test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Change Resistance
darthtzarr
Member Posts: 1,003 Arc User
Just a random question I had for the dev team, or any players who wanted to speak their mind. Why is there always so much resistance to change in the game? Everyone seems to want "balance", but they don't want the game to change. Is it because every change that is made must be a major undertaking? Is it because change generally is a massive 99% nerf or 300% buff?
Other games I have played loved changing just about every power in the game by 1-5% just about every major patch. These games probably have much larger development teams, or care more about fine-tuned balance, but Neverwinter seems to be on the opposite extreme. Why is there no change for months (or years) and then one massive overhaul that is left alone for another several months or years? Is it because players protest against nerfs or change so adamantly? Is it because it takes a ton of development time and testing to find that a power is used to much or too little?
There are many powers, feats, items, functions, mechanics, etc in the game that I could easily see getting something as small as a numerical change (for example a 5% increase to the existing effect) that would get them at least entertainably usable within the game, but often times these functions just remain untouched waiting for full blown reworks that take unknown amounts of development time to complete.
Wouldn't players become more accepting of nerfs or other changes if they knew that the change might be reversed or at least re-assessed every cycle with all the other unused/overpowered functions in the game? Even if only the top 1-3 over/under powered function were adjusted each cycle, it would be more than we have seen in the past, and even the smallest of changes can make a big impact eventually.
Nerfing a function by 1% each patch until it becomes unusable, and then buffing it by 1% each patch until it gets used again will tend towards balanced far more than the current, frozen state of the game. Not saying that is the best way to balance stuff out, but right now I think Neverwinter is at such a frozen extreme that it might be considered a valid tactic.
Other games I have played loved changing just about every power in the game by 1-5% just about every major patch. These games probably have much larger development teams, or care more about fine-tuned balance, but Neverwinter seems to be on the opposite extreme. Why is there no change for months (or years) and then one massive overhaul that is left alone for another several months or years? Is it because players protest against nerfs or change so adamantly? Is it because it takes a ton of development time and testing to find that a power is used to much or too little?
There are many powers, feats, items, functions, mechanics, etc in the game that I could easily see getting something as small as a numerical change (for example a 5% increase to the existing effect) that would get them at least entertainably usable within the game, but often times these functions just remain untouched waiting for full blown reworks that take unknown amounts of development time to complete.
Wouldn't players become more accepting of nerfs or other changes if they knew that the change might be reversed or at least re-assessed every cycle with all the other unused/overpowered functions in the game? Even if only the top 1-3 over/under powered function were adjusted each cycle, it would be more than we have seen in the past, and even the smallest of changes can make a big impact eventually.
Nerfing a function by 1% each patch until it becomes unusable, and then buffing it by 1% each patch until it gets used again will tend towards balanced far more than the current, frozen state of the game. Not saying that is the best way to balance stuff out, but right now I think Neverwinter is at such a frozen extreme that it might be considered a valid tactic.
Signature [WIP] - tyvm John
Post edited by darthtzarr on
10
Comments
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Game_Versions
Fixes:
https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Patches
And just 10 minutes ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/7kw4mh/707d_update_december_19th/
Result:
A money maker for Valve, highest prize pool, and millions of players...
NW:
Stale game -> People leaving.
Stale game -> People Stuck with nerfed classes -> people leaving.
Stale game -> People only go for FOTY (NW is years and not months) because no other options -> Don't like it -> people leave.
Stale game -> Balance patches heavy handed and extreme -> Everyone upset -> People leaving.
The important first note is that New Stuff Matters. Often you hear a suggestion of "why don't we take 6 months or a year to just rebalance the game and fix bugs". However, the important thing to remember is that the majority of players need/want new things to do and new progress to work towards. A year of no new content for an MMO is very bad for business and will cause a noticeable amount of players to take a break from the game, or even to leave permanently. This is true universally in the industry. This means a certain amount of our resources are always working towards new dungeons/systems/features for players to interact with.
Another important note is that in many cases, players themselves don't agree on what needs to be adjusted/fixed/nerfed/improved. Rarely will you see a large consensus on exactly what needs to be changed and by how much. It is our job to look at that feedback, look at the metrics, look at the state of the game, and try to find the best course of action and which issues should have the current priority. It certainly isn't an easy thing to balance, and our decisions will never be perfect in terms of what to do or when to do it, but we do try to keep an eye on every aspect of the game and plan out all of the issues/features/reworks/additions and what to do now, what to hold off until a future update, and what to put on the backburner for the time being.
