> @barkloud#8760 said: > I am on the last house of Fires of Homes quest > > I am a level 42 Therm Wizard and the quest is level 35. All my gear is around 150 IL. > > I have tried the quest many times with my Sellsword and my Man-At-Arms. Every time it is near instant death when the moment I zone in. I have tried different builds, I have tried shields, potions, everytime I am dead when I zone in within 2 seconds. > > I have tried waiting for other players to come around so we can do it together, but so far I have not seen anybody in the zone. > > I am unable to speak with other players, so I cannot ask for help. > > I cannot unlock speech, bacuase the questline I am on needs to be passed in order to progress in the zone. > > I already paid for VIP, I refuse to buy Scrolls of Life to pass a quest that is holding up my progress. > > Really at quite a loss as to what I should do...
@mimicking#6533 Found this on another section of the forum, so your scaling mechanism which is only bugged not outright wrong, and youve made great progress in addressing us not only hammering the + level 70 players but alsothe brand new ones your trying to attract. Bravo, starts a slow clap.
WHY ON EARTH DID YOU START SCALLING SYSTEM FROM PLAYERS SIDE INSTEAD OF CONTENT?
Wouldnt be easier/better to give players a few levels of difficulty followed with different levels of rewards? With newest content avilable always as hardest possible level?
That would left our progress intact, that would actually encouraged players to progress their toons. And if your new mechanic really WAI it would be so easy to just adjust dungeons ratings....
If Scaling is done well then that’s great however in this case it hasn’t been done well and this is plainly obvious but let’s put that to one side for a minute and address the problem of rewards or the lack of them in game currently on PS4 and Xbox dungeon rewards have been poor for a while now and are getting worse every day now it’s not worth buying LDK’s as you rarely cover the cost.
If the game was ever broken was between m6 and m15, they tryin to save the game, and alot of you need to encourage the developers in their changes. Keep on this route and its not the developers fault if the game will be ruined its the community fault. This module 16 done way more to help players than you think, game isnt as grindy or p2w as before. Thats something that needs to be acknowledged, the devs are doin their best to save the game. If devs ignore 80% of the feedback, i really don't know whst to say, i think the community is the one that is not listening, its a big problem.
Hmmm, let me see.
"This module 16 done way more to help players than you think". I would really, really like you to elaborate on this. What exactly has M16 done to help players? Refinement streak break? Yes, I agree, but that's not what people complain about. What else? On the other side, they made the content way more difficult for the majority of players (yeah, BiS don't have more difficulties, but average Joe does). No lifesteal anymore, a really harsh (broken) scaling, everything takes longer, etc.
"Game isn't as grindy or p2w as before". What exactly makes you think that? To get the expedition stuff and Alabaster set, you need to grind the expeditions. To restore the 965 relic gear and the 1010 successor gear you need billions of runes, dozen and dozen of hours grinding mindlessly the runic HE. There are a new rank on enchantements and enhancements. There are whole new sets of artifacts and artifact gear. And cherry on top, the ZAX went from 1:500 to 1:750. How exactly is that not as grindy or p2w than before? If anything, I just find it MORE grindy and p2w than before.
"Thats something that needs to be acknowledged, the devs are doin their best to save the game." The devs, surely. The design lead? Doesn't seem to. When your community claims all at once that the scaling concept is broken, incoherent, induces a negative progression, and you don't have any comment on that... It doesn't seem the leader is really doing is best to save the game. The devs get the blame too easily, I agree, and they shouldn't. It's the leader, that takes decisions, that should be accused.
"If devs ignore 80% of the feedback, i really don't know whst to say, i think the community is the one that is not listening, its a big problem" They currently have ignored 100% of the feedback, considering they don't even understand the community questions and concerns about scaling on their Q&A stream. Really makes me think about that
Since coalgate and keygate, the scaling is the only topic where you can see ALL feedback oriented in the same direction: it's bad, bad concept wrongly implemented. No game ever should punish their players for becoming stronger. And it's precisely what the current scaling is doing.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
edited May 2019
I am sorry, @mimicking#6533 but it really looks like you are missing the point here.
The goal of level scaling is that you're scaled to a given challenge which includes scale ratings, aka not letting them stay capped.
Maybe I am being naïve, but I would have thought that the primary goal of anyone developing a game would be to make something the majority of your customers enjoy - and that goal should override any other goal.
In other words: It is a game - it is supposed to be fun
And, sadly, that's where your design and implementation of scaling failed...the bottom line is that overall you made the game less fun for a very large number of players and now you are facing the consequences of the decisions that were made.
Yes, there were parts of the game that were too easy before, but the way that problem was approached was fundamentally wrong. I am not talking about outright bugs which made certain content simply impossible. I am not talking about your serious QC problems which allowed such issues to slip through. No, here are some of the issues caused by how scaling was implemented:
A player leveling up might make the mistake of playing during a 2xExp weekend, using enchants or a guild XP bonus, or in some other way gain so much XP that he outlevels the area he is in and the quests he is doing. This may result in him being punished by scaling him down to the point where he has no chance of even continuing the main questline. This is just wrong. I have said it before, but IMO Anyone who thinks it is OK to punish players for progressing should not be allowed anywhere near game design.
A BiS L80 player may have reached cap (or "maximum efficiency") on most stats, but when going into lower-level areas, the stats are typically way below the comparable numbers for those areas. This may result in the lower-level content feeling harder than the high-end content. How anyone can think this is "a good thing" is beyond me, in particular when you consider a high-level BiS player may be less efficient than a "level-appropriate" player with decent (but not BiS) gear. This is just wrong - it destroys any sense of progression. Seriously - what does the low-level player have to look forward to?
