a chance to vent by now. If you're just joining the discussion, feel free to do your venting. For the rest of us, let's try and focus the discussion on productive ways forward.
I'm not trying to close down the discussion with this statement. On the contrary. Cryptic is spending time reading this thread, looking for a way forward that meets their design objectives and also the needs of their customers. It's an opportunity to focus the discussion on helping Cryptic know what players think would be a balanced approach. Let's use it wisely.
What productive way? Please tell me, tell us... when did cryptic EVER listened to feedback, m? Just one tiny example, one. Chineseses NEED money. They are going to bleed this sheep dry until there is none left.
P.S. I just bought Mafia III... just saying. You all can do the same... or buy somethin' else (at this point crystal meth is healthier than this runt), be creative
Cryptic listened to feedback somewhat with the recent HR changes. Amenar specifically undid or altered many proposed changes in response to player feedback. And they fired him for it.
He left on his own, he was not fired. Please do not spread unfounded and untrue rumors.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
No, Its a problem, even if they fix the loot, here is why. Up to this point in neverwinter, you could progress without paying them to run individual dungeon runs.
... In addition, terramark should be removed from the game for his comments, they are that bad.. a complete insult to this gaming community, that has played and supported this game for years. There most be other assignments in the company he can have, I think this is enough to call for him to be removed from working on neverwinter projects, not asking for anyone to be fired.. but , you know , there has to be somewhere else he can be assigned after this. What a complete jerk.
...
Let's be real. The only - ONLY - message that will resonate at this point is to withold your money. If the player base could actually work as a community to generate a BOYCOTT of Zen purchases - you'd get some attention. I honestly don't think anything else will make a lick of difference at this point.
If a Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale came and went, and the players didn't spend on Zen as expected...the suits at the top would take notice...fast.
I'm doing my part - stopped spending RL money as of the start of Mod 10. Will not spend another dime until I see positive change.
Personally im not dropping any money on this game anymore. I have spent a total of 70$ wich i think is ok, its pretty much the cost of a game at release. There was a time, even after the coal ward scandal i tough they actually TRIED to do things right and i said ok ill encourage you. But couple months later they got back to the ****ery once again and i said to myself thats it, its over.
I am saying it loud, i won't spend a dime on this game again, not with what they do and how they threat there customers. Ill keep playing solely cause i don't want to loose my completion on it (achievement wise) but if the servers go down and the game close, so be it.
Time to show the Coporate Commander we are not cows, cash cows.
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demonmongerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,350Arc User
Not only should people stop buying zen.. people should stop selling zen for astrals. Put nothing in the auction house...
Just log on and sit in PE and use zone chat to speak of your upset until the devs come online and meet with us.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I hate paying taxes! Why must I pay thousands of dollars in taxes when everything I buy is taxed anyways!
Well, the outrage has cracked 1500 posts, yet the changes are going forth with nothing in return. Not even rolling back the absurd "bug" comment. They must have never learned that in business you're not selling goods or services, you're selling trust. It appears they're utterly incapable of that.
Sadly, I finally figured out what is going to happen with all of this. We're gonna have to suffer this through Mod 10.5, but with assurances that "they've heard us" (people hearing without listening) and "they're working on it". When Mod 11 hits, they'll make rare and cool goodies drop like hotcakes! Our pleas will have been answered! It'll be like Christmas! Everyone will rejoice, and lost players will start filtering back in just in time for Mod 12... and a level cap increase to 80 that will invalidate all the cool stuff people got and were so excited about in Mod 11...
Well, the outrage has cracked 1500 posts, yet the changes are going forth with nothing in return. Not even rolling back the absurd "bug" comment. They must have never learned that in business you're not selling goods or services, you're selling trust. It appears they're utterly incapable of that.
Sadly, I finally figured out what is going to happen with all of this. We're gonna have to suffer this through Mod 10.5, but with assurances that "they've heard us" (people hearing without listening) and "they're working on it". When Mod 11 hits, they'll make rare and cool goodies drop like hotcakes! Our pleas will have been answered! It'll be like Christmas! Everyone will rejoice, and lost players will start filtering back in just in time for Mod 12... and a level cap increase to 80 that will invalidate all the cool stuff people got and were so excited about in Mod 11...
...yeah...
When they removed AD from leadership they behaved about the same. They still made some pretty major changes eventually.