Next I would argue against Neverwinter being in a frozen state. We just released a rework of refinement which seems to have mostly achieved the goal of improving that part of the play experience for players. It also came with a bonding runestone adjustment, which although unpleasant for many players to have to deal with, was intended to adjust some of the power issues plaguing Neverwinter. We've also added new masterwork recipes lately, added new options to strongholds, and made PvP adjustments all to help address some areas of the game that needed work/improvements. There is also the consideration of what will benefit the game/more players, an update to 3 problematic feats of a given class, or an overhaul to a refinement system that all players interact with. It is trickier than that as any given issue that is outstanding for a long time becomes a bigger and bigger irritation, but we do have to always decide where to use our resources. We go into each update planning session with far more wants than we have time to do and we have to make the hard choices of which ones are pushed to a future update. It is never an easy call as there is a lot we want to do for this game. The argument can be made that powers/feats haven't had a significant amount of work done to them in the most recent updates, but they have had some minor adjustments. Which brings me to:
Continuous small adjustments aren't a great solution for Neverwinter. One of the reasons we don't typically like to just boost or nerf a given feat power by a little bit here or there is the underlying factors. Sometimes it is just the power/feat that is off balance, but often it is all of the other feats/powers that apply to it. That means if we reduce a given power because certain feats boost it too much, when we fix those feats we have to go back and reboost the power to try to compensate. This is added time for little gain and can get out of control quickly with how many layers of influence there are in our systems. Other times it may even be an issue with the underlying formulas and how they scale (when building an entire game system it can be tough to plan how it will grow 5 years into a game's life and those fundamental problems can be the toughest to correct later). In generally we'd rather find the biggest problem causers, figure out a solution for them, and then figure out a solution for all of the things relying on them. That makes it a bigger undertaking and is why you often see a bigger rework come out instead of a bunch of smaller ones. Another consideration is frequency of updates. If we were to change things by 1% per update until balance was achieved, that could easily take years. Lastly is that players don't always appreciate the smaller style updates because it seems like we aren't truly addressing the issues to them. This thread https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1235687/official-m13-scourge-warlock-changes can show how much discussion, happiness, sadness, and everything in between that can come from some smaller updates to unbalanced powers/feats.
Another consideration is time for players to adapt. When we adjust anything related to powers/feats or character builds, we want enough time for players to reexamine and rebuild their characters. Sometimes this will lead to completely new builds that are over-powered, or builds which expose different issues of stacking/power influences. If we made continuous small adjustments, that can get lost in the noise and even compound on itself as players keep finding new builds with all of the small changes stacking together. It is always nice to let the dust settle after changes to see where everything ends up and then reassess the next changes to be made.
As far as "wouldn't players be more accepting of nerfs if...", no. Typically no matter what you follow that statement with, the answer will be no. And that isn't because of any flaw in player mentality, and it certainly doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the community. Nerfs are necessary from time to time, and they are needed to keep a game running well, but they never feel good. You can give players a dozen wonderful things, and a single nerf will still feel bad and become the focus of all discussions. It is simply human nature to dislike having something taken away from you or changed out from under you. Often times you can minimize the pain with some other adjustments that compensate for the change, but other times the band-aid just has to be ripped off and people will inevitably be upset.
Hopefully that helped address your questions and apologies for the length.
Anyways, huge thanks for the response! I will cut myself off instead of writing another book. Lots of useful info for us in that one lengthy response.
Signature [WIP] - tyvm John
I applaud the new content and general improvements to the game. Neverwinter is on a good path, and each module brings something unique and worthwhile.
Still, looking over my roster of characters, I see many formerly enjoyable toons that seldom see the light of day. In order to be remotely competitive when I do roll them out, I have to follow the current meta, and not play the style I most enjoy. My HR was created back in the day to rain destruction from afar. HR Archer has but one semi-viable end-game build, spamming a specific encounter power. I love the notion of a Control Wizard, well, you know, controlling stuff. How many modules ago was oppressor a viable PVE build? My SW may come out of retirement with the upcoming rework, but my TR's still locked away. Several beloved dungeons are back, but deficient level scaling removes even a hint of challenge (and yet, remarkably, they reward the largest AD bonus in random queue). Combat-oriented events suffer from the same lack of proper scaling. Dungeons used to rely on team communication and careful strategy (talking mod 0 here). For a long time now, end-game has relied on mindless buff/debuff stacking (thanks though for recent efforts to address that issue).
