> > And as a long time Dark Souls player, yeah it can be hard and frustrating but there are a lot of ways to mitigate that via the flexibility of gear (you are not stuck with one weapon), tactics etc. Plus for all intents and purposes, Dark Souls is a single player game that allows some Jolly Cooperation. The game is made to be difficult but not because of issues with the mechanics of the game.
> >
> > Nw is more frustrating that you are locked in to certain things so harder to adapt playing solo and like any mmo with random pairings, that can vary wildly. And you are very much at the mercy of the game mechanics and the constant
>
> I am a long time mmorpg and rpg player. There is a difference between hard and broken.
>
> I recommend people who think what I am saying is incorrect to start a new account where you have nothing and level a char.
> Its like an insult to players. Mobs are just to op and they like it like that so you will spend money in the cash shop. Leveling in this game used to be so fun. Now its just dying over and over.
>
> Maybe share what seems to be the problem so we can try to help. Specifics would be good.
>
>
>
> Here is a good reddit thread, this person explains it perfectly.
> Leveling for new players is so terrible. I am trying to push through because i really like the guild I joined and the truth is a game is secondary to a good group of people to play with.
>
>
>
> The reddit poster doesn't give a lot of info to go on, either. It's hard to help people when their stated issues are as vague as "It takes too long to kill things." Casual is fine and even healthy, but when someone takes over a month of regular play, even if only one or two hours a day, just to get one character to level 40, you know their experience is not representative and that they probably are not leveraging community resources like guilds and forums.
>
> It's easy to complain, and all of us do from time to time, but if someone actually wants to be helped instead of simply to vent, they should start with something a little more concrete. There's a fair onus on the developers to make the game accessible, but players do bear some responsibility for learning their characters and playing reasonably well.
>
> My personal experience since MOD 16:
>
> FYI - I am not the greatest player, but I have not had a problem playing and raiding in most every mainstream MMO that has been out over the past 20 years.
>
> Questing:
>
> At the end of each questline I have played so far, even the short ones, you are required to enter a solo instance, kill some mobs and kill a boss type creature. Every single one I have come across is completely broken. This started with Karzog and continued consistently for me, I just started Elemental Evil quests and after spending a half hour on the first quest dying over and over and over, I went out and spent 60,000 AD on gear, which made it at least doable. My gear before hand was all level 60.
>
> My closest comparrison would be trying to solo five man dungeons in WoW when they are at your current level. That is how I feel whenever I need to finish a quest in Mod 16.
>
> Getting groups is difficult because I am not permitted to chat and new players are not all over the place. I can't get chat because the quests that unlock it are not soloable. Even when I am 10 levels higher with decent gear.
>
> In these quest instances, the sheer amount of mobs that zerg you, the fact they take almost no damage, heal insanely fast and respawn the moment they die makes questing miserable if not near impossible.
>
> Dungeons:
>
> Random Dungeons have been my main source of XP, As I run a new dungeon every minute. Here is how it works:
> * Random Queue for Dungeon
>
> * Get Illusion Dungeon 10 seconds
>
> * Start Dungeon 10 seconds
>
> * Group is wiped 5 - 30 seconds (yes we try our best everytime)
>
> * Game ends dungeon and gives 700 to 1200 XP - 10 seconds
>
> * Rinse and repeat
>
>
> I will get illusion dungeon 19 out of 20 times. Started around level 20 and has continued to 63.
Im sorry this all sounds like a personal problem. You just dont seem to be a very good player. Karzog...really? He is one shot by almost any classes daily power and even if he survives it he is dead to the next encounter.
The only boss that should be a roadblock for anyone is maybe arcturia (claws of malar) and Im pretty sure she's nerfed. My barb needed help with her but my rogue and lock had zero issues.
I dont think people will be satisfied until mobs just fall over dead when you come near then.
Did you roll a new toon and try Karzov? Apparently the scaling bugged him, & he was a near-endgame level enemy. They did apply a fix, but I haven't gone bac to see if it worked.
I'm also seeing a disparity across classes, which might contribute to the "too easy" / "too hard" debate. For instance, my level 80 CW consistently hits harder than my level 80 HR, even though my HR has better gear, better weapons, and higher stats in every category.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Did you roll a new toon and try Karzov? Apparently the scaling bugged him, & he was a near-endgame level enemy. They did apply a fix, but I haven't gone bac to see if it worked.
