The devs are constantly bringing out new gear with higher stats, mount bonuses and insignias, mulitple legendary companion bonuses, enchantments now going up to rank 14! etc etc. stat increases from every angle! - then they rebalance by reducing a primary stat source that's been around for years.
How about just not introducing the new stat sources??
Is it because new stuff = more sales? Well that only applies when you have customers to buy them.
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
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
11
bluebubbl3sMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 121Arc User
6 pages of comments, people are angry, and threatening to stop playing. people are even offering helpful suggestions and smarter ways to do this. but are cryptic even going to listen. probably not.
yet for some reason they listen to the "new players" so that they can change the whole refinement process.... so who did they listen to about the bonding stones? who complained about that??
the problem with cryptic, is that they see the 10% of players online with their posts and live streams and think oh no, people can already run the new dungeon in 15 mins. well, let me give you the big tip cryptic... thats only 10% of the player base.
Most of the rest of us plebs struggle with that content, its not easy and we understand and appreciate that its not meant to be. Most of the rest of us NEED the stats that the bondings give us because we arent over powered, and we arent easily cruising through endgame content. Most of us struggle through endgame dungeons and have to be careful about our party make up and play it properly, like it was designed.
So, just going to throw this out there... who cares if there are op players out there? who cares if they can already sail through the new dungeon? they arent representative of the bulk of the player base and when they get bored thats their problem. why does it have to be the problem of the rest of us? i feel like this is a knee jerk reaction and thats just not good business, and you are ruining the game as a result.
Some of us are guild leaders, who feel responsible to guide and try to help our players through content. do you even consider or care about about the strain that nerfing things like refinement and bonding stones puts on the players who try to help others? How the heck am i meant to get my guildies through dungeons to help them get the gear that is meant to make their toons better?
Cryptic, you are paying attention to the wrong people, and punishing everyone else for it.
I am seriously wondering what will happen to DCs and Tanks ..
The DCs, well...
DO DCs will not be too badly affected. Yes, I do like having my bondings in solo play, but they are not critical. I would proably rearrange some enchants and so on, but meh...no big deal. In group play, the bondings are not really that relevant - my most useful powers (like Terrifying Insight) are mostly buffs/debuffs that are somewhat independent of stats.
The AC DC - now, that's the big loser around here. A typical AC DC build is focused on power, power and more power - all for the purposes of power sharing - boosting the Power of the party members to 200K or so.
With the proposed change to the Bonding runestones that is just not going to happen.
Also, with players shifting from debuff companions like Sellsword, Rebel mercenary, Con artist or Harper bard to the Bulette pup, there will obviously be less debuffing.
The bottom line will be that the hardest content will simply become much, much harder.
If 50% up-time on companion's gift is such a good idea, why not put 50% up-time on augment companions too? Spread the joy! Two years ago, 50% up-time would be acceptable because many people did not have bonding stones. But now, it's too late. Too many players have designed (expensively) their characters based on 100% up-time. Killing bonding stones will upset too many players, especially players with multiple characters. I am not switching all my characters (back) to augment companions. And I refuse to play only one character. 50% uptime on companion's gift is the end for me, and I am sure, for many other players too.
5
adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
One thing I can say for sure - I hope the changes will be reconsidered - they just go too far. If they actually get implemented, they will probably drive a number of players away.
At any rate, the future looks uncertain right now. I am not leaving, or threatening to leave ... but I am most certainly not going to spend a dime on more Zen, until the dust settles and I see whether the game is viable or if the changes have managed to kill it.
Devs stating that Bondings will still be the 'go to' runestone, this is such an ill considered statement.
Bondings aren't just used to boost offensive capability, (as mentioned by others) they are used to balance stats that require 100% uptime, such as armor pen, defence & lifesteal.
The 50% downtime will mean dangerous fluctuations and many players will need to switch to augments just for the reliability.
The net result of this will most likely be all players (those that remain) running augments with Power or Crit runestones stacked with armor pen gear.
So RI will balance, crit chance will drop by ~25% and power will remain the same (with 3x r14 empowered) or crit chance will drop by ~10% and power will drop by 6k (with 3x r14 Profane)
This is excluding the powersharing from DC and OP which in dungeon groups could translate into a power loss of up to an extra 90k.
Just going with 3xr14 Bondings (and gaining RI elsewhere) would result in an offensive stat loss of roughly the same, bearing in mind that offence bondings will have half the power of Empowered, multiplied by 1.45 then halved for 50% uptime.
So 3xbonding = 2.28k power over 30 secs whereas 3xempowered = 6k power with 100% uptime. Adding the extra 22.5% stat boost from gear (45% divided by 2 to average out) means using bondings should equal a significant stat loss compared to augments.
no they'll be running the bulette preferentially with the 3 eldrich for 175 percent or running a 2 defense for eldrich and one offense (just because that's going to be more widely available and affordable than the bulette)
6 pages of comments, people are angry, and threatening to stop playing. people are even offering helpful suggestions and smarter ways to do this. but are cryptic even going to listen. probably not.
yet for some reason they listen to the "new players" so that they can change the whole refinement process.... so who did they listen to about the bonding stones? who complained about that??
the problem with cryptic, is that they see the 10% of players online with their posts and live streams and think oh no, people can already run the new dungeon in 15 mins. well, let me give you the big tip cryptic... thats only 10% of the player base.
