Remember When....

lukejones77

We were in a dungeon, chasing this team mate up far ahead of us. I was lamenting that the rest of us didn't have high enough dark enchants for speed to keep up with him, when I started having these dream-like flashbacks.

I was playing this MMO, where all sorts of colorful things happened:
- We had this cleric, potions, and very low life steal. This cleric kept us alive. She had a job to do, and took great pride in watching and managing our slowly deteriorating health bars, zooming them back up at critical points.
- It wasn't enough though, and this tank guy, tough as nails, distracted our enemies - particularly their big guy, enough to let the rest of us do our work. We used to get ready, wait for this guy to get their attention, then charge in around the sides to flank them.
- My job was to stop the enemy in their tracks long enough to get everyone a breath. In some places I had the very clear job of repelling really big guys off the edge of rocky bridges. It was an important job, and if I didn't do it right within a few attempts, my party were forced to get somebody who could. It was awesome!
- It took a while to wear our enemies down, and we had to develop special techniques and cooperate really well.
- There was this thing called "Kiting"! When the chips were down, somebody who was tough enough, or fast enough, could smack a boss or mob hard, then run around trying to dodge them we slowly got ready for our next smack. When it got tough, you could use this in many places.

We learned how the team could wait for a good kiter to smack a scorpion and him him to chase you up field, where the kiter just did their best to stay alive, leaving the rest of the party to finish the other scorpion. Together, those scorpions were just too tough.
We learned that you could kite between the top and the bottom of some stairs, keeping this lethal boss Idris distracted enough for the party to do it's work. She was lethal, but stupid
We learned how to kite in large circles, chased by huge mobs, while the party smacked away at a frost giant boss.
There was a lot going on. Your attacks built slowly, but so did theirs. Your gear was a part of what you brought, and your skills were critical, but you also relied on everyone else. You had time to think, to assess, to use the territory to your advantage, and move around to gain critical advantage.
Sometimes we'd get down to our last battle-worthy team mate, perhaps surrounded by dragons, and this guy might take a minute of dodging, hitting, trying to last long enough to drink another health potion, long enough to wear them down. Fallen comrades would actually urge him on from the side, and "You got this!", or "You can do this!" were things that actually got said!! When you came through with those ones, it was great to be that guy. You walked off, really happy that you'd rocked up.

Just a faded dream now. Anyone here have similar flashbacks?
Anyone here remember the name of that MMO?

majorcharvenak

Is it WoW?

lukejones77

majorcharvenak said:

Is it WoW?

Lol, sorry. Not even sure you can use that acronym here.
It's what playing Neverwinter was like, before all the power creep and role confusion.

You were kidding me, or the game's become that unrecognizable?

gromovnipljesak

Yeah, DCs still do keep us alive. I barely have any lifesteal and I rarely go down, only when I do dumb bs like run to the end in the room right before the 2nd boss. Heck, even OPs help with that, circle of power, shield of faith, sometimes even aura of protection.
Tanks are still tanking, but DCs are so good at keeping us alive that tanks aren't even mandatory as tanks, as DCs can just heal and purge debuffs and DoTs. Flanking for CA finally works so I have no idea what you're talking about.
CC is dead because devs decided that every enemy and their cat, and their cat's squeaky toy had infinite control resist. You could maybe push the enemies away, but its kinda redundant - it would work if the enemies just had an absurd amount of health and DR, like fighters in MSP.
We haven't had any "special techniques" other than finding bugs like in FBI where Drufi wouldn't move.
Kiting is a bannable offense in WoW. And it's kinda pointless, you wanna hold the enemy in place so your DPSers can actually attack the enemy, and not have to run to the enemy every 3 seconds.

Dunno what game ya talkin' about, but it definitely ain't neverwinter.

joycev

Dude this thread brings back memories like the early days of guild wars 2 and world of warcraft. I think WoW changed for the worse though and haven't touched it in years.

lukejones77

gromovnipljesak#8234 said:

Dunno what game ya talkin' about, but it definitely ain't neverwinter.

LOL. I played Neverwinter from the start, and it's the only MMO I've ever played. It used to be Neverwinter, exactly.

greywynd

Remember when you couldn't walk down the street to do your questing without a cleric tagging along to make sure you survived it?

plasticbat

greywynd said:

Remember when you couldn't walk down the street to do your questing without a cleric tagging along to make sure you survived it?

Yes. And, remember the day that the CW needed to trick the wolf to follow from one cave to another, sneaked behind it and then push the wolf off the cliff to just finish a 'simple' one time quest?

majorcharvenak

lukejones77 said:

majorcharvenak said:

Is it WoW?

Lol, sorry. Not even sure you can use that acronym here.
It's what playing Neverwinter was like, before all the power creep and role confusion.

You were kidding me, or the game's become that unrecognizable?