As a software development manager, I completely understand the bug fix and feature trade-offs that go into each sprint. I understand the pressure that business considerations can inject, and I understand how technical debt can make a "simple" bug fix or feature adjustment astoundingly complex. Having said all that, some balance and enjoyment issues have been around for a very long time and are very well known to the player base. When it takes a few modules to make a class competitive, I'm totally with you. When it takes a few years, well, something's amiss.
I hold a high opinion of the team and appreciate what you have done for the game. I would love to see some of the long-standing problems addressed before too long.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
The biggest issue for many is the viability of certain classes - notably the TR and SW but also the CW to a degree. How this relates to the topic is that we know we can wait for literally years for positive changes, when usually they can be fixed with an adjustment to a couple of core skills.
I understand the above point about knock-on effects but it appears this creates a fear of doing anything within the dev team. As such nothing changes.
An example of this would be on the TR - what are the perceived knock-on effects of changing the Shadow Of Demise mechanic to apply it's bonus immediately to all damage over the 6 second period? (i.e. instead of adding it all up and applying in one hit, add the damage bonus on every strike). The target takes the same damage but the TR at least gets some of the bonus if the target(s) die fast due to other players.
(Dev team) when you look at the analytics of class representation in the game, the most important factor (to me) is that of 'class abandonment'. E.g. I still see a fair representation of TRs, SWs & CWs at lower item levels but the numbers drop dramatically as you head into endgame (over 14k). The common story is that a player gets close to endgame, realises their class is an under-performer, level up one of the current 'good' classes and move all of their enchantments over.
Their preferred class then becomes a low level farming/salvage/professions alt.
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
New content is the most important... because players like options. As has been heard during the RQ backlash, players don't want to feel forced to run content, they want options. The same goes for builds. Players don't want to be forced to run a GWF, a DC and an OP, but that's what our limited slate of options is currently dictating.
The Random Queue feature was very frustrating to me, there are only so many hours of development time to use on the game and this really seemed to come out of nowhere, as in who asked for this? It takes away players choices and forces players to run non-challenging and therefore boring content to efficiently earn the in-game currency astral diamonds. This topic has been beat to death already in many other threads though, mostly in the many-page thread introducing the new feature LOL
The issue the random que was trying to solve makes sense but the design for the random que didn't make sense. People like options and dislike feeling like they are forced to play a certain way. If the random que had a better design, it would have been better received. The main way it went wrong was forcing people to change to the random que in order to keep making their daily ADs. The way the random que was implemented ended up decreasing people's options because it took away the option to make your daily AD using the private and public ques. The private que was a well received change that gave people more options and gutting revenue for it pissed just about everyone off.
Another thing players usually don't like is when ideas that the playerbase did not request get lots of resources allocated to them. The players would rather have ideas and fixes that were collectively asked for get those precious resources instead. While the random que could have been a good change if it was designed better, it was not a widely requested change. If people had been given a vote between getting a well designed random que and something else they actually asked for, they would pick the thing they asked for 99% of the time. There are other ideas that players did ask for that could have solved the same issue the random que tried to solve. For example, just about everybody would be in favor of better dungeon loot across the board and for more difficult/longer dungeons to give out better loot than easier/shorter dungeons. Another variaty increasing change people did ask for was to bring back all of the old missing dungeons that were taken out durring module 6.
PVP Rogue,
--[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin)
Ingame Handle: trgluestickz
Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563
Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression
Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud
Platform: PC
The refining changes while they have had some positive impact have overall been VERY negative, because of the loss of matching bonuses. It's now prohibitively expensive to change over from one set of artifact equipment to another or swap an artifact. Also they have crucified guilds because all RP is useful for everything, so combined with the loss of matching bonuses and need for more RP, nobody donates gems.
The bonding change has been a disaster, those of us who were just about getting to a level of power where we could think about doing the endgame dungeons are now six months away at least (we're never going to get R14s). You should have accepted the power creep amd upped augments. Balancing stuff around the bleeding edge few ruins the game for the many.