I really doubt they'll ever do a level cap increase again. They can coast through the end of the games life on modest content updates and milk players with lockboxes without the inherent risk that would come with a level cap increase.
i've run shaitload of Dungeons and the only 'best' i've ever get is Dragon Gem. no Horn, no shard, not even beholder......and now you gonna force us to use the key upon taking a peek on what inside the chest? RNG is already crappy and now they gonna use it for their advantages? shame on you!
I'm like a dog chase a moving vehicle trying to bite the tire for whatever reason....
The main reason it likes this for me right now is i'm struggling with a decision, should I stay or should i go now (kinda like the song ). I have played many MMO's so i'm very familiar with the process i'm going through and the results are not always the same.
Example 1. When I ran into this problem with the first MMO I ever played (had BiS gear and the content was getting boring or trivialized), I found the joy of leveling alts and multi-box characters. This kept me going for about another year at which point RL intervined and I just didn't have the time to dedicate to the game. So it was the lack of time that ran me away from the game, and by the time I had time to play with it, I could no longer proficiently multi-box and the game got old. So I moved on.
Example 2. The game I was playing before this one had a unique feature I have yet to see any other MMO. At the push of a button I could change my characters role, gear, and spell load out. This means that if I played a cleric i was not just stuck to a healing role and in fact up until i left the game clerics were most sought after for there tanking skills. The problem happened when the level cap was raised and my raid level gear, which took almost a year to get, became obsolete as soon as a common piece of gear was dropped from a trash mob, was not a good time. Reached the level cap and started raiding the new content and low and behold it was going to take forever to get raid level gear again. I could not do it raids where split out so basically you had to dedicated a significat amount of time on friday, saturday, and sunday to be there and if you couldnt dedicate that time for all 3 days most raid leader could not let you into the raid. So I moved to Neverwinter.
I was drawn into how fun and good looking the game was. There was so much to do once you reached level 60 I could not keep up. So many dungeons and by the time i got the swing of the game there was only 3 campaign to grind. Then Mod 6 happened.... only 3 dungeons to play and i was getting 1shot by trash mobs in the zone I was used to doing dailies in...
To the point of why this particular announcement has me in my current state:
1st was the tone of the only announcement. Let us compare to a very similar announcement, the astral diamond change that happened a year ago. Just so you don't have to go digging around for it: http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1203585/astral-diamond-changes/p1. You will notice the difference on page 1. We were getting a huge game changing announcement. We were given the reasons for the change, how it was going to immediately affect our game play, and possible future adjustment. You should also note that most of the community moderators were in support of this change despite the fact more than a few had leadership armies. I will be the first to admit I wasn't on board with this change right away, but now I honestly believe that change did make the game a little better.
If you compare the astral diamond announcement to this one I would venture to say that they are in fact almost opposite in nature. I also think that because there was lots of good feedback we (the players) played an important role in getting lots of AD sinks removed/adjusted from campaigns and the wondrous bazaar, and AD added to weekly quests. Obviously, this process didn't happen over night but the developers also tried to keep us updated with astral diamond changes.
2nd, we come to another important item, it is the letter from Rob Overmeyer on the state of the game. Again, instead of having to go dig for it here is the link: http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/9811113. Lots of interesting conversation topics within the letter itself, but i'm going to focus it on this current discussion.
In the middle he talks about stumbling with Mod 6 and what was learned from this misstep:
"We had tuned a lot of the numbers to support this new foundation, but that tuning wasn’t made with the entire picture in mind. As a result, it showed when we launched. Progression and difficulty were greatly impacted. The fast-paced and fun game everyone had come to know and enjoy started to slow down and lose what made it different than other MMOs. This was a big misstep for us and Neverwinter. Maybe we got lost in our attempt to build a new foundation. Perhaps we looked too far ahead at how things like stats, XP, and difficulty might be shaped down the road. Or maybe the inclusion of going to console meant one challenge too many."
and
"We stumbled with our vision and lost some of the fun. We reacted more than planned. Our Elemental Evil update didn’t deliver what we set out to build. There is a great story there and fantastic new adventures and encounters, but they were hidden behind systems designed smooth out some power curves, progression and allow for more growth in the future. The level cap increase was cumbersome and didn’t feel quite right. We were working to our goals and we hit them functionally, but we lost the spirit just enough to make it not fun to play the content. We were able to rally the team and community to find what we misplaced and get back the Neverwinter we all love."
and at the bottom
"Another key area for us is communication with our community. We are looking at additional ways to show our progress or create direct lines of communication back to our players whether it be through additional dev blogs or in-game activities. We will be working on a way to give the community a clearer picture of what we are working on and what we understand the top issues to be.