With scaling partially implemented by "capping" items - like downgrading R15 and R10 enchants down to the same level you take away a good deal of the motivation to progress through gear improvements. You also take away the motivation for players to obtain high-end item or to buy wards and such to rank up what they have. Once again, this is a game, not a Swedish tax system simulator. Many of us do not like having our hard-earned stuff taken away like this.
With scaling, lower-level content becomes more challenging. To some degree that is fine - some of it was way too easy earlier. However, it seems to me that people forgot to consider various aspects. First, there is the issue of reward/effort Would you work twice as hard at your job without any extra compensation? No? Well, why should we? Giving the same rewards for increased effort may work on a rat in a Skinner cage, but it does not work very well for gamers. Challenge, just for its own sake is not desired by everyone.
Now, I am sure you have some metrics, like average number of players, player retention, average playing time per day, average $$$ spent on Zen per day. I do not know what those numbers look like, but I would expect you got a spike last month when Mod 16 was released and a steady downward trend since then - a downtrend that is more serious than you anticipated.
The main reason, I'm sorry to say, is that it looks like the company has totally lost sight of what motivates players, or even makes them enjoy the game. You really need to go back to the basics.
All this comes on top of some really bad design decisions in Mod 16 - taking away the initial ability rolls, dumbing down character creation and limiting different playstyles, reducing the effectiveness of gear that players work hard to get and so on.
Finally, there is a large number of small decisions - none of which are game-breaking on their own, but taken together they give the impression that the designers and developers really don't care about the players and their experience....just a few examples:
Making cute vanity pets, but making them BtC, so people get stuck with unwanted duplicates. BtA would have been better, unbound would have been best...would be nice to get some worthwhile drops to sell for once.
Making high-end companion gear almost mandatory - giving people a chance to get the three pieces they want, but setting things up so that if you play in a group, only one gets the reward - the others are permanently blocked from getting it, or making people losing out on one of the items if they miss one relic - without ever warning them....and then not providing any way to go back or earn equivalent gear in any way.
Making Alabaster weapons available, but gated behind RNG, so some people get their pieces in the first week, but others get 4xoffhand and are still waiting for the mainhand.
Putting Spy guild pants and shirts in the collection page, but seemingly forgetting to give them to the vendor to sell
Making the armor bonuses on the highest-end gear (successor) so bad that people will actually prefer lower-IL pieces like those that drop in MEs
...etc...etc..
Are you surprised why many players are annoyed and feel like there is a serious communication failure and that nobody really cares about the player experience?
What that question did do, is reinforced to me as lead designer two places where level scaling is not making players happy.
After I had a chance to think about these things more, I started to wonder that since we are adjusting stats on the player end, did we look deep enough into the balance of critter ratings- as this can really make a difference on how even level scaled stats can feel ineffective and frankly not powerful.
Again, I think you are missing the point - see the issues I raised above. Sure, some players are complaining about not feeling like demigods, but I believe the majority is willing to accept that some scaling is just fine - things were, quite frankly, getting silly. What many of us have an issue with are the specific points I mentioned above.
The concept and goals of challenge campaigns was reviewed and signed off by me- with the ideas that players after hitting level 80 may not have completed or even started some of the previous campaigns, and that the risk reward of the scaling was sound
Almost, but not quite. Consider the rewards of the challenge campaigns. You can get an Enchanting Stone, a Mark of Potency or companion tokens - and if you need those things they have a value of maybe 60.000 AD per week (but as they are bound, they are pretty much worthless if you have ranked up everything already). You also get the "bonus campaign" currency - worthwhile if you are still doing some of the campaigns, otherwise they might still have a small value, as you can possibly turn them in for guild marks, which do have some value (smaller than it used to be, after you killed off professions, though). Now, this is what I was talking about earlier regarding the reward/effort ratio. If I am doing a Challenge Campaign, I would consider it fair to face a bit of an extra challenge if get a bit of extra rewards.
So, no....I have not heard anyone actually complain about the concept of the Challenge Campaigns as such. What people intensly dislike about them is the fact that inadequate QC let a number of issues slip through (like scaling in Maze Engine).
The Challenge campaigns are fine - if you had said "When doing challenge Campaigns you will be downscaled severly, below the typical level of a player normally doing the content", I think people really wouldn't have minded - extra effort, yes, but extra rewards.
But...
The real issue is that the downscaling does not just apply to players doing the Challenge campaigns - It also applies to someone who reached 80 without completing many (if any) of the earlier campaigns. Such a player will get downscaled too - perhaps below his ability to do the content in the first place. He needs the "extra effort", but does not get the "extra reward".
The same applies to players running the random queues for rAD. (Those few that actually are working). The random queues used to be worth the effort, considering the rewards. Now, the effort has been increased significantly, while the reward stays the same. In fact, the rewards are worse than before because some of the drops are worth much less than they used to be - companion gear from IG, for example.
There is another drawback. Players are not seeing any effort to control the bot population, and the "kicking" mechanism is fundamentally broken. True "random" queues are now much more likely to fail than before because of the extra difficulty. This basically encourages players to only run them with premade groups, which leaves "newbies" out in the cold, facing one failed run after another.
Those players are not likely to hang around for long - they will uninstall and warn their friends not to install this broken mess. (Their words, not mine).
Lead Designer - Is responsible for the teams under him, and gives them general direction or accept/deny suggested ideas in general, or in this case systems designers team in particular. He is the Overall direction of NW Boss.
The question was understandable for everyone who understands the core issue with how scaling is implemented. Via Caps.
I'm in full agreement. He may not be directly working on systems but he must have some involvement if only working through the idea.
The question regarding capped stats was easily understandable. The response he gave was not one you want to see coming from the man in charge.
To me he came across like "Does not compute. I don't know what the main component behind this new system does. I've never heard of stat capping before in my life. I just work here. Move along. Double AD people we love you!"
