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Solos: April 7th stream take away attempt 3
bpstuart
Member Posts: 236 Arc User
Edit: Twitch has deleted the recording.
This is the 3rd attempt. I keep HAMSTER up and getting the post nuked by trying to edit mistakes.
TL;DR version: Patches will lighten the stress on the solos. It will improve, but yes there is some mild solo hostility.
Here is the stream to view for yourself.
One of my constant concerns was Solo play of neverwinter. So i will attempt to sum up things that will effect that aspect because i am not the only one.
( ) in Cyan text will indicate my thoughts while non-parentheticals indicate paraphrasing or summation of the stream info.
My take aways from this concerning soloing is: They wanted to make it harder to solo but went too far.
According to foss;
1.Healing companions are indeed broken and are under performing. This will likely be fixed but he was not sure if it is this update. This is brought up at the 33 minute mark.
2. Potions are being being pushed because they thought we weren't using them enough. ( but i am not sure if their lack luster healing is intentional or also under performing. )
3. The scaling was not working as intended ( this is discussed at the 9:50 time stamp and continues for a few minutes ) this will likely be addressed on the 5/9/19 Thursday patch.
4. Foss spoke fondly of instances of non team inter player cooperation he witnessed after Mod16's launch. "It is and MMO" he states at the 34 minute mark. "Drive by healings" he called them are something he and Julia praised. ( what he neglects to realize was this has always been my experience. The old dynamic i grew used to was healing randos was fine but not to interfere with their battles as they were trying to gather the XP for themselves and progress. Healing was always welcomed but not kill stealing. I have been chastised harshly for helping in the past so stuck to Random healing instead of Damage output ) He also lauded DPS wading into help other people in their battles (Something that was not always welcomed in previous modules. I am not sure what the Mod 16 attitude around this is yet) Foss seems to want to encourage cooperation. ( To me Their method comes off as punitive or coercing cooperation when many of us want to do our own thing. )
5. The weakening of powers and increased cooldowns were another method to make us work together. ( Again, coercive method. I would prefer encouraging it through enticing advantages like extra gold, gear or bonus experience for cooperation instead of weakening players. )
6. When asked directly about increased difficulty for solos at 35:17 mark they waffled saying a little but reiterated that it is an MMO ( This suggests that solo capability is secondary concern to them )
7. PvP was mentioned at 38:30 and they expressed great enthusiasm ( From what i have been hearing PvP is a far smaller portion of the community than Solo play. I suspect they are putting in efforts to bolster this aspect and some of their methods have negatively impacted Soloability )
Over all, it does feel like they were indeed putting the squeeze to the Solos but took it too far or their methods were not working as intended. Yes this is an MMO, but not all of us play socially at all times. I joined in early 2014 or late 2013 and had a few freinds that also played. They abandoned the game for WoW or other games. I was the one who stuck around and have not been able to convince otheer freinds to join. I have actually received mild derision for continuing to support this game and now the game is feeling less welcoming. Not sure how long i will stay.
It isn't the end of the world, but i loose nothing in trying to improve things.
Ego etiam cupo recrari et amari diu post mortem meam
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
Post edited by bpstuart on
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Comments
As for actual "solo" content. I consider it in a "good place" right now...not too hard, not too easy. Do you disagree ?
The reward for completing content is not all that great and not worth players time to invest for so little in return.
IMO add legendary mounts to the chest, bound to account on pick up, and other more valuable sought after rewards.
Make group play worth my while, while still leaving me a fun solo experience instead of leaving me frustrated when alone then by all accounts rewards that are just shy of a slap to the face if i do group up.
And i have tried grouping up before in this game. I was received poorly to say the least.
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
The Undermountain campaign is entirely solo content.
0 Rune Master Expeditions are solo content that will gear you up so that,
1 Rune Master Expeditions are solo content. At 1 Rune you can readily make 8k AD 3x a day, for 24K AD without the help of a single other player.
This will be slower than if you get 1 or 2 people to come with you, but it is solo content.
With the gear you now have, including Spy gear you can buy with currency earnt in MEs, and even some new Artifacts you can run IWD, WoD, and Sharandar that I have tested.
You can run RLQ for another 10k RAD a day.
So even with 1 toon, and 2-3 hours a day you can make 34+ k AD, and get good gear.
Yes RIQ and RAQ are not playable at this time, but that’s not just affecting solo players.
So what is it you mean by “solo”?
Because I think when Cryptic sees it they are thinking about people soloing group content, and what I see when I read your posts is a confusing mix of ideas that leaves me unsure what you mean.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
The things i complained about were applicable to both. Both in Leveling zones and in queued content i have seen pace and performance of my character suffer. Healing was ineffective in combat and my powers were weak across the board. Which is what i focused on in my post. I will try to be more particular in future.
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
Scaling IMO runs all the effort players put into building up their characters. Scaling can have places in MMO, this includes seasonal or special events and typically a good design is you scale players up to a certain point to make them more effective vs. scaling players down to strip them of all the efforts they put into their character.
When a game does scale players downward, content needs to be easy so that it doesn't take long to complete.
If I wanted to play a challenging game I would play a solo player game on the hardest setting, Dark Souls, etc... anything where the point and goal of the game is to provide me a challenge.
In MMOs you have to design the game around your weakest point. Usually end game players are not that and designing the game to challenging for an end game player is asking for the game to be shut down or highly adjusted later on.
I recommend Foss picks up the phone contacts Jack Emmert. Jack may help Foss understand how scaling works and how it should be implemented. DCUO does some scaling but they learned from their mistakes when they took a stab at back in 2015 which was they starting to scale players downward. When Jack became head for DCUO it changes and scaling in zones scaled players stats upward. So a level 10 player going into a newly released open world area would be scaled up to say 210 gear score if that is the low entry point in that zone.
ESO does the same thing, the whole game is scale but it is scale at 160 CP level and players who get more become more powerful over time. That scaling also works as players are able to acquire additional CP to improve their character, have unique gear sets, etc... they have buff/damage abilities... I mean ESO current state other than how they scale is more how NWO was in mod 15.
NWO is a casual player game, I mean you allow players to buy their way to end game. Now those same players that buy their way to end game are penalized by not seeing their character improve when in lower zone. Yeah that makes perfect sense in design, punish your paying customers. It is like going into a car dealership buying a Ferrari and than finding out when you get home because of where you live you end up with a Ford Mustang. If I paid $100K+ for a car or spent time saving to buy it I better be able to us said car where I wish to go. NWO is not like that, instead some days you get a 1980 Escort, or Hyundai that is broken or unreliable. Other days depending where you go you may get a Mustang or your actual Ferrari, so buyer beware...
For the love of this game and what it could be, just remove scaling please. You already removed most of the buffing/debuff and that should have been enough to balance out the game. Players still want to have a sense of progression, so give it to us.