Our goal is to look at Neverwinter as a whole and work to make improvements all over the game. I talked about some of them but there are always more that we can keep an eye on. It will not all happen at once and we won’t hold onto something any longer than necessary. That said, we are committed to making real progress this year and ensure Neverwinter remains the best D&D experience you can have on PC and console."
So let me summarize what how this announcement is being viewed. Just based on this announcement and how many pages have accumulated in such a short time (6 days since announcement and 51 pages, this blew up faster than the AD announcement did) has already affected lot of players. The players are not happy with how it was announced and are not happy with the the level of communications from the development team. Some players are not happy because they did not realize that the preview of loot and decline button were considered a bug. Some players, like myself are at a cross roads with this game and it could go either way. A lot of us are finding this game grindy that hide to many things behind crappy RnG and keys (just look at the number of key we could have clogging up our bags), and we do not find this game as FUN as it used to be.
We miss the variety of T1/T2 dungeon selections. We are not happy to see HE's get are added no new/old T1/T2 dungeons have been added since MOD 6, that right its been 1.5 years since that mod was released. Don't get me wrong, I like FBI well enough it is a good dungeon but because of the high EF/IL requirements I only see this dungeon maybe once a week.
For me the game doesn't feel like the best D&D experience I can get and it feels about as FUN as mod 6 did. Due to limited communication about this announcement and the concern of so many players about this announcement, I think we are largely being ignored and kinda being told to "Suck it up Buttercup" and pay to play baby, which this Dude cannot abide by.....
And though I have said it many times already (many have also), it is not so much about the changes that will be implemented. It was the message tone and how we as a player base view our current playing experience in neverwinter. Contained with in this post are many great ways to "Make this Game Fun Again", but unless the developers say something, the suggestions will be headed to a black hole.
The key change is not the real issue. It's the ridiculous, disrespectful way they have presented it, pretending it was a bug!
Stick to the absurd allegation that the DECLINE FEATURE was a BUG, please.
Have never ever seen such a disrespectful move from a developer, calling a hard coded button (no matter what it says) in a 3 platform port, a frikkin BUG!!!!
If they want to push forward with it they will, no matter what, as they did with so many other changes. The Decline button was a FEATURE they CODED in 2 CONSOLE PORTS....
Anyone from the dev team wanna comment on that ?
Seriously sir... @terramak anyone wanna comment on that?
Personally im not dropping any money on this game anymore. I have spent a total of 70$ wich i think is ok, its pretty much the cost of a game at release. There was a time, even after the coal ward scandal i tough they actually TRIED to do things right and i said ok ill encourage you. But couple months later they got back to the ****ery once again and i said to myself thats it, its over.
I am saying it loud, i won't spend a dime on this game again, not with what they do and how they threat there customers. Ill keep playing solely cause i don't want to loose my completion on it (achievement wise) but if the servers go down and the game close, so be it.
Time to show the Coporate Commander we are not cows, cash cows.
It's a matter of a simple 50% Zen store sale bro. Everybody will flock back into the store and spend ZEN, either bought or exchanged.
I spent some $$ early in my time in this game cause I honestly wanted to support further development, but cut back as soon as I noticed changes and paywals being pushed through to live, no matter what people on preview said.
I understand the developer wants to make money to maintain their game, but they're doing it hella wrong.
They focus on short term flash spending from new players that they know will leave in the short run, instead of maintaining both new, and old players in the game, spending on a regular basis...but that's when your customers are happy and they've been keen to make everybody mad on a regular basis.
Comments
One question for @terramak. While I can understand your continued insistance that this feature is in fact a bug on the PC, could you please explain why a known, 'significant bug' was recreated on both the PS4 and XBox versions of the game rather than being eliminated before it was released ?
1. The players are upset (mostly) by the tone of the opening thread: http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1223956/dungeon-key-changes/p1. The Neverwinter team happily annouces a bug fix (being able to preview the contents of a chest and declining to use the key). However, most players did not realize it was a bug (I think this is especially true for players that have joined the game after Mod 6). Most think the whole tone of the message is not correct and are very pissed about it.
2. Most players are not really upset about how the new changes work but by the fact that some much of Neverwinters content is hidden behind super rare RnG and keys (that take a while to get or cost money to get). Because of this RnG and key combo it ridiculous hard to advance your character without spending huge time and money investments into the game.
