Personally, I'm feeling completely demotivated. I've played the game solidly for over 18 months but the combined negatives of the uber-grind in STK and the upcoming chest key nerf (yes it is a nerf) leaves me with a feeling of 'what's the point'.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
I started in beta, so I've been here for a while....
With that being said, I've watched the time/effort rewards go from "will I get something good?" to "I just need to grind this X more times". Back in the beginning, you were hoping to get your set piece drop at the end of the dungeon. It's gone from "Hope I get my High Prophet gloves this time!" to "I just need to get gold on edemo 4 more times to get my weapon".
There isn't much magic in that. No suspense. No wonder or joy at finding that thing you need. You already know what you're going to get - eventually. Worse, the other gear you get isn't (90%+ of the time) actually any good.
In short, the loot tables need a serious pass.
The +1/+2 rings aren't much good for a level 70 character, the +3 are decent-ish. But just as bad - easily half of those rings have powers that are completely useless. I have one +5 ring to my name - a +5 Ring of Vision. Every 30 seconds, I can see stealthed mobs for a whopping 2 seconds. Even PvPers wouldn't use it, as it's so tremendously under powered, and there is no control on when it will trigger. And it's not the only ring like that. Eliminating these 'filler' rings (and I'd suggest a trade-in vendor) would be a nice start. LEave the Rising and SUdden rings that actually affect stats.
It's been said again and again in multiple threads - the loot is why players don't take the rewards. Forcing us to take the chest (a la edemo) isn't exactly a winning solution. It's nice that we can eventually get the top end weapons through gameplay, but the implementation is shoddy. Imagine if just completing edemo rewarded one Twisted Ichor, silver got +1, Gold another +1 (3 total). Even if the cost of weapons was moved to 30 Ichor, it'd still allow people to have to complete edemo a minimum 10 times. No key required - but players still need to run the content. Now, if there were only +3 or higher rings in the edemo chests, you'd also likely see more people taking the chests, regardless of the ichor content.
Looking ahead, I can see the new raid being a problem for me - regardless of the number of chests needed to open (which is insane, btw). The RNG hates me. A lot. So for me to have to open multiple chests in a vain attempt to get an equipment drop is just cruel. Especially if there is no way to accumulate currency to eventually buy it. Its much like trying to farm Lanolin. I don't know how many hours I've farmed HEs in Bryn Shandar, for a grand total of *3* Lanolin. It's made upgrading my boots problematic, to say the least... And apparently I'll be expected to do even more Lanolin farming when the new content drops. Thanks, so much.
Anyways, I don't expect the devs to read this. It's mainly just me venting. Maybe someday they'll start thinking about the user experience, rather than just the impact on the bottom line...
do you remember when pre-mod 1, we almost didnt have keys, we just open those without keys to claim rewards, and some rewards were decent and less randem? since they added keys for Sharandar and Dreadring, it was okay so-so loots until Mod 6, they changed chest loots to more awful RNG.
only keys from pre-mod 1 were Lockbox keys.
And now more cluttered array of keys and required to have to open the chests, the original chests are gone, they put cash-grab tactic. we dont want RNG chests!!!
paused pvp (which i only played casually, but at least needed to design possible strategies for half geared chars) seeing how easy it would be to improve it with SOLO queue -- after SOLO "test" i felt like an idiot to keep hanging around in "good games"
i skipped vonin gear and fangbreaker for now it didn't make sense to me only doing the boons on some of my chars
now, the chest key feat/bug/whatever removal doesn't hit me hard as i will likely not use keys after it hits and thus free some bagspace -- very curious how it will work out though because it's a major inception in momentary gamepractice (grinding, how often etc)
double linus felt ok though i got 6th boon on 2 chars none of my chars had a 6th boon before that
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.
I want to put this here for more visability.
And to clarify it. It was, from your own forum moderators, a purposed FEATURE! It is in the game since what? Module 3?
Post edited by karakla1 on
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
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.
I want to put this here for more visability.
And to clarify it. It was, from your own forum moderators, a purposed FEATURE! It is in the game since what? Module 3?
The guy must have a nose longer than pinocchio after typing that load of 'it's a bug' tripe
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
The guy must have a nose longer than pinocchio after typing that load of 'it's a bug' tripe
The thing is also. The moderator have an intern channels to talk with other people within cryptic and pwe. That means that they probably asked if this is intended or not.
Which mean the answer we get from a moderator over certain things. Especially such old moderators means it was later on decided it was an proper feature.
Also as I stated before. There was at least one patch where people complained that their keys where directly consumed and loot send in their inventory. There was a hotfix after this. This "feature change" was never written down in the patch notes.
Also they fixed the exit portals if you don't grab the loot. Like several weeks or month ago (only lostmauth. All other dungeons works strangely properly). That means someone must look into it and fixed it. That means someone probably looked also into the chest itself to root down the problem.
We are lied directly into our faces. And we get no answer about it. They try to sit this out. Guys, Girls, Gamers. Ask yourself. Is that the kind of company you want to give your money?