I am sorry that it came across that way. I am sure there are many times during the work day when I look like a deer in the head lights. I was honestly trying at first to parse if the question meant that adjusting stat caps was being asked as an option for players to be able to choose, and how that would then affect progression, as in, would it also scale rewards. The goal of level scaling is that you're scaled to a given challenge which includes scale ratings, aka not letting them stay capped.
What that question did do, is reinforced to me as lead designer two places where level scaling is not making players happy. After I had a chance to think about these things more, I started to wonder that since we are adjusting stats on the player end, did we look deep enough into the balance of critter ratings- as this can really make a difference on how even level scaled stats can feel ineffective and frankly not powerful. The concept and goals of challenge campaigns was reviewed and signed off by me- with the ideas that players after hitting level 80 may not have completed or even started some of the previous campaigns, and that the risk reward of the scaling was sound. Some of the bugs that we found at launch clearly got past us, and we have made great strides to addressing them- and based upon player feedback we are still adjusting the scaling, and looking at the risk/reward loop and our original ideas for this system.
This is not a done deal, but an ongoing conversation. Thanks again for this dialogue. M.K.
Mr. Thomas Foss, I've never seen a game that when you get to the maximum level, you're getting limited. I have seen, games that when new expansions enter, the game was beautiful to play, but ... it had times that the game sucked, in this case Neverwinter Mod 16 happened that. Face is not just balancing you do because players who go to pvp and can not kill players who play since the game exists, (and have dedicated themselves to have their equipment, etc.). With that you and your team stirred the mechanics of the game, where the game was beautiful and turned into a mess, and what strikes me most are the ways that you and your team have in relation to the player. The players are talking about what is wrong with the game, and you can not help but punch a knife. There is a player who has already given up playing, there is a player that does not even go to the pvp anymore. By the time I started playing, I could not kill anyone in this game, after a few years I managed to have fun because I got to the level of the other players. In that Mod 16 that you and your team moved .... our, not the will to play. And to this day no one arranges anything, or no longer knows how to fix. And then stay on those excuses and deceive the player. Speak as soon as you mess up the game, do not know how to fix and the player has the free will to play the game, or look for another game to have fun.
I have a question: Why does level-up notice still have golden frame?
Levelling up now triggers scaling, which means in the same gear you become less proficient. So, if the level-up is technically a deadly curse that cannot be countered, avoided or even lifted, should it not get properly terrifying animation?
I want to know why was scaling even considered after removing almost all buffs and debuffs in the game? Those were the bigger issue in the game than player stats; removing the buff/debuffs ensure content got a bit more difficult.
I recommend removing scaling for a week or two and see how the game population reacts to it. Monitor the game and maybe in the future add scaling back once you work all the kinks out of it.
I was heading to Icewind dale to experience the content while i was still level 70. I wanted to experience it the way it was intended.
While in town, i leveled up while talking to the quest givers. The level up fanfare went off and instead of joy i felt anger and disappointment. The option to experience even one quest in the Icewind valley without being punished for progressing was just denied to me. There is something fantastically wrong with progression when leveling up makes a player disappointed. the whole time i explored the area i felt weak, penalized and railroaded. My attacks did little to no damage, I avoided fights instead of gleefully seeking them out, i skirted encounters and if any of the Barbarians caught sight of me i knew that was the end, i would be slaughtered and have to skirt encounters all over again so i could get enough black ice to buy a freaken shirt.
the thing that gnawed at me the whole time was "I could have had fun here if i wasn't ham-stringed by the Scaling system." Unless i work another character up to 70, i am denied the experience of the whole map.
Before you go, 'another person whining about scaling' remember your words in the Q&A stream " We weren't listening the way we should be." and " We were laser focused on small instances and missed the big picture."
Don't continue to do the same thing. Don't wonder just start thinking icewind dale, don't think of the area, think big picture. The scaling system is detrimental to player enjoyment as implemented.
When adjusting players, they should be brought down to the upper power range of the max level for the area. If it is a level 70 area, the level 71-80 players should be at the upper stat levels of a level 70 if not slightly above.
EQUALIZE NOT PENALIZE should be the philosophy, the goal, and the practice. And it must be applied big picture.
I believe you when you say you want to make things right so please prove all those that say you don't care, wrong.
Ego etiam cupo recrari et amari diu post mortem meam I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,090Arc User
So why should content with 10 levels beneath you, should be easy? Currently older content doesnt look to me to be way more difficult than new content. You can apply ur logic everywhere you want that. The point of being scaled down is to make content difficult, you have a problem with content being difficult? I dont have a problem with that, also even if my stats will not be capped, i still dont hv a problem with that, so what is your problem with lvl 70 content? If u once again mention progression, i will again repeat to you that the game stopped having progression ever since m6. By any means the game is/will be better than m15, and i will tell you and everyone in here that is being pissed, the only reason you guys are pissed is bcuz since m6 till m15 the game nurtured a lazy and brain dead style that alot of these players that started inbetween m6 and m15 cant adapt to m16, or they do not want.
All i can say is that developers are doing a good job, i do wish for them to keep communicating with those that actually want to make the game better, but i understand why they do not want to reply much on the forum, some will twist them words for controversy. I ve seen happenin with @asterdahl even thou he done a impressive job , not many were reading all of his posts. Anyway currently the main problem are the following: content difficulty, rewards and AD sinks.
If u care that much about gettin the perfect stats to nullify the counter stat, you should play another game.
Also another thing to note about lvl 70 and lvl 80 is that it makes class balance better, as some classes will perfom better in lvl 70 and some in lvl 80. I like it.
Easy? I didn't say that. Harder than what a level 80 is geared for and doing in level 80 zones? Asinine comes to mind.