New stuff does matter, (no new class for years is a complete disaster) but what matters more is not nerfing ENTIRE PLAYSTYLES. I spent a goodly amount of real money tuning characters to do what I wanted, I had fun playing them and overnight what I had became useless, they had the wrong enchants, gear and artifacts and I had to learn a completely new playstyle. Instead I simply retired them from playing in teams, sorry not interested, I didn't want to play that playstyle, that's why I built the character the alternative way.
Everybody told you random queues would be a disaster and they have been, I have not run a single dungeon since they arrived. Making level 70s run levelling dungeons ruins the lowbie experience, you can't exclude epic dungeons that are buggy for you or you're not really tough enough to do so the epic queue is a complete no-no (eLoL and FBI are buggy, not tough enough for mSP). I've done some random skirmishes but that's it. Combine that with my main (DPS GF) not being able to queue as DPS and not being able to tank the tough stuff, random queues have given me precisely nothing and removed a lot.
It isn't from a fear of doing anything, again it mostly comes down to resources. It is easier (but harder than you'd imagine) to allocate time to do small tweaks here and there, but those generally don't significantly change the meta making them not feel meaningful. Bigger adjustments take a lot more time/resources to accomplish and with our never ending list of things to get done, those can get bumped to a future module. And to be sure, sometimes they get bumped too often and we need to keep a closer eye on that. The October bug fixing was in large part fixing up different class powers/feat and resulted in a lot of small changes for TR and SW, but that isn't the bigger overhaul many players are looking for.
The same people who would be rebalancing classes/powers/feats are also working on:
- critters
- boss fights
- new equipment/artifacts
- new mounts/companions
- campaigns
- lockboxes (the many viewpoints on lockboxes as a concept are best left to numerous other threads)
- profession recipes
- pvp work/balance
- events
- and even more
also non-recurring items such as:- Refinement overhauls
- Changes to weapon/armor enhancements
- some other upcoming things I can't talk about yet
- and yes Random Queues
And although there could probably be never-ending conversations on which areas should get more or less development time, the point is to show how many areas are competing for the same resources. As I mentioned in the other post, a lot of discussions happen internally with each update on which of those get attention and which of those get less or none for a given update. None of that is to say it is good that TR or other classes have been under-powered in PvE for a while now.Fortunately, we are at least in a place where every class can complete all content. One may be slower, or more challenging, but all classes can be used to complete everything we have out there. That isn't a reason not to update under-powered classes, but it is important for the overall conversation as it is often talked about as if TRs, or other classes, can't be brought on a T9G run because it would make the run impossible, and that just isn't true. I will also state as a side note, my main is a Trickster Rogue, and none of what the character has came from any employee perks or free stuff. I enjoy the class very much, and yes we do play classes like TR, since the most common critique is that clearly we must not play those "bad" classes.
A lot of players are focused on the damage charts. That is a negative that can come in any game which includes that information (and as we know if a game doesn't include it, players will generally create add-ons which will show the information). I think it is also a bit misleading in our game as there can be classes which clear out trash mobs highly efficiently, but may output less damage in a sustained boss fight than another class. We don't break down the charts that way, or have a boss only chart. There are no plans for such a feature, but I do think there may be some slight shifts in the charts if we did happen to have one that only showed the boss damage given. Mainly I'm trying to say that just focusing on that damage chart at the end of fights isn't always the best thing.
Again, none of that is to say that there shouldn't be ongoing balance work or that it is ok that some classes are less efficient than others. The ideal would be all classes having a good balanced role in the game and making all paths/feat trees interesting choices.
Finally that brings me to the Shadow of Demise question. I think the main reason we haven't made that change is that isn't how we'd like SoD to work. Having lesser mobs die so fast that SoD doesn't get to fire and therefore a TR doesn't get more "credit" on that given fight isn't really the concern we have there. Shadow of Demise does get talked about, but more on the level of is giving the bonus off of the unmitigated damage the best way for it to work, while acknowledging that when it was a bonus on mitigated damage it was a much more inferior bonus. As well as: is it good that a capstone feat accounts for so much of the TR damage, and is such a go to choice for most players? And as you can guess with that line of discussion it becomes what would we change elsewhere to compensate for any adjustments to that feat/functionality. I think that is the main difference in viewpoints from the players and developers. The players look at that feat and say, just move the damage to happen immediately which will help us move up the damage charts, and developers look at it and say, is that feat (in its current state) good for the class and the game or are there better changes to be made there.