Most of the rest of us plebs struggle with that content, its not easy and we understand and appreciate that its not meant to be. Most of the rest of us NEED the stats that the bondings give us because we arent over powered, and we arent easily cruising through endgame content. Most of us struggle through endgame dungeons and have to be careful about our party make up and play it properly, like it was designed.
So, just going to throw this out there... who cares if there are op players out there? who cares if they can already sail through the new dungeon? they arent representative of the bulk of the player base and when they get bored thats their problem. why does it have to be the problem of the rest of us? i feel like this is a knee jerk reaction and thats just not good business, and you are ruining the game as a result.
Some of us are guild leaders, who feel responsible to guide and try to help our players through content. do you even consider or care about about the strain that nerfing things like refinement and bonding stones puts on the players who try to help others? How the heck am i meant to get my guildies through dungeons to help them get the gear that is meant to make their toons better?
Cryptic, you are paying attention to the wrong people, and punishing everyone else for it.
6 pages of comments, people are angry, and threatening to stop playing. people are even offering helpful suggestions and smarter ways to do this. but are cryptic even going to listen. probably not.
yet for some reason they listen to the "new players" so that they can change the whole refinement process.... so who did they listen to about the bonding stones? who complained about that??
the problem with cryptic, is that they see the 10% of players online with their posts and live streams and think oh no, people can already run the new dungeon in 15 mins. well, let me give you the big tip cryptic... thats only 10% of the player base.
Most of the rest of us plebs struggle with that content, its not easy and we understand and appreciate that its not meant to be. Most of the rest of us NEED the stats that the bondings give us because we arent over powered, and we arent easily cruising through endgame content. Most of us struggle through endgame dungeons and have to be careful about our party make up and play it properly, like it was designed.
So, just going to throw this out there... who cares if there are op players out there? who cares if they can already sail through the new dungeon? they arent representative of the bulk of the player base and when they get bored thats their problem. why does it have to be the problem of the rest of us? i feel like this is a knee jerk reaction and thats just not good business, and you are ruining the game as a result.
Some of us are guild leaders, who feel responsible to guide and try to help our players through content. do you even consider or care about about the strain that nerfing things like refinement and bonding stones puts on the players who try to help others? How the heck am i meant to get my guildies through dungeons to help them get the gear that is meant to make their toons better?
Cryptic, you are paying attention to the wrong people, and punishing everyone else for it.
+ 1
We are not all BiS .
90 % of the community is not BIS. And probably will never be.
The changes killed alts. I finally started concentrating on my second toon and now I will have no time. The grind I need to go through to get my main back on track will take forever.
Not to mention the end-game dungeons will not only need a specific, but a perfect setup to finish it.
I was SOOOO excited for this 2x refinement. like xmas it was gonna be. I was gonna get my toon tomb ready even if I had to break out the checkbook. on the radar was four mythic artis, getting all of my enchantments to r10 at least and my azures to 11. was gonna go for r12 bondings from r10. was gonna sell my black ice war horse come hell or high water to get that 6million dollar T dread... now meh. i'll do some enchantments. see how far I can easily get on my artis. bondings... i dunno. cheap enuff to get to 11.. i might.. but certainly not 12. i honestly don't know if I'll ever be geared enough to do Tomb now.
normally I get on nw for an hour before bed and do a few quests. my heart isn't in it anymore. I'm bummed. I fell out of love tonight. Can I continue with the motions? time will tell.
am I being overly dramatic? failed love affairs bring that out...
destiny sure does have a handsome cover...
So was I, I was planning to upgrade my HR but now I won't I was so hyped to do stuff today but all my hype died down.
I was SOOOO excited for this 2x refinement. like xmas it was gonna be. I was gonna get my toon tomb ready even if I had to break out the checkbook. on the radar was four mythic artis, getting all of my enchantments to r10 at least and my azures to 11. was gonna go for r12 bondings from r10. was gonna sell my black ice war horse come hell or high water to get that 6million dollar T dread... now meh. i'll do some enchantments. see how far I can easily get on my artis. bondings... i dunno. cheap enuff to get to 11.. i might.. but certainly not 12. i honestly don't know if I'll ever be geared enough to do Tomb now.
normally I get on nw for an hour before bed and do a few quests. my heart isn't in it anymore. I'm bummed. I fell out of love tonight. Can I continue with the motions? time will tell.
am I being overly dramatic? failed love affairs bring that out...
destiny sure does have a handsome cover...
So was I, I was planning to upgrade my HR but now I won't I was so hyped to do stuff today but all my hype died down.
I played my DC for three weeks straight (everday) to get him to unlock most of the campaigns. Bought him a SKT unlock also. Started playing the game again. But with this it's just bad. So bad. I have no idea how this will impact my game time.