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
I think the reason the game is running into so many problems of late is because they are trying harder and harder to monetize the game rather than make a game that is fun and gains better monetization due to the player base size.
Think about that for a second. Why do we play games in the first place? It's not to grind and waste time and give them $ bills so we can open up chests. If a game isn't fun and rewarding, then people won't play it.
Sure, they need to make money, but when their methods of making money, cross the boundaries of the game being fun people start to lose interest. These are the kinds of problems Blizzard had with Diablo 3. Do you design loot drop tables that make the game fun for players, or design them around the AH pricing? Once folks saw just how bad the loot was they lost most of their player base.
I just don't understand why they don't learn from their mistakes. These monetization mistakes are going to cost them more and more players as well as $ in the long run.
The problem is that the current way of monetization don't work.
I stated this before. Get rid of Astral Diamonds. Up the loot that you can really earn "Stuff". Then change the auctionhouse or tradesystem to allow players to trade Zen for Ingame items.
This sounds for some people strange or even dumb but it works perfectly fine in other games because active player can grind certain rare items (with way higher drop rate than in Neverwinter currently) and sell it via the tradechat to a player for the real money currency.
So everyone wins. Players that want rewarding stuff in the dungeon. The "lazy" players or more likely said the players that have not that much time to invest in the game and Cryptic/PWE because they earn money from the purchase of the currency itself.
The only thing you need to do is balancing a bit the Cash Shop that there are also items that are regularly buyed (so you get the currency back, otherwise it inflates and less people buy the currency) but that is not a big deal. Especially not in Neverwinter with all these different consumables for your progression.
In all seriousness. The current monetization model is hostile to their own customers.
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
Oh man I completely feel what you are saying @karakla1 I'm about at the point of a very long break as well. That's if I ever return, I have played as GF 3800 IL and OP 4100 IL and I am just sick and tired of the lies and the nerfs, yes ITF need to be fixed, yes DP needed to be fixed and the other changes are fine but meanwhile DC class can buff power to over 2-3 million but that's ok, and when you continually lie to your customers and blatantly mask the truth just to squeeze more money out of People and speak to grown adults as if they are stupid children by saying the key thing was a bug they (the Devs) have crossed the line. Coalgate I was willing to forgive this I'm not, I understand that MMOs are constantly changing and I accept the nerfs but lies and deceit I do not. GG bro....
unbound of bounded drop isn't a solution because thereis no ITEMS in the game that would be so likely (as parts of GWF old t2 set). Every new thing in the game mean is farming farming and donate more and more. Only some artifacts may be sold in good price ( look on Orcus for exemple).
Add different set bonuses like it was with old sets for different classes, but no. You gonna to add new overgired weapon set just with much biggest weapon damage! you're just wipe all present weapon sets because you want that we played your new content.
"sometimes the world doesn't need another hero, sometimes what it needs is a monster"
The problem is that the current way of monetization don't work.
I stated this before. Get rid of Astral Diamonds. Up the loot that you can really earn "Stuff". Then change the auctionhouse or tradesystem to allow players to trade Zen for Ingame items.
This sounds for some people strange or even dumb but it works perfectly fine in other games because active player can grind certain rare items (with way higher drop rate than in Neverwinter currently) and sell it via the tradechat to a player for the real money currency.
So everyone wins. Players that want rewarding stuff in the dungeon. The "lazy" players or more likely said the players that have not that much time to invest in the game and Cryptic/PWE because they earn money from the purchase of the currency itself.
The only thing you need to do is balancing a bit the Cash Shop that there are also items that are regularly buyed (so you get the currency back, otherwise it inflates and less people buy the currency) but that is not a big deal. Especially not in Neverwinter with all these different consumables for your progression.
In all seriousness. The current monetization model is hostile to their own customers.
I disagree with all of this, actually.
First, I don't think the focus of the game should be "getting rich". Astral Diamonds and Zen should be a means to an ends, which is to enjoy the game. Not "farm" currency. I'd rather Neverwinter NOT cater to those players who are doing stuff because they see it as a way to earn "real money currency".
And per @asterdahl 's statements in the preview forums many times over, they want people to EARN gear via doing the content, not just buy it (with a few exceptions). I don't want to go back to the "old ol' days" where you could literally buy every BiS item off the AH. To me, that's not fun either.
Hence my complaints. I want loot to be worth a good gosh darn because I enjoy finishing content and earning what's on my toon. That's the root of the issue for me, as well as many, many of my community members. Up to a certain point, this game is fabulous. But then when you try to get past the mid-2000 iLevels, the grind becomes real. And it escalates quickly as you get up and over 3000 iLevel. Then at that point the drop rate on upgrades becomes so ridiculously low, or the process so painfully grindy that progress pretty much stops. And, like in most MMOs, when people feel like their character progression hits a wall, they start to lose interest and then drop out.
If you're angry about the "lie", then that's valid. Cryptic can either chose to address that or not. But honestly either way, it won't change the game experience, and that's the problem for me. They could come out with the most sincere, heart-warming apology to players, even offer up some nice "thank you" present...but if they don't fundamentally address the high-level grind and lack of loot, it's empty. In my opinion, addressing that second part is honestly the most sincere form of an "apology" they can offer to the players.