One class performing better at 70 and another class performing better at 80 isn't "balance". Balance is two different characters doing a comparable job if their roles are the same and their gear is roughly equivalent.
the process of developing or moving gradually towards a more advanced state.
Something currently lacking in the game.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
And when you 1000 times repeat, that scaling is good, we players dont feel so. Accept that and period.
So as player you have 2 choices, complain till something MEANINGFULL change or leave. Most have choosen the leave option or are very short before that decision.
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tassedethe13Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 806Arc User
And when you 1000 times repeat, that scaling is good, we players dont feel so. Accept that and period.
So as player you have 2 choices, complain till something MEANINGFULL change or leave. Most have choosen the leave option or are very short before that decision.
> Said it before elsewhere, at no point should content we've leveled past be more difficult than content we are at level for.
Why? Thats not progression, and why people want content to be easy, i understand wanting rewards.. but the content old and new should be HARD. Thatd what neverwinter is about! Neverwinter was the best from mod 0 till mod 3, we need difficult Dungeons and rewards, as for stats i dont really care if u dont hit the caps or not, like seriously its a small problem.
LOL so they based this whole fiasco on what this ONE player wants and then wonder why the walls come crashing down around them.
> @barbie#2808 said: > You guys can react with LOL as much as you want, people like me the minority already done it, we pushed our feedback, and we got changes, game feels 10x better than m15, and this just proves one thing, none of you were caring about the game between m6 till m16, the developers and Thomas realized the game is goin to perish without these changes, its just a matter of time you guys to learn somethin besides the braindead gameplay that was in m15.. all i see are just stubborn ppl.. the more of LoLs i get, the more this proves my point. Just a fyi i played with eachone of you ingame, and even in m15 u guys had a learn to play issue, m16 os prpblably flyin way above ur head. So again just stop discouraging devs on doing their job.
Troll, why one of your other threads spreading the love for this mod and telling people to like it and "git gud" got moved to the trolling threads.
You guys can react with LOL as much as you want, people like me the minority already done it, we pushed our feedback, and we got changes, game feels 10x better than m15, and this just proves one thing, none of you were caring about the game between m6 till m16, the developers and Thomas realized the game is goin to perish without these changes, its just a matter of time you guys to learn somethin besides the braindead gameplay that was in m15.. all i see are just stubborn ppl.. the more of LoLs i get, the more this proves my point. Just a fyi i played with eachone of you ingame, and even in m15 u guys had a learn to play issue, m16 os prpblably flyin way above ur head. So again just stop discouraging devs on doing their job.
I'm not sure if there is a language issue here or not, but you don't appear able to grasp the difference between "progress" and "difficulty"
You say progress did not exist in the game between mod's 6 and 15. That is demonstrably incorrect. For example, when FBI first dropped it was a tricky dungeon to pug, a few mods later as most peoples Chars. had more boons, better gear, enchants etc FBI had become easy to pug. A few more mods down the road and i was happily soloing FBI without any difficulty. That is clear proven evidence that progression did exist between Mods 6 and 15, so that side of your argument is not up for debate, you are factually incorrect.
Does progress exist in Mod 16? I guess we wont know for sure until all the bugs are ironed out, but whilst ever the game utilises a system where the content gets harder the more powerful you get we are seeing regression not progression. Taking the same FBI example (and trying to ignore the fact its currently bugged and the mechanics are not working so you get a party wipe even if you hide behind the ice) we are now back to a point where soloing it is impossible and unless you're very lucky its practically impossible to to pug queue as well. Again a clear factual example of progression ending.
Now difficulty is another matter all together, and in truth its unlikely the entire player base will ever agree on how difficult the game should be. Some people relish challenges that test them to their limit and take pleasure in completing content others can't. Others view the game as being far more leisurely and don't have easy access strong groups and want to be able to complete content in a reasonable time without too many frustrations via pug queues. The Dev's job is to try and find the balance and try and provide for all throughout the game without leaving people feel excluded.
My view is that the last few dungeons should be difficult to suit the players wanting a challenge, probably more difficult than they have been historically as good premades have always been able to crush any unbugged content almost as soon as its been released, and the rest of the content should be reasonably easy to complete for casual pug groups. And this is where progress kicks in, because if you release content to satisfy the elite, that's fine for a while but within a few mods you need the majority of the rest of the player base to have progressed to a point where they can rely on being over geared to get through the dungeon, whilst of course the elites have moved onto whatever the latest content is.
Under the current scaling system if they release a really difficult dungeon in one mod, that might be ok for the elite's they'll be able to complete it. The problem comes in a few mods time, when the casual player base still cant complete it because any progress they have made on their character will immediately be negated by the scaling. Meanwhile the elites will have moved onto the latest content so that dungeon will become unused.
And this is why your argument is ill thought out and contradictory to your own expressed views. For the future of the game you can't have universally really hard content and scaling in its current format, because that would mean only the top players in premades could complete any of the content, and all the average, casual, pug reliant players would not be able to run anything, and given that group makes up by far the largest portion of the player base, the Dev's cant drive them away.
The alternative with scaling as it is is to make all the content universally completable by anyone who meets the IL and joins a pug queue, which would drive away the players looking for a challenge.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but you appear to be arguing both sides of the coin. On one hand you're defending scaling and claiming its for the good of the game, whilst on the other your claiming you want the game to be as hard as possible but also claiming progression is only now being introduced. Given the very nature of progression means content eventually has to become easy, your arguments are extremely confusing and contradictory, and intentional or not just come across as being deliberately antagonising with no rational.
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micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
"Like i said, progression in ur language means killing everythin and finishing the content in just under 10 min"
And here we have the problem laid bare, in no ones language does progression mean this. Progression, as has been pointed out to you several times means improving your toon.