Devs i don't understand your logic, nearly 8 months of grinding to bring alt toons up to scratch with companions and bonding stones , and instead of making the other options like Augments and Runestones more attractive to your players you just tamper with something we have all worked so hard to achieve . RETHINK your strategy
There are only 2 relevant concerns with this. 1) Existing content is balanced around current r12 bondings.. 2) people invested into BiS items -> refund of investment
1) I don't believe content is balanced around BiS party. Yes, it might be harder to complete end game dungeons, but I don't see that as a problem (loot is a problem). There will still be enough power level to complete these dungeons no matter what. All dungeons can be completed by sub-optimal parties with waaaay sub-optimal stats. It's like you can beat mspc, tomb only in a BiS meta party. Loot is a problem though. If dungeons will take longer, we should get more out of them.
You just need to craft new builds, or balance your gear out to get the stats you need, and keep stats like power for the companion. Yes, we all be weaker, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
2) They should do some kind of a refund for bondings. Th nerf is massive, and people deserve some of their in game currency back, so that they can speed up the change if they want different items.
Less than 1 % of the player base will now be able to play tomb of the nine gods ... this is bad it will widen the gap between bis and medium level players. and medium players will get agrevated because they are un able to progress due to inability to do t09g
I don't know where this 1% stat is coming from. And I also don't understand how players who don't run tomb are held in progress. It's not like the gear or anything in to9g is essential to anything. If to9g is the most difficult dungeon in the game, I have no problem for it being exclusive. for time. It's not like everyone in GW2 is running fractal 100, and it's not like everyone in WoW is raiding everything.
As I said, I see a problem there, and it's the loot. Now, more than ever, we need more loot in chests.
The 1% is ment to indicate the very few that are BIS and if you NEVER get to run t09g you will never get 500IL gear and thus stall on your progress. It will not be exclusive for a time being it will be for months if not a year to about 1% of he population making mod 12 just as big a bust as mod 11
There are more than BIS players in this game RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ???? FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
The only issue I see here is the uptime of the bonding. They nerf the percentage they provide but give use R14 enchantments - sob basically no nerf there. Leave the uptime of the bondings at 100% - but nerf them to 60-85% fine. This will provide more options with augment and eldritch stones and still keep bonding viable.
An augment with 3 R14 profanes runestones will for example provide 6000 crit = 15% plus the augment crit and equipment. I would just loose some power.
For everybody else complanining and threatening to leave - changes are not even on preview yet, beginning of the year they made last minute changes to weapon enchantments, in May they made last minute changes to Mysterious Merchant vendor equipment - you can cry about leaving when it gets live like that. Maybe first tests on preview with new R14 enchantments show that the change is manageble (thx in advance to the guys testing that).
So lets see, the last time after testing on preview they were adjustments after two weeks on preview and then again when it went live, no reason to overreact right now.
PzkwVI_Kingtiger - GWF
PMS-Extreme - Moffus Debuffos
Tiamat's Toyboy - OP
Rent-A-DC - 1 GMOP per 30 minutes
Officer at Civil Anarchy, Member of Fabled Alliance
Everybody talking about "eldritch is the new meta". Did you guys see that Empowered Rank 14 gives 32000 hit points?
Do you prefer a Bulette Pup with 3xEldritch for 176,5% of its stats?
Or do you prefer a Bulette Pup with 3xEmpowered for 100% of its stats plus 96000 HP? That's an huge bonus to Aura of Courage damage plus the fact that Tenebrous Enchant does not have internal cooldown anymore.
I'm really not so sure about Eldritch being the best here... If i am right then everybody will desesperately want Tenebrous Enchant and a Paladin on their party lol
Pally the new AC DC.
1
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
Issue 1. Most players get thier ARP from bondings.. you increased arp needs, dramatically.. well that is a damn issue, unless you swap to augments. You can play around with characer gear.. but its not quite that easy to get 85% .
Issue 2. Advancing ranks.. gawd.. greedy much ? we all know why you do that.. for money.. what a pain the HAMSTER.. at the same time , ive never gotten less cwards from my coffers.. never.. not in year 1, 2 or 3.. all of a sudden going through several hundred coffers.. = zero lately.
Issue 3. You sold these damn things and now you are just shifting them about.
Issue 4. Dailes would become so effing boring, especially in the new zones.. increasing all dailies like 30% of time.. omg soo boring, which I cheated with the pet comp now.
What I hate the most is issue 1.. the uptime/swing is ridiculous. While I would say ok with a slight tone down of stats, what you are proposing is beyond a slight nerf.
Frankly I dont think I have the time or energy to put into re working all of my toons yet again.. i did that for mod 6 and the bonding changes.. this would be near the same level of energy put in.
Sadly a variation of these changes will go through.. not much we can do about it.. they dont care, they will earn more money from these changes.. so past money doesnt really matter. Just wish they could figure out better ways to make money thats all.