Sorry doesn't mean anything unless there's action dedicated to change the behavior.
And there's zero chance of them changing how the economy works at this point. Remember, Zen is shared across all the PWE platforms, and it's fairly consistent how it's used across the games. You also have to consider how much more granular AD is than Zen. Unless you're proposing that you sell for 0.01 Zen, which then just creates a system that's even more obfuscating that the current one.
What if i told you that one game i played is basically doing this and it is very successfull in it?
What if I told you that one game I played is basically sub-only with no cash shop or currency exchange and is very successful?
What if I told you that one game I played is basically a box-only one time buy with no cash currency exchange, but charges for DLC and is very successful?
What if I told you that one game I played is basically F2P with ridiculously crazy-high prices in it's cash shop and is very successful?
I've also seen a lot of MMOs do exactly what you're suggesting and become absolute trash...
The point is that just because it works for one game doesn't make it a panacea for Neverwinter.
What if i told you that one game i played is basically doing this and it is very successfull in it?
What if I told you that one game I played is basically sub-only with no cash shop or currency exchange and is very successful?
What if I told you that one game I played is basically a box-only one time buy with no cash currency exchange, but charges for DLC and is very successful?
What if I told you that one game I played is basically F2P with ridiculously crazy-high prices in it's cash shop and is very successful?
I've also seen a lot of MMOs do exactly what you're suggesting and become absolute trash...
The point is that just because it works for one game doesn't make it a panacea for Neverwinter.
It doesn't matter, their current methods of monetizing the game are ruining it AND more importantly making the game not fun to play.
I've seen a slew of some more 4k+ beta leftover players quit recently. The direction they are steering the game are about as bad as can be.
I do think it would be of some help if they would put out another state of the game like post like they did back after Mod 6 crashed and burned. It would seem all we have for the rest of this year is Mod 10.5 . But other than that cant really say what if anything the future holds. Just seems they dont really have the man power needed to get the job done.
The point is that just because it works for one game doesn't make it a panacea for Neverwinter.
True.
But it is currently barrely working. Or more likely said it is probably working to a certain extend to get money out of it, but like i said. The current monetization feels hostile towards its own customers. That means less customers over time. Less customers. Less income. Less support to bring new features into the game (we are currently losing features because if budget issues, also they lied to us that a feature is a bug to make a change for a harsher monetization).
I mean, are they not thinking about to completly rebalance the game or more said the monetization to be more profitable and customer friendly so more people are willing to spend money for it?
It can now only go two ways from here. Constantly making adjustment to the game for a more harsh and even more invasive monetization until no player is left. Or reworking it and making it at the end more profitable. I mean, am i the only one that thinks it is a good thing to have an MMORPG that is running like 10 years until it is outdated as HAMSTER instead of driving it directly at a tree?
P.S.: They also lied to us.
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
I agree with zerg here..
I dont want a apology.. I want them to fix the HAMSTER of mod 10 foward.. so gamers can play together again. Drop the stupid gating. Make vblood and lanolins a bit easier to come by.. and give 1 free legendary get to rank 13 vip.. so we can all play new raid together.
remove also the box in the box concept in fbi.. stupiddddddd.
I have no proof for this assessment but I think the game heavily relies on "come and go as you like players", not holding a big number of players, who stay for a long time. Olny one or max. two years of playing is enough, spending some money, then moving on to another game.
I will continue to do the same things I have always done to build my toons up to about 3.4 IL with all boons. I have 9 toons and half of them are there already. At that point I can run all the content in the game but won't run mod 10 and 10.5 grindfest for relic gear and I'm ok with that. Then when mod 11 comes out I can run that stuff unless it is the same type of grindfest as 10 and 10.5. It is a slow go but such is life. I can say the only money they will get from me is for VIP because it provides a value as it is currently configured, but won't buy any other zen for anything I can't get in game.
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micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
I dont want a apology.. I want them to fix the HAMSTER of mod 10 foward.. so gamers can play together again. Drop the stupid gating. Make vblood and lanolins a bit easier to come by.. and give 1 free legendary get to rank 13 vip.. so we can all play new raid together.
remove also the box in the box concept in fbi.. stupiddddddd.
+
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
I dont want a apology.. I want them to fix the HAMSTER of mod 10 foward.. so gamers can play together again. Drop the stupid gating. Make vblood and lanolins a bit easier to come by.. and give 1 free legendary get to rank 13 vip.. so we can all play new raid together.
remove also the box in the box concept in fbi.. stupiddddddd.
@silverkelt We're of like mind, brother. Words mean nothing. It's time for action.
"Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
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lantern22Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,111Arc User
I dont want a apology.. I want them to fix the HAMSTER of mod 10 foward.. so gamers can play together again. Drop the stupid gating. Make vblood and lanolins a bit easier to come by.. and give 1 free legendary get to rank 13 vip.. so we can all play new raid together.
remove also the box in the box concept in fbi.. stupiddddddd.