Lol. I knew which game you were referring to, @lukejones77. Just threw that out for levity. Came to the game right before Mod 4 dropped and agree with all that NW is not the game it used to be.

ashlotte

No MMO is the same as it once was. Times change - for better or for worse is subjective.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

talon1970

And here i am, also an long time player, Caturday Survivor, but with an (biased) but different Opinion, thinking that the game is nowadays better (not perfect but better).

The first Guild i was in, was very Casual oriented i have to say.
We had no clue or we didn't care that much about building up an Toon properly, we didn't know much about the buffs/debuffs wich were possible back in Mod 0 up to Mod 5, a Tank was an Tank, an Dc had to heal, and the dps Chars had to be dps'ing and take care about the Dc.
But it ends always between the two or three dps Chars during an run in an dps race chasing #1 in paingiver....

The guild i am now, is an fusion between Members wich were leftover after the Mod 6 disaster and people we have met during the time, is the total opposite. Focusing on the latest and hopefully best aviable Guides for each Class, very highly into buffing and debuffing, no need in chasing paingiver...

But back to the "old and better" days:

- Remember how hard it could be to gear up your char(s) bc of the Dungeon Delves time? For me as an european Player it was double hard, bc DD was so often in an time i was at work, or that late i couldn't run bc i had to go to sleep...so it was "normal" for me only running two or three dungeons in an week.

- So also remember the RNG back then, running T2 Dungeons countless times before you have your favourite piece of Gear? I can remember some old guildmates have to run Karrundax 30-40-50 times until they got the Gauntlets, or they were that rich able to buy it from the AH.

- DD (again): It was always the discussion wich one we will run, one Member were still in need for Karrundax, one needed for his 1489 Toon boots from Frozen Heart, some other Spell Plague, one Temple of Spider.....and at the end we were running two times Pirate King, for quick AD.......
(Yes i know i am bashing my former Guild, but i am more or less the only one left in Game, so no big deal)

- Kiting
Yes it was neccessary in dungeons like Frozen Heart, or Spell Plague until you have simply outgeared these Dungeons, and i have asked one of our Main Gf in the Guild i am now in, if he wants these times back, but his response was: "Oh God no, it was boring AF, running in circles until the dps chars have finished the boss."

-Push/pull from some classes:
I am Maining an total Melee Dps Char (known as Tr) and i couldn't count how often the friendly Cw from the Neighbourhood killed me in SP or ToS bc he/she pushed the adds over an edge and i was "stuck" bc i attacked them with df...

-Class balancing
Yes this will always be an discussion.
But in my former guild (again) i had to hear the sentence more than once:"Oh please don't come in with your Tr, change to your Cw or Gwf instead."
Nowadays we don't care wich class fills the only dps role, and yes we are running most the time with "meta party" and most of us have not only one good geared dps char, so also one or more "support" chars, so we are able to rotate between them and it is only a experience thing how smooth or not an run is.

So may i ask, was really everything better, back in the "old days"?

jonkoca

Good old days were good. I remember frozen heart and the tank being chased by a whole instance of mobs. I remember when sing was amazing, and shard was devastating.

I really miss shard. And shard on tab in pvp, some of those cws were masters at flattening you with it.

HR roots would pull mobs back from the pit when cws blew them off ledges and everyone would sigh. And goddamn dread vault.

I still like the game, but yeah, it was better when we all weren't able to tank and nuke everything in sight.

Perhaps there could be an event where everything is brought back, just for a week. When 20k power was unheard of, and having more than 15k HP was impossible.

hustin1

I still keep a CW in ultra-CC mode in the hopes that CC might become important somewhere outside Stronghold Marauders. She was built for the old dungeons, when nearly every boss fight required some CC.

I still have a stash of "run fast" gear in my HR's bank in the hopes that the days of kiting while relying on in-combat regen might someday return. I distinctly remember one exhilarating fight with the 2nd boss in eKarru when I had to buy time for the other 4 members to run back up the hill after dropping.

I can dream.

grogthemagnif

Thanks for the memories- when Neverwinter was D&D and not some cookie-cutter MMO. I miss the cooperation and appreciate it every time my GF is picked up after he dies. I try to reciprocate with others, but sometimes they bail too fast.

Part of what wrecked it was he SH Steward telling the SH Cleric that, "Everyone needs a good RUN through the dungeon. Dungeons should be done at a CRAWL and xp should be lost for not getting 90% of the treasure out of the dungeon is the goal.

The Devs haven't figured out what we knew back in 1973 - "Don't be an idiot and try to balance the character classes (there were 3 then) balance the monsters against the party [and then keep tweaking until you get it close to right] then stop and move on the the next mod.