5
treesclimberMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,161Arc User
edited August 2017
For everyone crying about bondings, look at the new r14 enchantments and think that right now on live you can get almost 40k stats from bondings, totally not powerful *facepalm*(sarcasm)
@noworries#8859 If bondings are getting a change then i think it should be totally for the better. By saying this i mean all companions being in a equivalent when it comes to speed of activating these stones and also a way to make them functional on augments. I don't believe cryptic will lose money making all companions good gift givers, true there are people that will like some cheaper companions, but there is a chance they'll want to upgrade them to legendary and there are also people that may want to wave their super expensive companions around.
2
jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
My main concern right now is at what point or what criteria in an internal discussion at Cryptic provoke a COMMIT response.
These changes are going to happen, whenever Cryptic commit, they commit, they might placate our concerns with some tweaks but if they have underestimated player thinking that 3xEldritch looks like it is going to be more effective (more effective, not necessarily BiS) than any other meta, then anything they do to mitigate damage done to Bondings before this goes live is only going to hurt us down the line.
My main concern right now is at what point or what criteria in an internal discussion at Cryptic provoke a COMMIT response.
These changes are going to happen, whenever Cryptic commit, they commit, they might placate our concerns with some tweaks but if they have underestimated player thinking that 3xEldritch looks like it is going to be more effective (more effective, not necessarily BiS) than any other meta, then anything they do to mitigate damage done to Bondings before this goes live is only going to hurt us down the line.
sigh true dat. I wish they'd come here BEFORE they get this committed. but really, are some things so hard to tell that if they do it it's going to cause a mass exodus? sigh. It would be nice if they'd learn from past mistakes.
I never post, although this change forced me to share my two cents.
The NW community of players continually sees nerfs to gear, skills, companions, etc. We all question on if are classes our next? And we all say the same thing, why nerf us when they can just increase the strength of the dungeon.
I understand you want balance, but we are exhausted of readjusting...we want consistency, balance on our end. We grind to build our characters only for a future nerf?
The question we have for you, is why can't you create a tiered based dungeon system. Normal, Epic, Legendary....and with each level the dungeons become insanely difficult and the gear obtainable becomes better to allow for progression to the next level(each completion gives a token we can eventually use to obtain the gear we need to better our characters). It is a better solution then nerfing the community.
Top-tiered players already grind for hours to see very little rewards, this change drastically increases that time. Low to middle-end players, are already faced with drastically long dungeon times, for rewards that are all to frequently not pulled from the chest.
So my question is: Will there be new gear to make up the difference in the length of time it will take to complete current dungeons? Are you adding more dungeons to run which will drop items that we will happily spend twice as long to grind for?
What will happen to low end players that won't even attempt higher end dungeons now due to the difficulty? How will these players advance?
Will the elite continue to grind dungeons, based off of loot vs time? What progression do the players of neverwinter now have? Epic Spiders compared to FangBreaker Island?
What do we want??
Dailies or Dungeons? Dungeons!!! But where is the progression? Where are the dungeons?
Campaigns and boons or Dragons and Guild events? Dragons and Guild events!!! But where are the Dragons? Where are the amazing guild events to do with our friends?
We want mobs of monsters! We want dungeons that last 3 hours, but each mob has a chance to drop loot that will make our characters better to advance to the next challenge. We don't need to speed run dungeons and events, but we want to see items that will help us advance our characters!!!
It is like all the other nerfs and stuff before ...
Why do i even get surprised any more.
I wonder if we will get any reply . And if there is going to be one i already know what it is going to be .
" We are looking into your concerns "
Then that will last for a few weeks. People will rage in here, post on the forum, until the silence before the storm.
And the solution is going to be :
" We decided our approach is right for the current model of the game. You may not see it but we are improving over all experience of the game and adding more fun into the mix, it is good for you ! "
Bam, the change will go as written in here.
Just like with AA , bubble , key change, coalwards and all other beautiful changes that so helped with our experience of the game. I sell that kind of speeches to my customers all the time.
But usually the truth is , it is already a done deal.
8
treesclimberMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,161Arc User
edited August 2017
FFS stop crying, with the new enchantments you'll barely feel the difference, in fact if the bondings are up 50% of the time and those 50% are in the beggining, most fights bondings wont even go down, which makes them even more powerful then now, and even more speed runs will appear =S. My opinion is, don't make them 50% chance, 100% is good, lower companion gift is good as well, but make something like "When you or your companion use a power" instead of being only 1 sided.
FFS stop crying, with the new enchantments you'll barely feel the difference, in fact if the bondings are up 50% of the time and those 50% are in the beggining, most fights bondings wont even go down, which makes them even more powerful then now, and even more speed runs will appear =S. My opinion is, don't make them 50% chance, 100% is good, lower companion gift is good as well, but make something like "When you or your companion use a power" instead of being only 1 sided.
meanie....
let people cry a bit, it is good for their soul and overall health of their body. They need to get it out. Better this then keeping it in.
:P
0
jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
It is like all the other nerfs and stuff before ...
Why do i even get surprised any more.
I wonder if we will get any reply . And if there is going to be one i already know what it is going to be .
" We are looking into your concerns "
Then that will last for a few weeks. People will rage in here, post on the forum, until the silence before the storm.