3. Players are also very unhappy by the fact that since Mod 6 went live lots of stuff (leadership AD, coal ward trade bar store, and gateway, just to name a few) has be removed from the game and totally alters there gaming experience. In return of losing this stuff we usually here a standard phase such as "We will be monitoring this changes and make adjustment as required..", despite the feedback that is given to the development team from the gaming community.
4. Players are not happy about the grindy nature of the game with very limited ways in which to experience the game. An example of this unhappiness is the fact that when Mod 10 was released a version of the mod 3 black ice empowerment (voninblod) was introduced despite the fact that most players did not desire this as part of there playing experience. Players have very few avenues in which to explore this game and most players are picking the fastest dungeons to achieve a better RoI because the gear and the drops from all dungeons is relatively the same therefore can not justify spending more time in another dungeon that has relatively the same loot value. To add to this even further, playing alternate characters in the game is not even remotely as fun of an experience as it could be because of the grindy nature of this game.
5. The players don't believe they are being heard by the developers because of the limited interaction by the development team with this thread. In fact like so many of the changes before that players did not like, it sounds like nothing will change to help with points 1 through 4 despite all the feed back that we give. So, overall the players feel ignored and alienated, despite being active in this thread. For the most these very same players have been even headed about the change despite the tone of the opening post and the lack of developer response.
But....
Is anybody listening?????
Is anybody there???
Does anybody care???
Dev's can you hear us yet???
I'm sorry if I missed something else this thread offered fell free to add to it that way people still have an idea of the other 50 pages without have to go through them all.
Farming for BiS items(+5 rings) is like "farming lockboxes" for legendary mount with the difference that the mounts are BoE while rings are BtA, completely insane.
Pls, increase the HAMSTER stupid RNG! Since CN came back, I run it at least once a day, everyday... sometimes even 5 runs just to get the orcus artifact... guess what? Never saw one!
The biggest problem isn't the fix of this bug, but the very very very low drop rate of every good item on the game: +5 rings, orcus shard, demogorgon belt, lostmauth horn... heck, even valindra shard I rarely saw! The name of the game is "Dungeons and Dragons", not "Grinding Dragons" as many players do on WoD; or "Heroic events and Dragons", like many are doing now on the new areas...
Up to the new raid, this held true, after this mod drops.. it is no longer the case, the RNG factor + removal of peeking, makes it nearly impossible to do this.
The game cannot be called free 2 play anymore, its not even pay to win.. its more like pay to play, which is the hardest truth.
In addition, terramark should be removed from the game for his comments, they are that bad.. a complete insult to this gaming community, that has played and supported this game for years. There most be other assignments in the company he can have, I think this is enough to call for him to be removed from working on neverwinter projects, not asking for anyone to be fired.. but , you know , there has to be somewhere else he can be assigned after this. What a complete jerk.
Again.. this double down on insulting us , while also making changes, that cannot by any reasonable measure , be anything other then monetization scheming, is not endurable .
There is really only one real response that will keep alot of us, and that is.. we understand, we are puting this change on hiatus and we will come up with a approach that works for both the players and the company.
Sadly, I doubt any of this would happen, what will happen is they will be arrogant, stubborn and just do what they want, to whatever detriment to the game, just like they have since mod 6.
You'll be missed
It shouldn't be so hard to get +5 rings, or Lostmauth horns, or Orcus Shards, or Eye's of Lathander etc. fair enough make it hard, but don't make it near impossible. In 3 years of playing this game I have got 2 horns, one eye, one Shard and one +5 Ring. Virtually everything else has been trash. I would have opened 1000's of chests.
I can't see that increasing the drop rates will reduce Cryptics income, all it will do is lower prices in the AH. We still need to buy pres wards and coal wards to refine this stuff and with the Zen Exchange up over 8mil, it doesn't seem like people are buying Zen to convert into AD anyway. So what's in place now isn't working.
Who in their right mind is going to pay for things that are likely going to get Nerfed in a mod or two
Fashion is probably the easiest way for them to make some $$, heaps of ppl are begging for it. Recently I went through what was available on the AH and it was mostly terrible.
Every mod it seems that something is taken away from the game and either removed completely or put behind a pay wall. If they surgically remove bits and pieces from the game for long enough, there will be nothing left. Where the heck are the old Dungeons, ffs.