We are generally weighing any change against the long term effects of the class/game and not as a quick boost for a module or two. There are flaws with that approach to be sure, in so much as some would argue it is better to do something rather than nothing, meaning if we wait too long to formulate that better plan, then maybe it would have been better to do something less ideal, or even temporary, sooner so that the class is felt to be more viable.
On the other hand, sometimes those quick adjustments can have long term detrimental effects or even be tough to undo/get in the way of proper fixes. There have been some of those over the years. It is a tricky balancing act, and we are always trying to juggle timely fixes/adjustments, resource allocations, best changes for the long term health of the game/classes.
Finally, there is also the difference in time. When we discuss something on the forums right now, any changes may not show up in game for several months. Not because we're holding them off, but because of what module we're actually currently working on. It is easy to say "just push it into an earlier release" but there are already testing and certification schedules setup and pushing things into earlier releases can create problems for those timelines. Also once you push one thing through, why not another or another? It would certainly be fun to work in an environment where we could have a discussion on the forums and 3 days later players see those changes in game, but that is not the pipeline we have in place, or could have in place.
1) Change is hard, and it gets harder as you grow older.
People deal with change all the time, both in personal and professional settings. Tolerating that (and other things) wear people out. When they come home to a game they are often looking to relax, which often includes participating in habitual or ritualistic behavior. If playing NWO is part of how you unwind, it's understandably annoying if you can't relax anymore because you have to deal with whatever just changed in game. We know anecdotally that NWO players span all age groups, but have quite a few people who are probably working jobs.
I get that people also want new things to feel continued progression, as well as changes that are perceived as improvements or enhancements. But any change the forces a player to change their behavior / habits can be disruptive to their enjoyment.
2) People like change even less if it's perceived as unfair.
People of course care about personal gain (perhaps even the most), but they also care about whether changes are fair, and whether they felt agency / ability to contribute to the change. But managing how an audience will perceive a change is not trivial. It requires a concerted effort and coordination of multiple parts of an organization (management, development, marketing / communications), which often means it needs to be a top-down initiative from the highest bosses. That's clearly not always a priority for the bosses.
The lowest hanging fruit here is communication / seriously involving player feedback. It's also important to then highlight that you did so when announcing changes. People are more likely to perceive a change as fair if they think that they / their community had a real opportunity to voice their opinion on it. Visibly responding to bug reports and feedback request threads on preview are great. Providing context for planned changes and a realistic amount of time to discuss them are great.
We've seen some of this happen some of the time, but not enough and not often enough. Especially certain discussions / feedback back-and-forth have been excellent, but it's not consistent enough to really build a rapport with the community.
On a side note, Dev presence on the forums is excellent, and amazingly appreciated given the current state of communications. But outside of individually relevant feedback threads, realistically much could /should be handed off to CM + staff if internal communication could be made more effective (which it seems is sometimes a struggle).
The statement everyone makes is that Look For Group channels (generally the easiest way to find a group) exclude classes that make runs significantly more challenging. Before random queues (I don't know if this is still a thing, since I don't queue much anymore), these more challenging classes to play were even just kicked on sight. It's not that the class itself cannot complete the content, it's that the community doesn't want to deal with the risk or speed loss of bringing a perceived "weaker" class, and therefore will not allow them to complete the content. Even if they are allowed to "attempt" to complete the content on a perceived "probational" basis, a single failure will result in their party pulling the "you are a weaker class" card and replacing them. It doesn't matter if it was their fault, it doesn't matter if they are doing exceptionally well. Weaker classes, are always the first to get replaced.
I personally have never had to deal with this, since the alliance I play in is often very self sufficient and makes groups effortlessly within the alliance, and has rules against this type of exclusion, but the game itself has no rules of its own to prevent this. I have heard some pretty serious horror stories from TRs and SWs of trying to find groups to run with. I don't know what your personal experience is looking for groups on your TR, but the common story I hear isn't sunshine and rainbows.