And the solution is going to be :
" We decided our approach is right for the current model of the game. You may not see it but we are improving over all experience of the game and adding more fun into the mix, it is good for you ! "
Bam, the change will go as written in here.
Just like with AA , bubble , key change, coalwards and all other beautiful changes that so helped with our experience of the game. I sell that kind of speeches to my customers all the time.
But usually the truth is , it is already a done deal.
I agreed with your post but I couldn't bring myself to like it, mostly because we know it's happened before and that it'll happen again.
I do also disagree that they won't listen, I think those who are going to have the most impact with this change rollout will be very interested in this thread. How they address our concerns is another matter.
I also do think that some of the changes they introduced, like the mount system, the revamped journal to name but a couple of some very good changes have had little to no input from us from the beginning. They are very good at coming up with improvements that we all enjoy immensely.
I agreed with your post but I couldn't bring myself to like it, mostly because we know it's happened before and that it'll happen again.
I do also disagree that they won't listen, I think those who are going to have the most impact with this change rollout will be very interested in this thread. How they address our concerns is another matter.
I also do think that some of the changes they introduced, like the mount system, the revamped journal to name but a couple of some very good changes have had little to no input from us from the beginning. They are very good at coming up with improvements that we all enjoy immensely.
That is true as well.
But that can be fixed , you know.
Here let me start :
DEVS i am grateful for the companion changes. The legendary changes, mount changes, i love the new fashion too. Mounts are amazing and my whole guild enjoys them to the fullest. The Chult zone is the most beautiful zone i have seen. The new dungeon is not just beautiful it is overwhelming in its complexity and extremely fun to play. Even if you can not finish it. It is a great place and i love it.
We love your work. We just really do not wish to lose the bondings as they are.
It is like all the other nerfs and stuff before ...
Why do i even get surprised any more.
I wonder if we will get any reply . And if there is going to be one i already know what it is going to be .
" We are looking into your concerns "
Then that will last for a few weeks. People will rage in here, post on the forum, until the silence before the storm.
And the solution is going to be :
" We decided our approach is right for the current model of the game. You may not see it but we are improving over all experience of the game and adding more fun into the mix, it is good for you ! "
Bam, the change will go as written in here.
Just like with AA , bubble , key change, coalwards and all other beautiful changes that so helped with our experience of the game. I sell that kind of speeches to my customers all the time.
But usually the truth is , it is already a done deal.
Maybe there is some hope. The main concern is the uptime of the bondings. When Cryptic did the changes to the weapon enchants, there were some last minute adjustments: hopefully they will go backwards on the decrease of the uptime. Our voice can count if we all shout together.
If your mobs are getting killed too fast, there's a simple solution: Boost the mobs.
If your Bonding stones are outperforming your Eldritch runestones, and you don't like that, for some reason (despite it opening far more pets than having everyone rely on Augments does), then boost the Eldritch stones. No need to nerf the Bonding Stones.
Bondings far outperform everything else (I have them, I know first-hand). The design choices are to adjust bondings or to adjust everything else in the game.
Power is relative. Increasing mob defense and eldritch performance is the same thing as decreasing bonding performance.
Bringing bonding into the same general realm as other options increases player choice and can only benefit the game.
it's like a young DM playing D&D for the first time, who magics away the Paladin's +5 Holy Avenger out of jealously, because he thinks its his job to "beat" the player, rather than make sure everyone has a good time.
A good DM doesn't hand out a +5 Holy Avenger in the first place if the rest of the party has +1 Daggers, yet that's what happened when bondings went from being a trade-off to being the best choice under all circumstances. In a pen & paper game, it's easy enough for a DM to recover by letting the other party members find nice weapons of their own and toughening up the opposition. In a MMO, it's far more work and risk to rebalance everything around that one +5 Holy Avenger.
You're kidding right? Cryptic gave these out. When told there was no cooldown it was said to be WAI. Now it's not. And you say HAMSTER like "In a MMO, it's far more work and risk to rebalance everything around that one +5 Holy Avenger." Well guess what buddy? Cryptic has to do all of that anyway. Know why? Because everything endgame, literally every HAMSTER thing, was balanced not around an average team but a team all running 3xR12 bondings. So where's the rebalance for the massive nerf?
You say this introduces choices. I don't see that. You get the choice of a companion with bonding giving significantly less stats for what we already built, with less uptime, with the downsides of getting lost, randomly aggroing things, getting knocked off but oh maybe they have a debuff and maybe if supports time it well you get powersharing too.
Or you get an augment with 2 or 3 defense slots, and get constant stats, sure a bit less peak and no massive power sharing loop, but no random losing the stats, missing companions, aggroing HAMSTER or debuffs.
Why are they doing this vs buffing augments, why this vs making bonding less special and giving all runes the same effect as bonding but lowering the percentage overall as a total. Or hell, even make it the same but change the stat curve so it's 95% at 14. Or leave it 95% at 12, 13 and 14.