Youre still talking about difficulty, which no one else on this thread is complaining about outside the peramitors of the broken scaling, and until you understand this its not really worth debating with you.
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demonmongerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,350Arc User
And i thought I remember players saying the game was too easy.... same ones saying game is too hard now?
I dont mind the difficulty.. but I dont like the combat in certain areas now...
Example throne of the dwarven blah.. playing that skirmish made me feel so much anxiety as I waited for my cc cooldowns to reset and try to keep the golems off the clerics that were praying... I was nothing short of super annoyed. Some of these skirmishes were designed for faster cooldowns and the new system cant keep up. Even when you have clothing that reduces encounter cooldowns by 1 second every 5 seconds....
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I hate paying taxes! Why must I pay thousands of dollars in taxes when everything I buy is taxed anyways!
Nothing about fixing the HP Boons or companions that give HP which neither do. I have personally sent it in several times with no response and yet no fix or nothing. This has been happening since release as well as other things.
You say progress did not exist in the game between mod's 6 and 15. That is demonstrably incorrect. For example, when FBI first dropped it was a tricky dungeon to pug, a few mods later as most peoples Chars. had more boons, better gear, enchants etc FBI had become easy to pug. A few more mods down the road and i was happily soloing FBI without any difficulty. That is clear proven evidence that progression did exist between Mods 6 and 15, so that side of your argument is not up for debate, you are factually incorrect.
@benyr - I belive you still cant get that what you typed above is exactly the reason we have MOD 16.
It was not a progression - it was constant ruining a game to the point where there was no reason adding any new content as all that was trivialised any way. I have seen Ras Nisi being killed in 4 seconds from start of combat - 1 month after release, I was a member of the party finishing FBI under 12 minutes without ice melting exploit.
And finaly it went to a point where there was no progression any more- well unless you call a progression a new set of gear that did not in fact was changing a thing - no matter what new content was added BIS premades was able to tear that apart in 15 minutes unless there was a bug or mechanic preventing that.
And of top of that we were cursing a bad drops... really?
NOW - dont get me wrong here - I hate scalling in a form it is implemented today - as I stated above it should be content side not player side scalling - players would be left with choice what difficulty they want and proper rearwards should follow those - that would kept players happy, there would be not only a progression but - what is far more important - a reason to put your effort in progression - and on top of that it would not left large parts of content abandoned - in short - completly opposite to what we have now.
And the best part is - devs already had that system on trials with introduction of MOD 15 hard core options for a dungeons, Why they dicided to abandon it instead of developing/implementing it is a mystery to me...
@gripnir78 hi there, i think your effectively saying the same as i was, youve just misconstrued what my example was intended to show. My bad if it was unclearly worded.
It was showing progression did exist up to mod 15 as toons became measurably stronger .
It was not intended as a comment on how difficult the game should be. The problem we had up to mod 15 was progression meant turning a slightly tricky dungeon for a well geared player into a no brainer easy coast through in no time. And i whole heartedly agree the dungeons should not get that easy that quick. What i would like to see is a progression from a very hard dungeon that challanges anyone, gradually overtime become easier so that eventually the whole playerbase can enjoy it, and i dont really mind whether this is done by "correct" scaling or gradual reasonable power creep over a respectable period of time.
The problem we have with the current scaling is that a dungeon realeased today is X hard. Due to scaling regardless if what you do to your toon it will still be X hard in 6 months and still be X hard in 5 years.
This might sound great, but where do you pitch a difficulty level that never changes. The playerbase has a huge range of player abilities from elites in high end guilds running in elite premade groups, to players who may not be as good (may have dissabilities affecting reaction times etc), are guildless and rely on pug groups.
If you pitch at the top end you keep the top pkayers happy, but no one else will be able to run the dungeon, ever. Realistically you have to pitch on the easy side to satisfy the majority of the playerbase, but that will upset the top players and results in the dungeons being way too easy.
The only solution to keep everyone happy is to vary the difficulty of the dungeon, either by gradually making it easier or allowing players to gradually improve.
And that gets back to my main gripe about mod 16, the scaling is horrifically implemented and in its current format will either be the direct cause of making the game too easy to suit the masses, or driving the masses away and killing the game. Difficulty its self is not the issue, the inability to vary the difficulty currently due to the scaling is.
Comments
> I am on the last house of Fires of Homes quest
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> I am a level 42 Therm Wizard and the quest is level 35. All my gear is around 150 IL.
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> I have tried the quest many times with my Sellsword and my Man-At-Arms. Every time it is near instant death when the moment I zone in. I have tried different builds, I have tried shields, potions, everytime I am dead when I zone in within 2 seconds.
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> I have tried waiting for other players to come around so we can do it together, but so far I have not seen anybody in the zone.
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> I am unable to speak with other players, so I cannot ask for help.
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> I cannot unlock speech, bacuase the questline I am on needs to be passed in order to progress in the zone.
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> I already paid for VIP, I refuse to buy Scrolls of Life to pass a quest that is holding up my progress.
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> Really at quite a loss as to what I should do...
@mimicking#6533 Found this on another section of the forum, so your scaling mechanism which is only bugged not outright wrong, and youve made great progress in addressing us not only hammering the + level 70 players but alsothe brand new ones your trying to attract. Bravo, starts a slow clap.
Tom, just one question:
WHY ON EARTH DID YOU START SCALLING SYSTEM FROM PLAYERS SIDE INSTEAD OF CONTENT?
Wouldnt be easier/better to give players a few levels of difficulty followed with different levels of rewards?
With newest content avilable always as hardest possible level?
That would left our progress intact, that would actually encouraged players to progress their toons.
And if your new mechanic really WAI it would be so easy to just adjust dungeons ratings....