I see in one of the other threads that POM will still be bugged, but hey at least the chest at the end of it won't be bugged anymore - yay.
There is no point providing feedback in the Preview section, the only time Cryptic has ever changed anything on Preview before going live was if it introduced more nerfs to "free to get" stuff, everything else gets ignored. And comments from the Dev's like @terramak either show that they are somewhat socially ignorant or are subtlety trying to rub the players noses in it even more . . . . idk
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
If a Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale came and went, and the players didn't spend on Zen as expected...the suits at the top would take notice...fast.
I'm doing my part - stopped spending RL money as of the start of Mod 10. Will not spend another dime until I see positive change.
I am saying it loud, i won't spend a dime on this game again, not with what they do and how they threat there customers. Ill keep playing solely cause i don't want to loose my completion on it (achievement wise) but if the servers go down and the game close, so be it.
Time to show the Coporate Commander we are not cows, cash cows.
Put nothing in the auction house...
Just log on and sit in PE and use zone chat to speak of your upset until the devs come online and meet with us.
Sadly, I finally figured out what is going to happen with all of this. We're gonna have to suffer this through Mod 10.5, but with assurances that "they've heard us" (people hearing without listening) and "they're working on it". When Mod 11 hits, they'll make rare and cool goodies drop like hotcakes! Our pleas will have been answered! It'll be like Christmas! Everyone will rejoice, and lost players will start filtering back in just in time for Mod 12... and a level cap increase to 80 that will invalidate all the cool stuff people got and were so excited about in Mod 11...
...yeah...
Guardian Fighter
TLO
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1221446/the-future-of-the-gf/p1 Existing Problems Still In The Guardian Fighter
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/comment/12984912m
Feat Changes I'd like to see in The Guardian Fighter
I really doubt they'll ever do a level cap increase again. They can coast through the end of the games life on modest content updates and milk players with lockboxes without the inherent risk that would come with a level cap increase.
The main reason it likes this for me right now is i'm struggling with a decision, should I stay or should i go now (kinda like the song
Example 1. When I ran into this problem with the first MMO I ever played (had BiS gear and the content was getting boring or trivialized), I found the joy of leveling alts and multi-box characters. This kept me going for about another year at which point RL intervined and I just didn't have the time to dedicate to the game. So it was the lack of time that ran me away from the game, and by the time I had time to play with it, I could no longer proficiently multi-box and the game got old. So I moved on.
Example 2. The game I was playing before this one had a unique feature I have yet to see any other MMO. At the push of a button I could change my characters role, gear, and spell load out. This means that if I played a cleric i was not just stuck to a healing role and in fact up until i left the game clerics were most sought after for there tanking skills. The problem happened when the level cap was raised and my raid level gear, which took almost a year to get, became obsolete as soon as a common piece of gear was dropped from a trash mob, was not a good time. Reached the level cap and started raiding the new content and low and behold it was going to take forever to get raid level gear again. I could not do it raids where split out so basically you had to dedicated a significat amount of time on friday, saturday, and sunday to be there and if you couldnt dedicate that time for all 3 days most raid leader could not let you into the raid. So I moved to Neverwinter.
I was drawn into how fun and good looking the game was. There was so much to do once you reached level 60 I could not keep up. So many dungeons and by the time i got the swing of the game there was only 3 campaign to grind. Then Mod 6 happened.... only 3 dungeons to play and i was getting 1shot by trash mobs in the zone I was used to doing dailies in...
To the point of why this particular announcement has me in my current state:
1st was the tone of the only announcement. Let us compare to a very similar announcement, the astral diamond change that happened a year ago. Just so you don't have to go digging around for it: http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1203585/astral-diamond-changes/p1. You will notice the difference on page 1. We were getting a huge game changing announcement. We were given the reasons for the change, how it was going to immediately affect our game play, and possible future adjustment. You should also note that most of the community moderators were in support of this change despite the fact more than a few had leadership armies. I will be the first to admit I wasn't on board with this change right away, but now I honestly believe that change did make the game a little better.
If you compare the astral diamond announcement to this one I would venture to say that they are in fact almost opposite in nature. I also think that because there was lots of good feedback we (the players) played an important role in getting lots of AD sinks removed/adjusted from campaigns and the wondrous bazaar, and AD added to weekly quests. Obviously, this process didn't happen over night but the developers also tried to keep us updated with astral diamond changes.