As much as I agree with the OP, Zerg and Kvet.. This horse has been beaten to death and sold to the glue factory more times than I care to count since mod3. Should we therefor stop saying it? Maybe not. Some say that the squeaking wheel gets the oil. Problem is, this wheel has been making a lot of noise for 2 years now and it hasn't been getting a single drop of oil.
In fact, as the OP clearly points out, Cryptic would rather ride the cart on 3 wheels than fix the 4th. Gateway, dungeons, Foundry.. Everything that requires an effort to make it work is slowly but surely being cut off from the game. I'll accept that the EE rework itself was needed at that time. But even that effect has been just about nullified by the power creep they kept adding afterwards even if the underlying mechanical changes still have their -desired?- effect.
Since mod4, the game has lost all balance on the effort-reward scales. 10h of grinding just to do 1 dungeon is insane. 80 succesful instances for a single boon? What are you thinking? Apart from that and various other mindless RP grinds in a miserable attempt to keep 3 year content relevant even after completion, having 4 dungeons and 4 skirmishes as an end-game is downright insulting for a game that's 3 years old.
I've been in the MMO world long enough to know there are a few very simple rules when it comes to making an MMO successful: 1. Never sell more power than the game has content for 2. Rewards should be matching for the upcoming content. If people can get to 2.5k IL after finishing the current mod, then 2.5 should be the entry level for the next one. Raising the required IL by 600 points in a single mod without providing the means to get there halts people in their progression and therefor stops them from playing. It's a very poor way to entice people to spend money and one that customers appreciate not at all. 3. Don't create double content. When they made the SH weapons in mod 7 they clearly intended them to be a long term goal. Nothing wrong with that. Until you start making another and much easier grind that provides better weapons before people even had the chance to try out those weapons. You're wasting your efforts on stuff people will never ever even attempt to get. You even did it twice: Once with the druid weaponry and again with the twisted set. And you're about to do it a 3rd time with the new weapons in the next mod. You want to free up resources? Plan ahead, stop this nonsense and put those resources to work where they are wanted by your clients. Like the Foundry.
The rest simply comes down to making engaging content. And we've seen that Cryptic is perfectly able to do so. The mod10 mobs are fresh, challenging and -on certain classes- even downright annoying. That keeps people awake. Good going on that point. But you're ruining the would-be engaging gameplay by introducing another mod-specific gear grind. And you know that doesn't work. Mod3 told you that. Nobody did KR until you removed the BI requirements that weren't even that helpful to begin with. People want to progress beyond a single module. It's like playing chess where you have to earn your 2 rooks first before you're allowed to put them on the board. Which really brings me to the last 2 points: 4. Learn from your mistakes. Nobody expect perfection, although it's always appreciated. What we do expect is that feedback is being taken care of. That bugs that are reported on preview be fixed before it goes live. 5. Make an honest and full attempt to give the customer what it's looking for in your product. For those that never studied marketing, a complaint is someone asking for an excuse to give you their money! Excuses like "we can't determine the value of the Foundry" are nonsense. Find a way to determine that value and work with it. You've had plenty of feedback on the matter. Don't lie just to hide the fact you don't have the resources or don't want to spend them.
But again, the glue factory already owns about all the horses I care to kill to get the point across. Oh well.. 512314251541345234th time lucky perhaps?
+1
This was a well thought out and well spoken argument. I support all points in this post. Thank for your insight @magenubbie !
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
2. Rewards should be matching for the upcoming content. If people can get to 2.5k IL after finishing the current mod, then 2.5 should be the entry level for the next one. Raising the required IL by 600 points in a single mod without providing the means to get there halts people in their progression and therefor stops them from playing. It's a very poor way to entice people to spend money and one that customers appreciate not at all.
@magenubbie Another great point. I feel like where we're bleeding players is these "lost boys" who got to 2500 iLevel to start doing eDemo, which was possible with the current content progression. Now they're at a loss as to how to close a 600 point iLevel gap.
Putting in a new tier of dungeon was a good decision on paper. Catering to the players who were complaining that there's no challenging content for 3.5-4k+ iLevel characters was a mistake. And the reason for that is that those players get nothing out of FBI, so there's no motivation to run it. Meanwhile, the players who would benefit from some gear upgrades (and let's just assume they'll deal with the empowerment) have such a huge gap to close that it's essentially out of reach for them without months more grinding.
So sadly, we've seen so many people "opt out" of playing this module because it's a veritable no man's land for them. They're too low to do the new content, so they're either forced to grind the old stuff like madmen, or just find something else to do.
@mimicking#6533 It's like having level 20 players in you game complaining that the level 10 content is too easy for them, so you started running a level 15 module. The level 20 players are still complaining it's too easy or the rewards suck, while the majority of people who are still around level 10 are getting their butts kicked because the content is so far above them.
Honestly, this shows there is a certain magic to ignoring some of your customers. Personally, I would've ignored the top 5% of players, and continued to cater to the 80%.