The point is, this is half assed and you know it. Without a full revamp and rebalance all this does is screw us and take our hard earned progress away. My fiancee and I have spent a few hundred on a game we enjoyed but if this goes through as is without a rebalance to content Cryptic can forget that. I won't be spending another dime. In fact I can't say for sure I'd even stick around if it goes through as is without a rebalance.
I feel the same. Instead of actually making the game better they're looking for a way to line their pockets. I bet they're really happy that this is literally going to take millions upon millions of AD per player to get back to where we are right now...
They're trying to serve us HAMSTER and HAMSTER while cooking us in an oven and say it's lemonade and chocolate ice cream on a hot day.
the thing is in order to see all that money they need a player base. if you HAMSTER off your constituents all of a sudden you have a lessened income stream. the problem is the player base is already pretty small. splintering it more means it's more likely to lose even more players who were gonna be ok with the changes because now they don' t have anyone to play with.
the thing this company just doesn't seem to get is if you want people to buy from you you need to give them what they want. If you do not give them what they want. they'll go away. it's like if you go to a restaurant and order steak tartare but they bring you a pbj on whole wheat. you might be a little irked. it might be more on point to say we ordered a giant banana split with all the options. they bring it out and let you start eating it. then come back and say wait. chocolate sauce wasn't included and they scrape it off. you're like, wait... what?? and then they are like oh strawberries didn't see that.. give em back... and NUTS uh huh. (BERTIE GET THE SPOON) and then they charge you double. So you leave and go to a different restaurant that gives you what you want. you then pay restaurant that actually gives you what you order their moneys and leave a big tip.
it's just good business.
it's not hard. figure out what your player base actually wants and then sell it to em. there are so many ways to make money off us. gross manipulation fails most of the time with crowds like this. we're not (for the most part) stupid. what's puzzling is why you'd want to? (screw us over that is instead of being positive in advancement) Why would they even ever consider nerfing bondings or gh boons? it's pretty obvious that is taking advantage of the proverbial dropping of the soap.. Why would you not consider other options. I mean, even just raising everything to r14 and leaving bondings alone. they'd get the money still.people would complain a little but almost no one would leave. bondings too much. just let them not progress to 14. make runestones more lucrative.. but don't nerf what we've already bought.. that's just common sense.
it's just some kind of massive "let them eat cake" disconnect.
It is like all the other nerfs and stuff before ...
Why do i even get surprised any more.
I wonder if we will get any reply . And if there is going to be one i already know what it is going to be .
" We are looking into your concerns "
Then that will last for a few weeks. People will rage in here, post on the forum, until the silence before the storm.
And the solution is going to be :
" We decided our approach is right for the current model of the game. You may not see it but we are improving over all experience of the game and adding more fun into the mix, it is good for you ! "
Bam, the change will go as written in here.
Just like with AA , bubble , key change, coalwards and all other beautiful changes that so helped with our experience of the game. I sell that kind of speeches to my customers all the time.
But usually the truth is , it is already a done deal.
I agreed with your post but I couldn't bring myself to like it, mostly because we know it's happened before and that it'll happen again.
I do also disagree that they won't listen, I think those who are going to have the most impact with this change rollout will be very interested in this thread. How they address our concerns is another matter.
I also do think that some of the changes they introduced, like the mount system, the revamped journal to name but a couple of some very good changes have had little to no input from us from the beginning. They are very good at coming up with improvements that we all enjoy immensely.
they'll listen but they won't actually do anything to change anything other than extreme superficial items.
coal wards.. we all got some free coal wards then things went forward as planned. keys change they changed the drop rate for like a week adn then it silently reverted back.
being thrown a itsy bitsy tiny bone isn't really enough though.
the problem is it isn't the devs making these decisions. it's coming from much higher up the food chain. from people who have already sold it to the ceo or whatever as the next big money maker since sliced bread. they're in a corner.
Comments
How about just not introducing the new stat sources??
Is it because new stuff = more sales? Well that only applies when you have customers to buy them.
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
yet for some reason they listen to the "new players" so that they can change the whole refinement process.... so who did they listen to about the bonding stones? who complained about that??
the problem with cryptic, is that they see the 10% of players online with their posts and live streams and think oh no, people can already run the new dungeon in 15 mins. well, let me give you the big tip cryptic... thats only 10% of the player base.
Most of the rest of us plebs struggle with that content, its not easy and we understand and appreciate that its not meant to be. Most of the rest of us NEED the stats that the bondings give us because we arent over powered, and we arent easily cruising through endgame content. Most of us struggle through endgame dungeons and have to be careful about our party make up and play it properly, like it was designed.
So, just going to throw this out there... who cares if there are op players out there? who cares if they can already sail through the new dungeon? they arent representative of the bulk of the player base and when they get bored thats their problem. why does it have to be the problem of the rest of us? i feel like this is a knee jerk reaction and thats just not good business, and you are ruining the game as a result.
Some of us are guild leaders, who feel responsible to guide and try to help our players through content. do you even consider or care about about the strain that nerfing things like refinement and bonding stones puts on the players who try to help others? How the heck am i meant to get my guildies through dungeons to help them get the gear that is meant to make their toons better?