But no, you had to hamster that up.....
"This module 16 done way more to help players than you think". I would really, really like you to elaborate on this. What exactly has M16 done to help players? Refinement streak break? Yes, I agree, but that's not what people complain about. What else?
On the other side, they made the content way more difficult for the majority of players (yeah, BiS don't have more difficulties, but average Joe does). No lifesteal anymore, a really harsh (broken) scaling, everything takes longer, etc.
"Game isn't as grindy or p2w as before". What exactly makes you think that? To get the expedition stuff and Alabaster set, you need to grind the expeditions. To restore the 965 relic gear and the 1010 successor gear you need billions of runes, dozen and dozen of hours grinding mindlessly the runic HE. There are a new rank on enchantements and enhancements. There are whole new sets of artifacts and artifact gear. And cherry on top, the ZAX went from 1:500 to 1:750.
How exactly is that not as grindy or p2w than before? If anything, I just find it MORE grindy and p2w than before.
"Thats something that needs to be acknowledged, the devs are doin their best to save the game." The devs, surely. The design lead? Doesn't seem to. When your community claims all at once that the scaling concept is broken, incoherent, induces a negative progression, and you don't have any comment on that... It doesn't seem the leader is really doing is best to save the game. The devs get the blame too easily, I agree, and they shouldn't. It's the leader, that takes decisions, that should be accused.
"If devs ignore 80% of the feedback, i really don't know whst to say, i think the community is the one that is not listening, its a big problem"
They currently have ignored 100% of the feedback, considering they don't even understand the community questions and concerns about scaling on their Q&A stream. Really makes me think about that
Since coalgate and keygate, the scaling is the only topic where you can see ALL feedback oriented in the same direction: it's bad, bad concept wrongly implemented. No game ever should punish their players for becoming stronger. And it's precisely what the current scaling is doing.
In other words: It is a game - it is supposed to be fun
And, sadly, that's where your design and implementation of scaling failed...the bottom line is that overall you made the game less fun for a very large number of players and now you are facing the consequences of the decisions that were made.
Yes, there were parts of the game that were too easy before, but the way that problem was approached was fundamentally wrong. I am not talking about outright bugs which made certain content simply impossible. I am not talking about your serious QC problems which allowed such issues to slip through. No, here are some of the issues caused by how scaling was implemented:
- A player leveling up might make the mistake of playing during a 2xExp weekend, using enchants or a guild XP bonus, or in some other way gain so much XP that he outlevels the area he is in and the quests he is doing. This may result in him being punished by scaling him down to the point where he has no chance of even continuing the main questline. This is just wrong. I have said it before, but IMO Anyone who thinks it is OK to punish players for progressing should not be allowed anywhere near game design.
- A BiS L80 player may have reached cap (or "maximum efficiency") on most stats, but when going into lower-level areas, the stats are typically way below the comparable numbers for those areas. This may result in the lower-level content feeling harder than the high-end content. How anyone can think this is "a good thing" is beyond me, in particular when you consider a high-level BiS player may be less efficient than a "level-appropriate" player with decent (but not BiS) gear. This is just wrong - it destroys any sense of progression. Seriously - what does the low-level player have to look forward to?
- With scaling partially implemented by "capping" items - like downgrading R15 and R10 enchants down to the same level you take away a good deal of the motivation to progress through gear improvements. You also take away the motivation for players to obtain high-end item or to buy wards and such to rank up what they have. Once again, this is a game, not a Swedish tax system simulator. Many of us do not like having our hard-earned stuff taken away like this.
- With scaling, lower-level content becomes more challenging. To some degree that is fine - some of it was way too easy earlier. However, it seems to me that people forgot to consider various aspects. First, there is the issue of reward/effort Would you work twice as hard at your job without any extra compensation? No? Well, why should we? Giving the same rewards for increased effort may work on a rat in a Skinner cage, but it does not work very well for gamers. Challenge, just for its own sake is not desired by everyone.
Now, I am sure you have some metrics, like average number of players, player retention, average playing time per day, average $$$ spent on Zen per day. I do not know what those numbers look like, but I would expect you got a spike last month when Mod 16 was released and a steady downward trend since then - a downtrend that is more serious than you anticipated.The main reason, I'm sorry to say, is that it looks like the company has totally lost sight of what motivates players, or even makes them enjoy the game. You really need to go back to the basics.
All this comes on top of some really bad design decisions in Mod 16 - taking away the initial ability rolls, dumbing down character creation and limiting different playstyles, reducing the effectiveness of gear that players work hard to get and so on.
Finally, there is a large number of small decisions - none of which are game-breaking on their own, but taken together they give the impression that the designers and developers really don't care about the players and their experience....just a few examples:
- Making cute vanity pets, but making them BtC, so people get stuck with unwanted duplicates. BtA would have been better, unbound would have been best...would be nice to get some worthwhile drops to sell for once.
- Making high-end companion gear almost mandatory - giving people a chance to get the three pieces they want, but setting things up so that if you play in a group, only one gets the reward - the others are permanently blocked from getting it, or making people losing out on one of the items if they miss one relic - without ever warning them....and then not providing any way to go back or earn equivalent gear in any way.
- Making Alabaster weapons available, but gated behind RNG, so some people get their pieces in the first week, but others get 4xoffhand and are still waiting for the mainhand.
- Putting Spy guild pants and shirts in the collection page, but seemingly forgetting to give them to the vendor to sell
- Making the armor bonuses on the highest-end gear (successor) so bad that people will actually prefer lower-IL pieces like those that drop in MEs
- ...etc...etc..