And now with Module 10b coming out, as I pointed out to @asterdahl they've painted themselves into a corner, creating something I've never seen in a MMO before in almost 25 years...the new content is actually going to completely reverse the story progression in the game. You'll be able to assault the frost giant King and retrieve the Ring of Winter BEFORE you get access to FBI to go search for clues about the Ring of Winter. FBI ends with the story pointing to a climatic showdown as you continue your hunt for the Ring of Winter, but the way the progression works, a vast majority of players will have already "won" in the first level of the new trial.
It's sad because it clearly shows how poorly Cryptic plans this out. Even down to a SINGLE module, they couldn't look far enough ahead to make the game progression make sense, even from a story perspective.
FBI should've been a 2700 iLevel dungeon. The new assault trial should've been 2800, and the master level set at 3000. Module 11 and 12 should've been focused around new 5-man dungeon content at 3000 iLevel.
And those 4k iLevel players complaining that the game is too easy? That's a simple fix..take some gear off if you're really hungry for a challenge. Or gear up an alt...there's plenty of solutions out there for that "problem" beyond alienating a majority of players.
And those 4k iLevel players complaining that the game is too easy? That's a simple fix..take some gear off if you're really hungry for a challenge. Or gear up an alt...there's plenty of solutions out there for that "problem" beyond alienating a majority of players.
Show me only 1 decission made for the BIS players before FBI came out....only 1. And maybe you check how you can make the most money in a game. Its no rocket sience. You can find it very easy if you search that in gooogle. Why should i take gear off, that i tried to maximize? Is it not also a goal to get much better gear? With your logic we dont need any gear, we dont need level ups, we event dont need dungeons. Give us some mobs and no gear. So we all got the same challenge and the most boring game in history.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited October 2016
@spideymt The underlying problem is indeed how far Cryptic's poor planning has stretched out the power levels between players.
With the "hardest" content prior to FBI being aimed at a 2500 iLevel, it's mind-blowing that people can achieve iLevels in the mid 4000's. But as you can see, you can't just make content aimed at such a small percentage of players because that alienates a vast majority of your audience.
Which also points to one of the lingering and most game-breaking decisions made as we transitioned to Module 6, and that was the linear stat curves. So a player's power roughly increases linearly as they get better geared, versus Module's 1-5, where even people who had gearscores above 20k were so far into diminishing returns that their absolute power was only slightly ahead of other players. Typically, you'd see a player's overall power start to diminish greatly past 15-16k gearscore depending on the class, and potentially hit the point of plateauing near the high teens.
But without those diminishing returns, we've see ludicrous jumps in power between players, so much so that it's obviously impossible for Cryptic to design any sort of content that isn't trivial for high iLevel players without it absolutely crushing that majority of players with anything less than BiS levels of gear.
@ironzerg79 Sry, but i didnt ask about an underlying problem. I asked specific about a sentence in a post from you. I didnt mean it offense. But i dont like arguments like " if BIS player want challenge, take your hard farmed/grinded gear off". Cryptic did never listen to the BIS players. Remember when the arp pen bug was ingame? If they only fixed that, no one would say any bad words. But they decrease the HPs from Mobs/Bosses. Huge decrease. So they listened to the "Majority" even if the fix for arp pen had solved all problems. Everytime Cryp listened to the "majority" they made this game easier and easier. After that arp pen bug fix this game was almost easy as it was in module 5. So BIS where asking about challenge. What did we get? First we got broken synergies, old broken sets, immortal OPs etc. etc. ( you know this list can be very long ^^). All well known problems. Cryptic is not able to enjoy both "sides" of the players. BIS players need a challenge. FBI with old sets and broken synergies isnt a challenge. Maybe the first 3 -5 trys. But.....the loot is so terrible, that also BIS players thinkin ( incl. me) "its not worth to farm this dungeon". So even if they try to enjoy BIS players, they cant do it cuzz they made such terrible loot, that no one will go in this dungeon. Believe it or not, but i can hardly find some players in my own guilde to run FBI cuzz the bad loot. So cryptic failed on both sides: Grinding as hell for the majority and no interessting dungeon for BIS players. But a BIS player got also the right to say "where is the challenge"? We never got one. And cryptic never made a dungeons thats worth calling "endcontent". Excuse my very bad english. But its not my native language. Once again: No offense, dear ironzerg. But its unfair to tell some one to take some gear off to get a challenge. Everyone ( also the majority) wants to become better in this game. If the only way to have a challenge is that you have to take your gear off...like i said: Thats not a solution and this is not what anyone wants.
But i guess we are some kind of ot ^^. Sry for that too.
But a BIS player got also the right to say "where is the challenge"? We never got one.
And that's where the problem is. No. A BiS player is not supposed to be able to have such an opinion in the first place. They can be bored with with the lack of content, but not with the lack of challenge. That's where Cryptic went wrong in the first place: Selling more power than the content requires.
So, as a human being, BiS players may complain all they want about a lack of challenge. But that's not the game's problem. BiS players chose to overgear and be led by Cryptic's lure of easy power for sale. That's their mistake and not an excuse to ignore the majority of the 3k - players that are craving for some real content. 4k IL players have no right to be catered period. They made their own choices to make the content obsolete. They didn't have to buy R12s to enjoy the game. In fact, they only made it bad for themselves. Willingly and knowingly. That sounds perhaps more harsh than intended, but it's the clear truth.