Karzov was probably the easist end of quest boss I faced leveling in Mod 16, they only got harder after him. It is not a bug, it is how the game is designed now. End of Quest bosses now require a group to complete. They should really let players know, so they do not rage when they get wiped 20 times in a row.
In hindsight, I think they designed a game for their existing players. That is a refreshing change. The game got a 1000 times easier once i hit Undermountain.
Here are some suggestions to help brand new players:
Let new players chat with one another
Inform new players that end of quest bosses require a group to complete
Make potions stronger and shorten cool down.
Do not stack 10+ mobs with a quest end boss in tiny rooms where you do not have space to get away
Give guides to players for end of quest bosses, like "If you kill the mobs, they will just keep respawning." Everything available is from Mod 15 and before. None of that is relavent any longer.
All that said, everything changed once I got to undermountain. The game became infinitely easier. Undermountain has been a blast so far. I can solo quests, all the mobs do not respawn as fast as you kill them, Boss mobs in quests do not kill me in one or two shots. I usually have 5 mobs plus the boss at a time to deal with, not 10. The potions in undermountain heal more than 10% of your life.
I am having no problems whatsoever since hitting 70.
Literally, every problem I have wanted to smash my keyboard over is gone.
Maybe this has changed, but almost all the original release 'leveling' bosses have the same mechanic. Adds spawn when the boss reaches a certain HP threshold. If at the start of the fight, focus and clear out any other mobs before attacking the boss and then kill the adds as they spawn, the fights are much easier. Only focus the boss when it is alone. Otherwise you build up so many adds that they overwhelm you.
Perhaps this doesn't work now, but it was the trick since Beta.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
I'm also seeing a disparity across classes, which might contribute to the "too easy" / "too hard" debate. For instance, my level 80 CW consistently hits harder than my level 80 HR, even though my HR has better gear, better weapons, and higher stats in every category.
Nice to see that they fixed class balancing then, which was probably the only thing people ever complained about prior to mod16 as everything else everyone was happy with.
I'm also seeing a disparity across classes, which might contribute to the "too easy" / "too hard" debate. For instance, my level 80 CW consistently hits harder than my level 80 HR, even though my HR has better gear, better weapons, and higher stats in every category.
Nice to see that they fixed class balancing then, which was probably the only thing people ever complained about prior to mod16 as everything else everyone was happy with.
This wins todays comments on Neverwinter Online, thank you
There is no combat tactics left in this game, because can't avoid instant red circles, because: 1) our speed bonuses were removed 2) mobs move super fast 3) we have less things to do in combat, because Recovery was removed 4) mobs casting time is almost instant
Now you don't bother much with combat tactics, you just do your damage until you die, respawn and continue dmg, repeat, etc.
If mobs were slower (both: move speed and casting speed) then we would have some interesting tactics to do in combat. Without that it's a boring combat, so the game is boring now.
My advice to people "dying over and over" is, get lots of Eminent Healing Potions and Stones of Health. Place boons on your 3 spots to increase the effectiveness to +15%. Then maybe you won't die as often.
My question to people "dying over and over" is, how is this making the game less fun for you? You play other games where you die, dying is part of the challenge. Without that, you might as well be playing the game in God mode. Death in Neverwinter results in a 30 second time out or you have to use injury kits for immediate return. That is pretty tame for a game. I never played "Dark Souls" and from what I hear about it, you shouldn't either.
This game is casual and casual players don't enjoy dying, period. Because they are dying the this game is to challenging for the average casual player. This is why the game rating has dropped as well as the player population has decreased. Not only did players leave because of the changes to classes but the change to the game difficulty.
Like I stated, if someone wants to play a challenging game they will go play a game like Dark Souls. This game is very casual as you can buy your way to end game. With that said, content should be always set for the lowest skilled players, not the median or mean player or top end player but the lowest skilled player.
Even in its prior state, NWO wasn't easy nor was it super hard. It leaned more towards the easy spectrum where it should be. This game isn't hardcore like other MMOs and because it has a pay to advance model content needs to be, well easy.
Using potions and dying are not what the casual player expects. If you are a hardcore highly skilled player also this game should not be for you as it is clearly designed around casual players do to it structure. Games like FF and ESO offer better and more challenging content but even those games hard content isn't as bad as a game like Dark Souls.
IMO 10% health reduction was a waste. I rather see the devs increase our damage by 25%. That would have been better.