Are you surprised why many players are annoyed and feel like there is a serious communication failure and that nobody really cares about the player experience? Again, I think you are missing the point - see the issues I raised above. Sure, some players are complaining about not feeling like demigods, but I believe the majority is willing to accept that some scaling is just fine - things were, quite frankly, getting silly. What many of us have an issue with are the specific points I mentioned above. Almost, but not quite. Consider the rewards of the challenge campaigns. You can get an Enchanting Stone, a Mark of Potency or companion tokens - and if you need those things they have a value of maybe 60.000 AD per week (but as they are bound, they are pretty much worthless if you have ranked up everything already). You also get the "bonus campaign" currency - worthwhile if you are still doing some of the campaigns, otherwise they might still have a small value, as you can possibly turn them in for guild marks, which do have some value (smaller than it used to be, after you killed off professions, though). Now, this is what I was talking about earlier regarding the reward/effort ratio. If I am doing a Challenge Campaign, I would consider it fair to face a bit of an extra challenge if get a bit of extra rewards.So, no....I have not heard anyone actually complain about the concept of the Challenge Campaigns as such. What people intensly dislike about them is the fact that inadequate QC let a number of issues slip through (like scaling in Maze Engine).
The Challenge campaigns are fine - if you had said "When doing challenge Campaigns you will be downscaled severly, below the typical level of a player normally doing the content", I think people really wouldn't have minded - extra effort, yes, but extra rewards.
But...
The real issue is that the downscaling does not just apply to players doing the Challenge campaigns - It also applies to someone who reached 80 without completing many (if any) of the earlier campaigns. Such a player will get downscaled too - perhaps below his ability to do the content in the first place. He needs the "extra effort", but does not get the "extra reward".
The same applies to players running the random queues for rAD. (Those few that actually are working). The random queues used to be worth the effort, considering the rewards. Now, the effort has been increased significantly, while the reward stays the same. In fact, the rewards are worse than before because some of the drops are worth much less than they used to be - companion gear from IG, for example.
There is another drawback. Players are not seeing any effort to control the bot population, and the "kicking" mechanism is fundamentally broken. True "random" queues are now much more likely to fail than before because of the extra difficulty. This basically encourages players to only run them with premade groups, which leaves "newbies" out in the cold, facing one failed run after another.
Those players are not likely to hang around for long - they will uninstall and warn their friends not to install this broken mess. (Their words, not mine).
Levelling up now triggers scaling, which means in the same gear you become less proficient. So, if the level-up is technically a deadly curse that cannot be countered, avoided or even lifted, should it not get properly terrifying animation?
I recommend removing scaling for a week or two and see how the game population reacts to it. Monitor the game and maybe in the future add scaling back once you work all the kinks out of it.
I was heading to Icewind dale to experience the content while i was still level 70. I wanted to experience it the way it was intended.
While in town, i leveled up while talking to the quest givers. The level up fanfare went off and instead of joy i felt anger and disappointment. The option to experience even one quest in the Icewind valley without being punished for progressing was just denied to me. There is something fantastically wrong with progression when leveling up makes a player disappointed. the whole time i explored the area i felt weak, penalized and railroaded. My attacks did little to no damage, I avoided fights instead of gleefully seeking them out, i skirted encounters and if any of the Barbarians caught sight of me i knew that was the end, i would be slaughtered and have to skirt encounters all over again so i could get enough black ice to buy a freaken shirt.
the thing that gnawed at me the whole time was "I could have had fun here if i wasn't ham-stringed by the Scaling system."
Unless i work another character up to 70, i am denied the experience of the whole map.
Before you go, 'another person whining about scaling' remember your words in the Q&A stream " We weren't listening the way we should be." and " We were laser focused on small instances and missed the big picture."
Don't continue to do the same thing. Don't wonder just start thinking icewind dale, don't think of the area, think big picture. The scaling system is detrimental to player enjoyment as implemented.
When adjusting players, they should be brought down to the upper power range of the max level for the area. If it is a level 70 area, the level 71-80 players should be at the upper stat levels of a level 70 if not slightly above.
EQUALIZE NOT PENALIZE should be the philosophy, the goal, and the practice. And it must be applied big picture.
I believe you when you say you want to make things right so please prove all those that say you don't care, wrong.
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
One class performing better at 70 and another class performing better at 80 isn't "balance". Balance is two different characters doing a comparable job if their roles are the same and their gear is roughly equivalent.
pro·gres·sion
/prəˈɡreSHən/
noun
noun: progression
the process of developing or moving gradually towards a more advanced state.
Something currently lacking in the game.
So as player you have 2 choices, complain till something MEANINGFULL change or leave.
Most have choosen the leave option or are very short before that decision.
slow clap...
> You guys can react with LOL as much as you want, people like me the minority already done it, we pushed our feedback, and we got changes, game feels 10x better than m15, and this just proves one thing, none of you were caring about the game between m6 till m16, the developers and Thomas realized the game is goin to perish without these changes, its just a matter of time you guys to learn somethin besides the braindead gameplay that was in m15.. all i see are just stubborn ppl.. the more of LoLs i get, the more this proves my point. Just a fyi i played with eachone of you ingame, and even in m15 u guys had a learn to play issue, m16 os prpblably flyin way above ur head. So again just stop discouraging devs on doing their job.
Troll, why one of your other threads spreading the love for this mod and telling people to like it and "git gud" got moved to the trolling threads.
You say progress did not exist in the game between mod's 6 and 15. That is demonstrably incorrect. For example, when FBI first dropped it was a tricky dungeon to pug, a few mods later as most peoples Chars. had more boons, better gear, enchants etc FBI had become easy to pug. A few more mods down the road and i was happily soloing FBI without any difficulty. That is clear proven evidence that progression did exist between Mods 6 and 15, so that side of your argument is not up for debate, you are factually incorrect.