Those that begin a new mod BIS should find it somewhat easy, those that are the high average should find the mod somewhat to very challenging and those that are under geared and still want to play in the new mod until they catch up may find it very had to stay alive soloing and a lot of the content will take multiple tries to complete without help. The under geared can party-up and that will increase their challenge by 2-5 times [one for each additional player]. I don't think this will ever happen.

ilmenira

it's neverwinter, yes!

i remember well. i started during beta with a tr, then mained a dc for several modules beginning with modul 2, because she was helpful in the guild. and exactly that: watching lifebars, crying for everyone who died, lifting them with lathander etc... it felt like a great and terrible responsibility.

and when the tank, who had moaned "oh no, not frozen heart again!" (because that's what everybody wanted him for constantly) kited all those huge ice trolls, i had to keep an eye on him and throw him healing words from time to time.

not soon after that my dc had to learn to buff, and was required mostly for that. that must have been around modul 4 or so. "who needs a healer?" in an overheard ts conversation was my wake up call back then. and i was happy when the expert tr enjoyed my buffs with a million lashing blade hit. (what's a million now, ey?!)

now it feels a bit like around modul 5, and i guess we might see a level rise to 80 not too far away...
the times they are a changing.

ilmenira

grogthemagnif said:

Those that begin a new mod BIS should find it somewhat easy, those that are the high average should find the mod somewhat to very challenging and those that are under geared and still want to play in the new mod until they catch up may find it very had to stay alive soloing and a lot of the content will take multiple tries to complete without help. The under geared can party-up and that will increase their challenge by 2-5 times [one for each additional player]. I don't think this will ever happen.

my impression is, neverwinter (has to) cater(s) to 3 classes of players:

1) the BIS. that's a bit hard, because they are so far ahead of the field. but the last few dungeon addings (FBI, MSP, T9) were for them at first. they need to grind for very hard to get items in order to get one small step ahead (+5rings, UES... ). some of them spend a lot of money readily, most of them spend a lot of time (as well). cryptic needs to address their money and give them enough to do.

2) midlevel. those are more casual players. they need to be motivated to gear up a bit, spend some money of course (tiger etc). the earlier dungeons were for them as well, the newest campaign seems to suit them well too.

3) the beginners. their number is significant. some stay very short, some need to gear up at the traders and rush through all campaigns. they have a lot to do. if they want, they can spend a lot of money too, to speed the process of catching up.

callumf

I wasnt around but the simplicity of a tank being a tank, a healer being a healer and a dps being a dps and the three of them working in unison to defeat a monster appeals to me. As someone said above, D&D in 1973 was simple and fun. But would today's more sophisticated players want a simple game?

Remember Dungeonmaster on the Atari or Amiga?

Remember Bard's Tale on Atari or Amiga?

Great games.

hustin1

callumf#9018 said:

I wasnt around but the simplicity of a tank being a tank, a healer being a healer and a dps being a dps and the three of them working in unison to defeat a monster appeals to me. As someone said above, D&D in 1973 was simple and fun. But would today's more sophisticated players want a simple game?

Remember Dungeonmaster on the Atari or Amiga?

Remember Bard's Tale on Atari or Amiga?

Great games.

No, but I remember those two games on the IBM PC

As for the rest, there's a reason why my PnP friends stayed with 2e.

rifter1969

hustin1 said:

callumf#9018 said:

....

Remember Bard's Tale on Atari or Amiga?

Great games.

No, but I remember those two games on the IBM PC

As for the rest, there's a reason why my PnP friends stayed with 2e.

Hmm... I remember Bard's Tale... but for Commodore 64c...

I kind of liked 3e D&D myself

wylonus

i wanted to play "Dragon Disciple", and NWN1 was better than NWN2, they were stronger, this Neverwinter online are too limited on classes, and we still dont have any "Prestige Archtypes" classes yet.
okay, back to topic...
it was Mod 6 made NWO almost unrecognized, regenerate and lifesteal both got nerfed, gear score changed, and yes, those mod 2 to mod 4 were the best gameplay with less RNG, after mod 6, they made RNG made our goal unreachable or scaled too deep that we keep losing the "dice rolls" over and over on the drops and they get greedy with lockboxes, turning into "Gambling Online" instead of true RPG theme, they took away coal wards and put in paywall mode to prevent upgrading characters advancements, now we have to pay for it.

now, Chult mobs are too thick while our "In-combat regenerate" still in nerf mode and we need it the most, and companions are bugged as extreme hostile mode, pulling surrounding mobs and i cant click on doors, boxes or npcs, turning into survival hardmode which it isnt challenging as devs think and not fixing this hostile companion bug due to pilgrim weapon set.
Omu is easier than Chult, local mobs are little more spread out, devs must thin out mob density and they respawn on very fast cooldown, i hate those lions the most, they seem to roar to keep me chain-stuns down to 30% health before i was able to fight. is this fun and challening? no, it is more like extreme survival mode.
personally, i believe only those male lions, head of prides should only roar, not those females, if they did, it would be roar of challenege to his "authority", it was disblief when i had shield up and still get stunned, when the T-rex and those epic BHE Rexes roar, and had shield up and able to resist. it either lions are bugged or badly scripted to override the shield protection?