2nd, we come to another important item, it is the letter from Rob Overmeyer on the state of the game. Again, instead of having to go dig for it here is the link: http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/9811113. Lots of interesting conversation topics within the letter itself, but i'm going to focus it on this current discussion.
In the middle he talks about stumbling with Mod 6 and what was learned from this misstep:
"We had tuned a lot of the numbers to support this new foundation, but that tuning wasn’t made with the entire picture in mind. As a result, it showed when we launched. Progression and difficulty were greatly impacted. The fast-paced and fun game everyone had come to know and enjoy started to slow down and lose what made it different than other MMOs. This was a big misstep for us and Neverwinter. Maybe we got lost in our attempt to build a new foundation. Perhaps we looked too far ahead at how things like stats, XP, and difficulty might be shaped down the road. Or maybe the inclusion of going to console meant one challenge too many."
and
"We stumbled with our vision and lost some of the fun. We reacted more than planned. Our Elemental Evil update didn’t deliver what we set out to build. There is a great story there and fantastic new adventures and encounters, but they were hidden behind systems designed smooth out some power curves, progression and allow for more growth in the future. The level cap increase was cumbersome and didn’t feel quite right. We were working to our goals and we hit them functionally, but we lost the spirit just enough to make it not fun to play the content. We were able to rally the team and community to find what we misplaced and get back the Neverwinter we all love."
and at the bottom
"Another key area for us is communication with our community. We are looking at additional ways to show our progress or create direct lines of communication back to our players whether it be through additional dev blogs or in-game activities. We will be working on a way to give the community a clearer picture of what we are working on and what we understand the top issues to be.
Our goal is to look at Neverwinter as a whole and work to make improvements all over the game.
I talked about some of them but there are always more that we can keep an eye on. It will not all happen at once and we won’t hold onto something any longer than necessary. That said, we are committed to making real progress this year and ensure Neverwinter remains the best D&D experience you can have on PC and console."
So let me summarize what how this announcement is being viewed. Just based on this announcement and how many pages have accumulated in such a short time (6 days since announcement and 51 pages, this blew up faster than the AD announcement did) has already affected lot of players. The players are not happy with how it was announced and are not happy with the the level of communications from the development team. Some players are not happy because they did not realize that the preview of loot and decline button were considered a bug. Some players, like myself are at a cross roads with this game and it could go either way. A lot of us are finding this game grindy that hide to many things behind crappy RnG and keys (just look at the number of key we could have clogging up our bags), and we do not find this game as FUN as it used to be.
We miss the variety of T1/T2 dungeon selections. We are not happy to see HE's get are added no new/old T1/T2 dungeons have been added since MOD 6, that right its been 1.5 years since that mod was released. Don't get me wrong, I like FBI well enough it is a good dungeon but because of the high EF/IL requirements I only see this dungeon maybe once a week.
For me the game doesn't feel like the best D&D experience I can get and it feels about as FUN as mod 6 did. Due to limited communication about this announcement and the concern of so many players about this announcement, I think we are largely being ignored and kinda being told to "Suck it up Buttercup" and pay to play baby, which this Dude cannot abide by.....
And though I have said it many times already (many have also), it is not so much about the changes that will be implemented. It was the message tone and how we as a player base view our current playing experience in neverwinter. Contained with in this post are many great ways to "Make this Game Fun Again", but unless the developers say something, the suggestions will be headed to a black hole.
It's the ridiculous, disrespectful way they have presented it, pretending it was a bug!
Stick to the absurd allegation that the DECLINE FEATURE was a BUG, please.
Have never ever seen such a disrespectful move from a developer, calling a hard coded button (no matter what it says) in a 3 platform port, a frikkin BUG!!!!
If they want to push forward with it they will, no matter what, as they did with so many other changes.
The Decline button was a FEATURE they CODED in 2 CONSOLE PORTS....
Anyone from the dev team wanna comment on that ?
Seriously sir... @terramak anyone wanna comment on that?
Everybody will flock back into the store and spend ZEN, either bought or exchanged.
I spent some $$ early in my time in this game cause I honestly wanted to support further development, but cut back as soon as I noticed changes and paywals being pushed through to live, no matter what people on preview said.
I understand the developer wants to make money to maintain their game, but they're doing it hella wrong.
They focus on short term flash spending from new players that they know will leave in the short run, instead of maintaining both new, and old players in the game, spending on a regular basis...but that's when your customers are happy and they've been keen to make everybody mad on a regular basis.