Cryptic, you are paying attention to the wrong people, and punishing everyone else for it.
Guild Leader - Valaurakari Ascension
VA is the creator and proud member of The Round Table Alliance
DO DCs will not be too badly affected. Yes, I do like having my bondings in solo play, but they are not critical. I would proably rearrange some enchants and so on, but meh...no big deal. In group play, the bondings are not really that relevant - my most useful powers (like Terrifying Insight) are mostly buffs/debuffs that are somewhat independent of stats.
The AC DC - now, that's the big loser around here. A typical AC DC build is focused on power, power and more power - all for the purposes of power sharing - boosting the Power of the party members to 200K or so.
With the proposed change to the Bonding runestones that is just not going to happen.
Also, with players shifting from debuff companions like Sellsword, Rebel mercenary, Con artist or Harper bard to the Bulette pup, there will obviously be less debuffing.
The bottom line will be that the hardest content will simply become much, much harder.
One of the best posts ever!!! You nailed it. Thumb up!
Spread the joy!
Two years ago, 50% up-time would be acceptable because many people did not have bonding stones.
But now, it's too late. Too many players have designed (expensively) their characters based on 100% up-time.
Killing bonding stones will upset too many players, especially players with multiple characters.
I am not switching all my characters (back) to augment companions. And I refuse to play only one character.
50% uptime on companion's gift is the end for me, and I am sure, for many other players too.
At any rate, the future looks uncertain right now. I am not leaving, or threatening to leave ... but I am most certainly not going to spend a dime on more Zen, until the dust settles and I see whether the game is viable or if the changes have managed to kill it.
(just because that's going to be more widely available and affordable than the bulette)
We are not all BiS .
90 % of the community is not BIS.
And probably will never be.
The grind I need to go through to get my main back on track will take forever.
Not to mention the end-game dungeons will not only need a specific, but a perfect setup to finish it.
I have no idea how this will impact my game time.
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
An augment with 3 R14 profanes runestones will for example provide 6000 crit = 15% plus the augment crit and equipment. I would just loose some power.
For everybody else complanining and threatening to leave - changes are not even on preview yet, beginning of the year they made last minute changes to weapon enchantments, in May they made last minute changes to Mysterious Merchant vendor equipment - you can cry about leaving when it gets live like that. Maybe first tests on preview with new R14 enchantments show that the change is manageble (thx in advance to the guys testing that).
So lets see, the last time after testing on preview they were adjustments after two weeks on preview and then again when it went live, no reason to overreact right now.
Do you prefer a Bulette Pup with 3xEldritch for 176,5% of its stats?
Or do you prefer a Bulette Pup with 3xEmpowered for 100% of its stats plus 96000 HP? That's an huge bonus to Aura of Courage damage plus the fact that Tenebrous Enchant does not have internal cooldown anymore.
I'm really not so sure about Eldritch being the best here... If i am right then everybody will desesperately want Tenebrous Enchant and a Paladin on their party lol
Pally the new AC DC.
Issue 2. Advancing ranks.. gawd.. greedy much ? we all know why you do that.. for money.. what a pain the HAMSTER.. at the same time , ive never gotten less cwards from my coffers.. never.. not in year 1, 2 or 3.. all of a sudden going through several hundred coffers.. = zero lately.
Issue 3. You sold these damn things and now you are just shifting them about.
Issue 4. Dailes would become so effing boring, especially in the new zones.. increasing all dailies like 30% of time.. omg soo boring, which I cheated with the pet comp now.
What I hate the most is issue 1.. the uptime/swing is ridiculous. While I would say ok with a slight tone down of stats, what you are proposing is beyond a slight nerf.
Frankly I dont think I have the time or energy to put into re working all of my toons yet again.. i did that for mod 6 and the bonding changes.. this would be near the same level of energy put in.
Sadly a variation of these changes will go through.. not much we can do about it.. they dont care, they will earn more money from these changes.. so past money doesnt really matter. Just wish they could figure out better ways to make money thats all.
@noworries#8859
If bondings are getting a change then i think it should be totally for the better. By saying this i mean all companions being in a equivalent when it comes to speed of activating these stones and also a way to make them functional on augments. I don't believe cryptic will lose money making all companions good gift givers, true there are people that will like some cheaper companions, but there is a chance they'll want to upgrade them to legendary and there are also people that may want to wave their super expensive companions around.
These changes are going to happen, whenever Cryptic commit, they commit, they might placate our concerns with some tweaks but if they have underestimated player thinking that 3xEldritch looks like it is going to be more effective (more effective, not necessarily BiS) than any other meta, then anything they do to mitigate damage done to Bondings before this goes live is only going to hurt us down the line.
sigh true dat. I wish they'd come here BEFORE they get this committed. but really, are some things so hard to tell that if they do it it's going to cause a mass exodus? sigh. It would be nice if they'd learn from past mistakes.
The NW community of players continually sees nerfs to gear, skills, companions, etc. We all question on if are classes our next? And we all say the same thing, why nerf us when they can just increase the strength of the dungeon.