Another issue related to this is simply the skill or gear required for a class to become viable. Some classes are very easy to play, and some are quite difficult, or even have RNG tied into their kit, which can make them feel inconsistent sometimes. If 9/10 TRs don't know how to play their class, but 9/10 GWFs do, it can make a big difference in which one is perceived as best. The skill ceiling is very very high on TR in my opinion, but at the same time, the skill floor is very very low. The difference between a new TR and a master TR is massive, and I don't gauge this by item level. I have hated this chart in every game I have ever played that had such a chart. It doesn't do justice to classes that provide benefits that aren't easily slapped onto the chart like Pillar of Power, Longstriders Shot, Fox's Cunning, Battlefury, or any other non-DPS related power. I will note though that the healing and tanking charts aren't even accurate by their own standards, since the tank chart is based on post-mitigated damage, and the healing chart includes lifesteal and other self-healing effects, which just makes DPS classes win that chart along with the DPS chart.
A cool system that I have seen pop up recently in several games (but obviously isn't free or simple to implement) is an honor/thanks/reputation system at the end of a dungeon, event, queue, match etc, where you pick one of your teammates to congratulate before you can look at the final scoreboard (it takes up your whole screen when you win). It is far more fun seeing that three teammates liked playing with you, rather than just seeing the numbers and thinking "I did nothing". It doesn't even have to have real rewards attached to it (although some do) to feel meaningful, and it takes some eyes off the DPS chart.
Thanks again for the response noworries!
Signature [WIP] - tyvm John
Moving that timeline up so that early builds are available for testing for more than 1 week before a major release would do a lot to help align the development cycle with this philosophy.
I can understand, as most TRs can, wanting to get something right over getting something fast. As has been pointed out, some small changes are clearly possible-witness the SW. However, the lack of communication, combined with the SW tweaks, have really alienated a lot of TRs- longstanding playtesting TRs- who have put so much time and effort into trying to help the devs in efforts to rebalance the class.
I’m not trying to give you a hard time here, but if the fear was doing something too fast just to appease the community, didn’t we pass that exit ramp 6 months ago? How can we improve the communication so that, going forward, the community can feel like things are moving forward in a positive direction?
She Looked Lvl 18
Here is my Blog
Thanks for your answers.
1. Why opening Tong, in general hight level dungeons, to 11k/12k GS?
You will answer me than door is open, players can enter to their own risk. That's true, I'm agree.
In fact, if the idea is good, the reality is absolutly the opposite.
Lowers GS try to go and die, die.... They don't understand, and don't want to understand, that end-game dungeon is done for end-game characters.
We, players, have requested end-game dungeons and you, dev team, have done it, that's really excellent and very appreciate, but an access restriction is needed, 13k/14k GS seems to be the lower GS to run this content.
Players who want to run this content have to upgrade their toons, you don't have to lower the content level.
2. Random: Hero's Accord:
This Q is unused for one reason, see the first question.
I asked lot of players who have hight GS, between 15 and 17k, all of them answer me the same thing: "Never with the risk to find a lower GS in the group"
I think you have stats of usage of this random, and the utilization is very ridiculous, compared to the potential.
3. Gear Score:
An update need to be done.
In the game you have 2 differents GS:
- Guilds with only PvE buildings boons
- Guilds with PvE and one PvP buildings boons
PvP building boons have absolutly none effects on PvE content, which is the main part of the game.But in GS the impact is significative: 500 points when the buildind is finish, which open content to ungeared characters
Could you remove this useless GS boost?
I specify that is not an attack again pvp players, it's just to see all pve players on the same equality.
I know than lot of players will cry: "Why have you reduce my big HAMSTER?" but that's necessary
And Merry Christmas
Eleonore - CW Mof Renegade 17.5k
Harlgard le Vieux - OP Prot 18.3k
Valrik - DC AC 18.2k
Furiela - SW Temp 18.1k
But that does not make the underpowered class desirable, it does not improve access to Tong for the undesired classes, it does not mitigate the disappointment when people find their class is undesired, it does not mitigate having to ask your guild/social group for charity runs to get your seals, it does not create happy players that stays in the game.
Neverwinter is a social game where we (at least for endgame) depends on each other to perform. If a class is perceived as undesirable(usually for a good reason) it is mercilessly shut out by the society. Everyone wants fast and painless runs that manages to complete - very human and very understandably.