BS. The game offer progress. The whole premise of an MMO is to progress your character with imaginary 'strength' to kill harder things and repeat the cycle. If the game doesn't offer the appropriate content for the strength it does offer, it's not the players problem, it's the games problem. period.
I understand that you will run CN (for example) hundreds of times but decline every single drop to halt your progress, so you wont do that 'mistake' everyone else does!?
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Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
With that being said, I've watched the time/effort rewards go from "will I get something good?" to "I just need to grind this X more times". Back in the beginning, you were hoping to get your set piece drop at the end of the dungeon. It's gone from "Hope I get my High Prophet gloves this time!" to "I just need to get gold on edemo 4 more times to get my weapon".
There isn't much magic in that. No suspense. No wonder or joy at finding that thing you need. You already know what you're going to get - eventually. Worse, the other gear you get isn't (90%+ of the time) actually any good.
In short, the loot tables need a serious pass.
The +1/+2 rings aren't much good for a level 70 character, the +3 are decent-ish. But just as bad - easily half of those rings have powers that are completely useless. I have one +5 ring to my name - a +5 Ring of Vision. Every 30 seconds, I can see stealthed mobs for a whopping 2 seconds. Even PvPers wouldn't use it, as it's so tremendously under powered, and there is no control on when it will trigger. And it's not the only ring like that. Eliminating these 'filler' rings (and I'd suggest a trade-in vendor) would be a nice start. LEave the Rising and SUdden rings that actually affect stats.
It's been said again and again in multiple threads - the loot is why players don't take the rewards. Forcing us to take the chest (a la edemo) isn't exactly a winning solution. It's nice that we can eventually get the top end weapons through gameplay, but the implementation is shoddy. Imagine if just completing edemo rewarded one Twisted Ichor, silver got +1, Gold another +1 (3 total). Even if the cost of weapons was moved to 30 Ichor, it'd still allow people to have to complete edemo a minimum 10 times. No key required - but players still need to run the content. Now, if there were only +3 or higher rings in the edemo chests, you'd also likely see more people taking the chests, regardless of the ichor content.
Looking ahead, I can see the new raid being a problem for me - regardless of the number of chests needed to open (which is insane, btw). The RNG hates me. A lot. So for me to have to open multiple chests in a vain attempt to get an equipment drop is just cruel. Especially if there is no way to accumulate currency to eventually buy it. Its much like trying to farm Lanolin. I don't know how many hours I've farmed HEs in Bryn Shandar, for a grand total of *3* Lanolin. It's made upgrading my boots problematic, to say the least... And apparently I'll be expected to do even more Lanolin farming when the new content drops. Thanks, so much.
Anyways, I don't expect the devs to read this. It's mainly just me venting. Maybe someday they'll start thinking about the user experience, rather than just the impact on the bottom line...
since they added keys for Sharandar and Dreadring, it was okay so-so loots until Mod 6, they changed chest loots to more awful RNG.
only keys from pre-mod 1 were Lockbox keys.
And now more cluttered array of keys and required to have to open the chests, the original chests are gone, they put cash-grab tactic.
we dont want RNG chests!!!
i also started in beta
paused pvp
(which i only played casually, but at least needed to design possible strategies for half geared chars)
seeing how easy it would be to improve it with SOLO queue
-- after SOLO "test" i felt like an idiot to keep hanging around in "good games"
i skipped vonin gear and fangbreaker for now
it didn't make sense to me
only doing the boons on some of my chars
now, the chest key feat/bug/whatever removal
doesn't hit me hard
as i will likely not use keys after it hits and thus free some bagspace
-- very curious how it will work out though
because it's a major inception in momentary gamepractice (grinding, how often etc)
double linus felt ok though
i got 6th boon on 2 chars
none of my chars had a 6th boon before that
don't worry, be happy!
lol :-)
And to clarify it. It was, from your own forum moderators, a purposed FEATURE! It is in the game since what? Module 3?
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
Which mean the answer we get from a moderator over certain things. Especially such old moderators means it was later on decided it was an proper feature.
Also as I stated before. There was at least one patch where people complained that their keys where directly consumed and loot send in their inventory. There was a hotfix after this. This "feature change" was never written down in the patch notes.
Also they fixed the exit portals if you don't grab the loot. Like several weeks or month ago (only lostmauth. All other dungeons works strangely properly). That means someone must look into it and fixed it. That means someone probably looked also into the chest itself to root down the problem.
We are lied directly into our faces. And we get no answer about it. They try to sit this out. Guys, Girls, Gamers. Ask yourself. Is that the kind of company you want to give your money?
Think about that for a second. Why do we play games in the first place? It's not to grind and waste time and give them $ bills so we can open up chests. If a game isn't fun and rewarding, then people won't play it.
Sure, they need to make money, but when their methods of making money, cross the boundaries of the game being fun people start to lose interest. These are the kinds of problems Blizzard had with Diablo 3. Do you design loot drop tables that make the game fun for players, or design them around the AH pricing? Once folks saw just how bad the loot was they lost most of their player base.
