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Game Continuity?
mercedesman
Member Posts: 200 Arc User
While trying to find a way to ease the mind numbing pain that this game has evolved to, some discussion was had about the structure of the game and how dysfunctional it has become. I came onto the NW scene late mod 5 and just settled into the game at the birth of mod 6. At that time I was running with a guild that loved to do dungeons and in leveling my toon, I needed the Elven Armor. We would grind eCC to get a chance at the pieces I needed and eventually I got all of them.. but not all through drops, I had seals that I could redeem for pieces that I didn't get as drops.
Fast forward to Underdark and we still had that basic system in play, If you grind eDemo you might get a twisted weapon drop but if you got silver or gold, you got the Twisted and demonic Ichor needed to get the weapons from the vendtor. You see, you had the RNG gods to play with but a back door just in case they didn't favor you. Also from that mod we got the underdark rings. The +5 rings were very illusive (still are) but they were/are BTA so if you got one on your paly that would be best on your GWF.. no problem.
Now fast forward to SKT, now we have a campaign that takes an eternity to unlock the key dungeon and skirmish. The relic armor from FBI drops about as often as snow does in Hawaii and the beauty of it is that after grinding 50+ runs at 40-60 min each you still may not get anything.. and there is no back door to get these items.. no seals to trade, nothing. The legendary rings from mSVA and FBI are BTC not BTA like their underdark cousins.. so you are SOL if you get one your paly that might be best on your GWF.
My point here is that the game structure on loot and how it can be obtained/swapped has changed and for the worse. I have researched to posts for complaints that the +5 underdark rings SHOULD be BTC and NOT BTA and have found none. I can likewise find no praise for the BTC properties of the SKT legendary rings. Why the difference in looting structure? A comment was made in the conversation we were having that new developers came in and that was possibly the reason.. I doubt this, I write software for a living and we have a system that has a set look, feel and operation that my users have come to know. If I changed the way in which a system operated outside of that schema, my users would go ballistic. There was a precedent in which to follow in the way the game transacts with players and loot and they changed it mid stream.
The single item that has stayed constant through all of this is the constant aggravation and complaining of the grind that this game has become. For fun I started a new toon to level through the system. Used to be I looked forward to lvl70, the gateway to awesomeness, now it is the gateway to 4+ hours/day of grinding for boons and unlocking key components of campaigns. I have existing BIS toons that I play so I am covered if I decide not to progess any further with this new one and just play... but what about the new guy, the person that they are just starting their toon and wants to play spellplague or mSVA.. that is months away for them.. even if they dump tons of cash into the game, there are areas that cannot be mitigated with money.
TLDR;
A huge QOL improvement would be to align the means in which items can be obtained and shared, while not an answer to the grind, it might just keep some people from jumping to other things.
Fast forward to Underdark and we still had that basic system in play, If you grind eDemo you might get a twisted weapon drop but if you got silver or gold, you got the Twisted and demonic Ichor needed to get the weapons from the vendtor. You see, you had the RNG gods to play with but a back door just in case they didn't favor you. Also from that mod we got the underdark rings. The +5 rings were very illusive (still are) but they were/are BTA so if you got one on your paly that would be best on your GWF.. no problem.
Now fast forward to SKT, now we have a campaign that takes an eternity to unlock the key dungeon and skirmish. The relic armor from FBI drops about as often as snow does in Hawaii and the beauty of it is that after grinding 50+ runs at 40-60 min each you still may not get anything.. and there is no back door to get these items.. no seals to trade, nothing. The legendary rings from mSVA and FBI are BTC not BTA like their underdark cousins.. so you are SOL if you get one your paly that might be best on your GWF.
My point here is that the game structure on loot and how it can be obtained/swapped has changed and for the worse. I have researched to posts for complaints that the +5 underdark rings SHOULD be BTC and NOT BTA and have found none. I can likewise find no praise for the BTC properties of the SKT legendary rings. Why the difference in looting structure? A comment was made in the conversation we were having that new developers came in and that was possibly the reason.. I doubt this, I write software for a living and we have a system that has a set look, feel and operation that my users have come to know. If I changed the way in which a system operated outside of that schema, my users would go ballistic. There was a precedent in which to follow in the way the game transacts with players and loot and they changed it mid stream.
The single item that has stayed constant through all of this is the constant aggravation and complaining of the grind that this game has become. For fun I started a new toon to level through the system. Used to be I looked forward to lvl70, the gateway to awesomeness, now it is the gateway to 4+ hours/day of grinding for boons and unlocking key components of campaigns. I have existing BIS toons that I play so I am covered if I decide not to progess any further with this new one and just play... but what about the new guy, the person that they are just starting their toon and wants to play spellplague or mSVA.. that is months away for them.. even if they dump tons of cash into the game, there are areas that cannot be mitigated with money.
TLDR;
A huge QOL improvement would be to align the means in which items can be obtained and shared, while not an answer to the grind, it might just keep some people from jumping to other things.
2
Comments
Also, "elusive", not "illusive"... the former means something that is difficult to achieve, the latter means deceptive or illusory!
Sadly, the state of BtC vs BtA really seems to depend on the developers who created the content. Some are very alt-friendly with items, others seem to hate alts!
I'm not sure what your complaint about the new dungeon is, however... do you expect to start a new game and be able to do everything in it right away? Most games require you to have some sort of progression, to unlock some features or areas, it is one way of measuring your progress in the world.
I have been playing Neverwinter for nearly a year now... the levelling from 1-60 is obscenely fast, to the point where you actually outlevel the content and everything becomes trivial. As for level 60-70+ being a grind... it's been that way since I started playing, and everything I've read pretty much indicates this has been true for quite some time.
What was this "gateway to awesomeness" you are talking about where there was no grinding?
With the "new player" experience changed a while back, where you have to complete 3 entire quest-lines before being allowed to socialise with other players, I wonder how the new player retention rates are doing. Otherwise, making the game more alt-friendly would be nice, as would allowing some sort of system to mitigate the severity of the grind... however, unless some more devs come along with different visions for the game, I don't think anything will be changing any time soon!
BtA was a huge improvement I noted upon returning to the game last August, but it has fallen by the wayside to a degree. I can send unneeded SVA marks to my alts, but not the rings or the reclaimed runes. Changing this would be a huge QoL improvement, as would doing the same for Arcanic Focii. Additionally, making the group content unlocks account wide... there is no good reason to time gate this stuff on every character. Time Gates are probably necessary, but only the first time around. Getting BtC rewards on a character or class that doesn't need them is discouraging.
Alt Friendly is good for the longevity of the game.