This is part fact, part ignorance and part snobbery - meaning that a well geared, well built and very experienced TR can somewhat close the gap with a competent GWF/HR of equal IL but not enough to pose a challenge to them. This is exacerbated by the complexity of the rotation and the length of time it takes for damage buffs to build (in a fight) compared to others.
I don't want to assist in turning this interesting thread into a topic about class balance so staying on topic, I would say that the biggest causes of resistance to change are twofold:
1. depth of communication (including test data)
2. confidence that any issues that arise from changes are addressed in a timely fashion (weeks not months)
There is a firmly held belief among players (based on experience) that a change to a class will not be re-addressed for a very long time and this leads to them freaking out when they think something may not work.
Whilst many players put forward ideas via these forums and often disagree with each other, they are more open to things put forward by the devs if:
a. they are given data that shows the change is valid
b. they are given sufficient time to test the changes so that valid feedback has enough time to be incorporated in the update
c. they know that the person who made the changes has the ability to make minor adjustments at a (reasonable) later date should anything unexpected occur.
If these procedures are in place there will be less end user resistance.
One thing I'd like to ask: do the dev team have 'class champions' for each class that can talk knowledgeably within your discussions?
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
As far a the change aspect, I generally like change except when it causes me to have to spend a lot of my limited play time, reworking my feats and powers, then changing out gear/sets/gems etc to get back to a suitable place. While I do enjoy that aspect from time to time, I don't want to have to do it often.
I do have to say in the simplest of terms, I main a TR, an expensive one at that, and I can't get a run to a T3 on it if there are any other DPS classes available and I believe it is really just because of the numbers on the pain giver board and the perception they create in the general player base. I am not convinced that board even calculates things correctly, I would love to see it modified in some way that shows better information....that would be game changing for many players, IMO.
Keep up the good work and again thanks for the insight.
OP - Sunshine: 16000 IL
Casual Dailies
Signature [WIP] - tyvm John
So this brings me to the TR (yes discussed to death but I just had to comment), what exactly is this classes role? It cannot maintain aggro and soak up damage, it cannot heal, it cannot buff, it cannot out DPS....so what exactly is it's role?
Just for the record though, I love Neverwinter currently switch my mains between CW, SW, GF & OP but have "rested" my SW until all the new fixes are in and now main my OP as this is quite a lot of fun, my long time playing partner though was going to quit the game due to her playing a TR and realising that it sucked and nothing she tried would help, I purchased her a new LVL70 GWF as I think this is the closest to the TR in terms of get in close and smash like mad. This was a good choice as she still plays today. However after 2+ years invested in her TR and a ton of real world money put into the game it is a bit of a shame.
Anyway, keep up the work and thnx for a really amazing game, don't worry about people talking about other MMO's being this or that, none of them are Neverwinter and none of them have this level of awesome combat - I must say that I recently finished Dragon Age Inquisition and while it was good I seriously wish they had copied Neverwinters combat as it is tip top.
We certainly have quieter periods where we are in the midst of developing a module and are simply heads down getting it done. And then when we are into the testing phases and preview phases, we tend to have a bit more flexibility in our time and are discussing things on the forums more. It is tough to be looking at all the work you need/want to get done for the next update and then pop out of that for an hour here or there to both catch up on the forums and write up some responses.
Also sometimes there just isn't a response. Most players don't want to hear "We realize that the Trickster Rogue class is under-performing on live, but currently have no changes or plans in the works". We can have something on our radar and be having some conversations in the office about different aspects and what changes to make while not having come to any conclusions or set aside time for the work. Typically when we present any response to the forums we want to do so with information and clarifications. This is extra apparent in the case of TR balance because we haven't gotten to it as quickly as we'd like to, and certainly not as quickly as players would have liked us to.
As for the final question, that seems more like a question for players. At any given point there is something not being worked on, which some segment of the player base wants to be our focus, due to not being able to work on everything all the time. What communication does help with that type of situation?
I do think we could do better with the public testing time and resolve more issues. It has a habit of getting hectic. The threads can blow up into 20 pages or more quickly and it can be tough to track down what is/isn't happening from some reports. Even with refinement some people posted very concise bugs on the threads and because I was tracking down other issues it could take a little while to get to those and get them fixed. At the same time if you look at the list of issues with the system day one of public testing and where it was when it went live, it shows how well public testing can work. With anything else I think we are getting better with it over time and improving how we approach it each time it comes around.