I understand you want balance, but we are exhausted of readjusting...we want consistency, balance on our end. We grind to build our characters only for a future nerf?
The question we have for you, is why can't you create a tiered based dungeon system. Normal, Epic, Legendary....and with each level the dungeons become insanely difficult and the gear obtainable becomes better to allow for progression to the next level(each completion gives a token we can eventually use to obtain the gear we need to better our characters). It is a better solution then nerfing the community.
Top-tiered players already grind for hours to see very little rewards, this change drastically increases that time. Low to middle-end players, are already faced with drastically long dungeon times, for rewards that are all to frequently not pulled from the chest.
So my question is: Will there be new gear to make up the difference in the length of time it will take to complete current dungeons? Are you adding more dungeons to run which will drop items that we will happily spend twice as long to grind for?
What will happen to low end players that won't even attempt higher end dungeons now due to the difficulty? How will these players advance?
Will the elite continue to grind dungeons, based off of loot vs time? What progression do the players of neverwinter now have? Epic Spiders compared to FangBreaker Island?
What do we want??
Dailies or Dungeons?
Dungeons!!! But where is the progression? Where are the dungeons?
Campaigns and boons or Dragons and Guild events?
Dragons and Guild events!!! But where are the Dragons? Where are the amazing guild events to do with our friends?
We want mobs of monsters! We want dungeons that last 3 hours, but each mob has a chance to drop loot that will make our characters better to advance to the next challenge. We don't need to speed run dungeons and events, but we want to see items that will help us advance our characters!!!
Why do i even get surprised any more.
I wonder if we will get any reply .
And if there is going to be one i already know what it is going to be .
" We are looking into your concerns "
Then that will last for a few weeks. People will rage in here, post on the forum, until the silence before the storm.
And the solution is going to be :
" We decided our approach is right for the current model of the game. You may not see it but we are improving over all experience of the game and adding more fun into the mix, it is good for you ! "
Bam, the change will go as written in here.
Just like with AA , bubble , key change, coalwards and all other beautiful changes that so helped with our experience of the game.
I sell that kind of speeches to my customers all the time.
But usually the truth is , it is already a done deal.
let people cry a bit, it is good for their soul and overall health of their body.
They need to get it out. Better this then keeping it in.
:P
I do also disagree that they won't listen, I think those who are going to have the most impact with this change rollout will be very interested in this thread. How they address our concerns is another matter.
I also do think that some of the changes they introduced, like the mount system, the revamped journal to name but a couple of some very good changes have had little to no input from us from the beginning. They are very good at coming up with improvements that we all enjoy immensely.
But that can be fixed , you know.
Here let me start :
DEVS i am grateful for the companion changes. The legendary changes, mount changes, i love the new fashion too.
Mounts are amazing and my whole guild enjoys them to the fullest.
The Chult zone is the most beautiful zone i have seen.
The new dungeon is not just beautiful it is overwhelming in its complexity and extremely fun to play. Even if you can not finish it. It is a great place and i love it.
We love your work.
We just really do not wish to lose the bondings as they are.
Better ?
The main concern is the uptime of the bondings.
When Cryptic did the changes to the weapon enchants, there were some last minute adjustments: hopefully they will go backwards on the decrease of the uptime.
Our voice can count if we all shout together.
the thing this company just doesn't seem to get is if you want people to buy from you you need to give them what they want. If you do not give them what they want. they'll go away. it's like if you go to a restaurant and order steak tartare but they bring you a pbj on whole wheat. you might be a little irked. it might be more on point to say we ordered a giant banana split with all the options. they bring it out and let you start eating it. then come back and say wait. chocolate sauce wasn't included and they scrape it off. you're like, wait... what?? and then they are like oh strawberries didn't see that.. give em back... and NUTS uh huh. (BERTIE GET THE SPOON) and then they charge you double.
So you leave and go to a different restaurant that gives you what you want. you then pay restaurant that actually gives you what you order their moneys and leave a big tip.
it's just good business.
it's not hard. figure out what your player base actually wants and then sell it to em. there are so many ways to make money off us. gross manipulation fails most of the time with crowds like this. we're not (for the most part) stupid. what's puzzling is why you'd want to? (screw us over that is instead of being positive in advancement) Why would they even ever consider nerfing bondings or gh boons? it's pretty obvious that is taking advantage of the proverbial dropping of the soap.. Why would you not consider other options. I mean, even just raising everything to r14 and leaving bondings alone. they'd get the money still.people would complain a little but almost no one would leave. bondings too much. just let them not progress to 14. make runestones more lucrative.. but don't nerf what we've already bought.. that's just common sense.
it's just some kind of massive "let them eat cake" disconnect.
they'll listen but they won't actually do anything to change anything other than extreme superficial items.
coal wards.. we all got some free coal wards then things went forward as planned.
keys change they changed the drop rate for like a week adn then it silently reverted back.
being thrown a itsy bitsy tiny bone isn't really enough though.
the problem is it isn't the devs making these decisions. it's coming from much higher up the food chain. from people who have already sold it to the ceo or whatever as the next big money maker since sliced bread. they're in a corner.