I just don't understand why they don't learn from their mistakes. These monetization mistakes are going to cost them more and more players as well as $ in the long run.
I stated this before. Get rid of Astral Diamonds. Up the loot that you can really earn "Stuff". Then change the auctionhouse or tradesystem to allow players to trade Zen for Ingame items.
This sounds for some people strange or even dumb but it works perfectly fine in other games because active player can grind certain rare items (with way higher drop rate than in Neverwinter currently) and sell it via the tradechat to a player for the real money currency.
So everyone wins. Players that want rewarding stuff in the dungeon. The "lazy" players or more likely said the players that have not that much time to invest in the game and Cryptic/PWE because they earn money from the purchase of the currency itself.
The only thing you need to do is balancing a bit the Cash Shop that there are also items that are regularly buyed (so you get the currency back, otherwise it inflates and less people buy the currency) but that is not a big deal. Especially not in Neverwinter with all these different consumables for your progression.
In all seriousness. The current monetization model is hostile to their own customers.
Add different set bonuses like it was with old sets for different classes, but no. You gonna to add new overgired weapon set just with much biggest weapon damage! you're just wipe all present weapon sets because you want that we played your new content.
Edit: Btw. to remind you. They still lied to us.
First, I don't think the focus of the game should be "getting rich". Astral Diamonds and Zen should be a means to an ends, which is to enjoy the game. Not "farm" currency. I'd rather Neverwinter NOT cater to those players who are doing stuff because they see it as a way to earn "real money currency".
And per @asterdahl 's statements in the preview forums many times over, they want people to EARN gear via doing the content, not just buy it (with a few exceptions). I don't want to go back to the "old ol' days" where you could literally buy every BiS item off the AH. To me, that's not fun either.
Hence my complaints. I want loot to be worth a good gosh darn because I enjoy finishing content and earning what's on my toon. That's the root of the issue for me, as well as many, many of my community members. Up to a certain point, this game is fabulous. But then when you try to get past the mid-2000 iLevels, the grind becomes real. And it escalates quickly as you get up and over 3000 iLevel. Then at that point the drop rate on upgrades becomes so ridiculously low, or the process so painfully grindy that progress pretty much stops. And, like in most MMOs, when people feel like their character progression hits a wall, they start to lose interest and then drop out.
If you're angry about the "lie", then that's valid. Cryptic can either chose to address that or not. But honestly either way, it won't change the game experience, and that's the problem for me. They could come out with the most sincere, heart-warming apology to players, even offer up some nice "thank you" present...but if they don't fundamentally address the high-level grind and lack of loot, it's empty. In my opinion, addressing that second part is honestly the most sincere form of an "apology" they can offer to the players.
Sorry doesn't mean anything unless there's action dedicated to change the behavior.
And there's zero chance of them changing how the economy works at this point. Remember, Zen is shared across all the PWE platforms, and it's fairly consistent how it's used across the games. You also have to consider how much more granular AD is than Zen. Unless you're proposing that you sell for 0.01 Zen, which then just creates a system that's even more obfuscating that the current one. What if I told you that one game I played is basically sub-only with no cash shop or currency exchange and is very successful?
What if I told you that one game I played is basically a box-only one time buy with no cash currency exchange, but charges for DLC and is very successful?
What if I told you that one game I played is basically F2P with ridiculously crazy-high prices in it's cash shop and is very successful?
I've also seen a lot of MMOs do exactly what you're suggesting and become absolute trash...
The point is that just because it works for one game doesn't make it a panacea for Neverwinter.
I've seen a slew of some more 4k+ beta leftover players quit recently. The direction they are steering the game are about as bad as can be.
But it is currently barrely working. Or more likely said it is probably working to a certain extend to get money out of it, but like i said. The current monetization feels hostile towards its own customers.
That means less customers over time. Less customers. Less income. Less support to bring new features into the game (we are currently losing features because if budget issues, also they lied to us that a feature is a bug to make a change for a harsher monetization).
I mean, are they not thinking about to completly rebalance the game or more said the monetization to be more profitable and customer friendly so more people are willing to spend money for it?
It can now only go two ways from here. Constantly making adjustment to the game for a more harsh and even more invasive monetization until no player is left. Or reworking it and making it at the end more profitable. I mean, am i the only one that thinks it is a good thing to have an MMORPG that is running like 10 years until it is outdated as HAMSTER instead of driving it directly at a tree?
P.S.: They also lied to us.
I dont want a apology.. I want them to fix the HAMSTER of mod 10 foward.. so gamers can play together again. Drop the stupid gating. Make vblood and lanolins a bit easier to come by.. and give 1 free legendary get to rank 13 vip.. so we can all play new raid together.
remove also the box in the box concept in fbi.. stupiddddddd.
This was a well thought out and well spoken argument. I support all points in this post. Thank for your insight @magenubbie !
Putting in a new tier of dungeon was a good decision on paper. Catering to the players who were complaining that there's no challenging content for 3.5-4k+ iLevel characters was a mistake. And the reason for that is that those players get nothing out of FBI, so there's no motivation to run it. Meanwhile, the players who would benefit from some gear upgrades (and let's just assume they'll deal with the empowerment) have such a huge gap to close that it's essentially out of reach for them without months more grinding.