Does progress exist in Mod 16? I guess we wont know for sure until all the bugs are ironed out, but whilst ever the game utilises a system where the content gets harder the more powerful you get we are seeing regression not progression. Taking the same FBI example (and trying to ignore the fact its currently bugged and the mechanics are not working so you get a party wipe even if you hide behind the ice) we are now back to a point where soloing it is impossible and unless you're very lucky its practically impossible to to pug queue as well. Again a clear factual example of progression ending.
Now difficulty is another matter all together, and in truth its unlikely the entire player base will ever agree on how difficult the game should be. Some people relish challenges that test them to their limit and take pleasure in completing content others can't. Others view the game as being far more leisurely and don't have easy access strong groups and want to be able to complete content in a reasonable time without too many frustrations via pug queues. The Dev's job is to try and find the balance and try and provide for all throughout the game without leaving people feel excluded.
My view is that the last few dungeons should be difficult to suit the players wanting a challenge, probably more difficult than they have been historically as good premades have always been able to crush any unbugged content almost as soon as its been released, and the rest of the content should be reasonably easy to complete for casual pug groups. And this is where progress kicks in, because if you release content to satisfy the elite, that's fine for a while but within a few mods you need the majority of the rest of the player base to have progressed to a point where they can rely on being over geared to get through the dungeon, whilst of course the elites have moved onto whatever the latest content is.
Under the current scaling system if they release a really difficult dungeon in one mod, that might be ok for the elite's they'll be able to complete it. The problem comes in a few mods time, when the casual player base still cant complete it because any progress they have made on their character will immediately be negated by the scaling. Meanwhile the elites will have moved onto the latest content so that dungeon will become unused.
And this is why your argument is ill thought out and contradictory to your own expressed views. For the future of the game you can't have universally really hard content and scaling in its current format, because that would mean only the top players in premades could complete any of the content, and all the average, casual, pug reliant players would not be able to run anything, and given that group makes up by far the largest portion of the player base, the Dev's cant drive them away.
The alternative with scaling as it is is to make all the content universally completable by anyone who meets the IL and joins a pug queue, which would drive away the players looking for a challenge.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but you appear to be arguing both sides of the coin. On one hand you're defending scaling and claiming its for the good of the game, whilst on the other your claiming you want the game to be as hard as possible but also claiming progression is only now being introduced. Given the very nature of progression means content eventually has to become easy, your arguments are extremely confusing and contradictory, and intentional or not just come across as being deliberately antagonising with no rational.
And here we have the problem laid bare, in no ones language does progression mean this. Progression, as has been pointed out to you several times means improving your toon.
Youre still talking about difficulty, which no one else on this thread is complaining about outside the peramitors of the broken scaling, and until you understand this its not really worth debating with you.
I dont mind the difficulty.. but I dont like the combat in certain areas now...
Example throne of the dwarven blah.. playing that skirmish made me feel so much anxiety as I waited for my cc cooldowns to reset and try to keep the golems off the clerics that were praying... I was nothing short of super annoyed. Some of these skirmishes were designed for faster cooldowns and the new system cant keep up. Even when you have clothing that reduces encounter cooldowns by 1 second every 5 seconds....
It was not a progression - it was constant ruining a game to the point where there was no reason adding any new content as all that was trivialised any way. I have seen Ras Nisi being killed in 4 seconds from start of combat - 1 month after release, I was a member of the party finishing FBI under 12 minutes without ice melting exploit.
And finaly it went to a point where there was no progression any more- well unless you call a progression a new set of gear that did not in fact was changing a thing - no matter what new content was added BIS premades was able to tear that apart in 15 minutes unless there was a bug or mechanic preventing that.
And of top of that we were cursing a bad drops... really?
NOW - dont get me wrong here - I hate scalling in a form it is implemented today - as I stated above it should be content side not player side scalling - players would be left with choice what difficulty they want and proper rearwards should follow those - that would kept players happy, there would be not only a progression but - what is far more important - a reason to put your effort in progression - and on top of that it would not left large parts of content abandoned - in short - completly opposite to what we have now.
And the best part is - devs already had that system on trials with introduction of MOD 15 hard core options for a dungeons, Why they dicided to abandon it instead of developing/implementing it is a mystery to me...
It was showing progression did exist up to mod 15 as toons became measurably stronger .
It was not intended as a comment on how difficult the game should be. The problem we had up to mod 15 was progression meant turning a slightly tricky dungeon for a well geared player into a no brainer easy coast through in no time. And i whole heartedly agree the dungeons should not get that easy that quick. What i would like to see is a progression from a very hard dungeon that challanges anyone, gradually overtime become easier so that eventually the whole playerbase can enjoy it, and i dont really mind whether this is done by "correct" scaling or gradual reasonable power creep over a respectable period of time.
The problem we have with the current scaling is that a dungeon realeased today is X hard. Due to scaling regardless if what you do to your toon it will still be X hard in 6 months and still be X hard in 5 years.
This might sound great, but where do you pitch a difficulty level that never changes. The playerbase has a huge range of player abilities from elites in high end guilds running in elite premade groups, to players who may not be as good (may have dissabilities affecting reaction times etc), are guildless and rely on pug groups.
If you pitch at the top end you keep the top pkayers happy, but no one else will be able to run the dungeon, ever. Realistically you have to pitch on the easy side to satisfy the majority of the playerbase, but that will upset the top players and results in the dungeons being way too easy.
The only solution to keep everyone happy is to vary the difficulty of the dungeon, either by gradually making it easier or allowing players to gradually improve.
And that gets back to my main gripe about mod 16, the scaling is horrifically implemented and in its current format will either be the direct cause of making the game too easy to suit the masses, or driving the masses away and killing the game. Difficulty its self is not the issue, the inability to vary the difficulty currently due to the scaling is.