So sadly, we've seen so many people "opt out" of playing this module because it's a veritable no man's land for them. They're too low to do the new content, so they're either forced to grind the old stuff like madmen, or just find something else to do.
@mimicking#6533 It's like having level 20 players in you game complaining that the level 10 content is too easy for them, so you started running a level 15 module. The level 20 players are still complaining it's too easy or the rewards suck, while the majority of people who are still around level 10 are getting their butts kicked because the content is so far above them.
Honestly, this shows there is a certain magic to ignoring some of your customers. Personally, I would've ignored the top 5% of players, and continued to cater to the 80%.
And now with Module 10b coming out, as I pointed out to @asterdahl they've painted themselves into a corner, creating something I've never seen in a MMO before in almost 25 years...the new content is actually going to completely reverse the story progression in the game. You'll be able to assault the frost giant King and retrieve the Ring of Winter BEFORE you get access to FBI to go search for clues about the Ring of Winter. FBI ends with the story pointing to a climatic showdown as you continue your hunt for the Ring of Winter, but the way the progression works, a vast majority of players will have already "won" in the first level of the new trial.
It's sad because it clearly shows how poorly Cryptic plans this out. Even down to a SINGLE module, they couldn't look far enough ahead to make the game progression make sense, even from a story perspective.
FBI should've been a 2700 iLevel dungeon. The new assault trial should've been 2800, and the master level set at 3000. Module 11 and 12 should've been focused around new 5-man dungeon content at 3000 iLevel.
And those 4k iLevel players complaining that the game is too easy? That's a simple fix..take some gear off if you're really hungry for a challenge. Or gear up an alt...there's plenty of solutions out there for that "problem" beyond alienating a majority of players.
Why should i take gear off, that i tried to maximize? Is it not also a goal to get much better gear? With your logic we dont need any gear, we dont need level ups, we event dont need dungeons. Give us some mobs and no gear. So we all got the same challenge and the most boring game in history.
With the "hardest" content prior to FBI being aimed at a 2500 iLevel, it's mind-blowing that people can achieve iLevels in the mid 4000's. But as you can see, you can't just make content aimed at such a small percentage of players because that alienates a vast majority of your audience.
Which also points to one of the lingering and most game-breaking decisions made as we transitioned to Module 6, and that was the linear stat curves. So a player's power roughly increases linearly as they get better geared, versus Module's 1-5, where even people who had gearscores above 20k were so far into diminishing returns that their absolute power was only slightly ahead of other players. Typically, you'd see a player's overall power start to diminish greatly past 15-16k gearscore depending on the class, and potentially hit the point of plateauing near the high teens.
But without those diminishing returns, we've see ludicrous jumps in power between players, so much so that it's obviously impossible for Cryptic to design any sort of content that isn't trivial for high iLevel players without it absolutely crushing that majority of players with anything less than BiS levels of gear.
Sry, but i didnt ask about an underlying problem. I asked specific about a sentence in a post from you. I didnt mean it offense. But i dont like arguments like " if BIS player want challenge, take your hard farmed/grinded gear off". Cryptic did never listen to the BIS players. Remember when the arp pen bug was ingame? If they only fixed that, no one would say any bad words. But they decrease the HPs from Mobs/Bosses. Huge decrease. So they listened to the "Majority" even if the fix for arp pen had solved all problems. Everytime Cryp listened to the "majority" they made this game easier and easier. After that arp pen bug fix this game was almost easy as it was in module 5. So BIS where asking about challenge. What did we get? First we got broken synergies, old broken sets, immortal OPs etc. etc. ( you know this list can be very long ^^). All well known problems. Cryptic is not able to enjoy both "sides" of the players. BIS players need a challenge. FBI with old sets and broken synergies isnt a challenge. Maybe the first 3 -5 trys. But.....the loot is so terrible, that also BIS players thinkin ( incl. me) "its not worth to farm this dungeon". So even if they try to enjoy BIS players, they cant do it cuzz they made such terrible loot, that no one will go in this dungeon. Believe it or not, but i can hardly find some players in my own guilde to run FBI cuzz the bad loot.
So cryptic failed on both sides: Grinding as hell for the majority and no interessting dungeon for BIS players.
But a BIS player got also the right to say "where is the challenge"? We never got one. And cryptic never made a dungeons thats worth calling "endcontent".
Excuse my very bad english. But its not my native language.
Once again: No offense, dear ironzerg. But its unfair to tell some one to take some gear off to get a challenge. Everyone ( also the majority) wants to become better in this game. If the only way to have a challenge is that you have to take your gear off...like i said: Thats not a solution and this is not what anyone wants.
But i guess we are some kind of ot ^^. Sry for that too.
Exactly.
If the game doesn't offer the appropriate content for the strength it does offer, it's not the players problem, it's the games problem. period.
I understand that you will run CN (for example) hundreds of times but decline every single drop to halt your progress, so you wont do that 'mistake' everyone else does!?