Well, the manticore boss in ME's is insanely strong now, i mean that one was bad before the latest patches, but now it's plain batshit crazy. It seems it can now use it's power attacks without any cooldowns, and it doesn't even bother with using any "normal" attacks anymore, not to mention the lovely poisining that goes along with i'm guessing any attack...
And btw. the red marker of the power attacks from the oversized mole on steroids boss point in one direction while the real attack actually goes into another direction...
So, instead of just cutting 10% HP of every- or anything, it might be an better idea to adjust bosses on a more direct level, and then see which other critters might also need some work done too.
About increasing player damage directly, i'd rather like to see them increase the damage bonus from weapon enchantments according to the enchantments ranking, for example an R8 enchantment would give 8% more damage. And they should do something similar for armor enchantments too.
Did you roll a new toon and try Karzov? Apparently the scaling bugged him, & he was a near-endgame level enemy. They did apply a fix, but I haven't gone bac to see if it worked.
Karzov was probably the easist end of quest boss I faced leveling in Mod 16, they only got harder after him. It is not a bug, it is how the game is designed now. End of Quest bosses now require a group to complete. They should really let players know, so they do not rage when they get wiped 20 times in a row.
In hindsight, I think they designed a game for their existing players. That is a refreshing change. The game got a 1000 times easier once i hit Undermountain.
Here are some suggestions to help brand new players:
Let new players chat with one another
Inform new players that end of quest bosses require a group to complete
Make potions stronger and shorten cool down.
Do not stack 10+ mobs with a quest end boss in tiny rooms where you do not have space to get away
Give guides to players for end of quest bosses, like "If you kill the mobs, they will just keep respawning." Everything available is from Mod 15 and before. None of that is relavent any longer.
All that said, everything changed once I got to undermountain. The game became infinitely easier. Undermountain has been a blast so far. I can solo quests, all the mobs do not respawn as fast as you kill them, Boss mobs in quests do not kill me in one or two shots. I usually have 5 mobs plus the boss at a time to deal with, not 10. The potions in undermountain heal more than 10% of your life.
I am having no problems whatsoever since hitting 70.
Literally, every problem I have wanted to smash my keyboard over is gone.
Why should a solo end quest boss require a group? This is not EVERQUEST, its NWO. If I wanted to group up to do anything in a game I would go play EVERQUEST and not NWO.
Well, the manticore boss in ME's is insanely strong now
It was designed as an endgame dungeon boss. I seriously wonder who thought it was a good idea to make that something that can be encountered in solo gameplay.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
1
lordseth1985Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 319Arc User
LOL if you think that mobs are too hard, maybe you aren't playing your class properly.
Avestruz.Q.T.Seduz - Rogue, natural born assassin.
My advice to people "dying over and over" is, get lots of Eminent Healing Potions and Stones of Health. Place boons on your 3 spots to increase the effectiveness to +15%. Then maybe you won't die as often.
My question to people "dying over and over" is, how is this making the game less fun for you? You play other games where you die, dying is part of the challenge. Without that, you might as well be playing the game in God mode. Death in Neverwinter results in a 30 second time out or you have to use injury kits for immediate return. That is pretty tame for a game. I never played "Dark Souls" and from what I hear about it, you shouldn't either.
This game is casual and casual players don't enjoy dying, period. Because they are dying the this game is to challenging for the average casual player. This is why the game rating has dropped as well as the player population has decreased. Not only did players leave because of the changes to classes but the change to the game difficulty.
Like I stated, if someone wants to play a challenging game they will go play a game like Dark Souls. This game is very casual as you can buy your way to end game. With that said, content should be always set for the lowest skilled players, not the median or mean player or top end player but the lowest skilled player.
Even in its prior state, NWO wasn't easy nor was it super hard. It leaned more towards the easy spectrum where it should be. This game isn't hardcore like other MMOs and because it has a pay to advance model content needs to be, well easy.
Using potions and dying are not what the casual player expects. If you are a hardcore highly skilled player also this game should not be for you as it is clearly designed around casual players do to it structure. Games like FF and ESO offer better and more challenging content but even those games hard content isn't as bad as a game like Dark Souls.
IMO 10% health reduction was a waste. I rather see the devs increase our damage by 25%. That would have been better.
This post brought back memories for me. How back when I started 5 years ago and played my first class, a Cleric, I only solo'd, I was still working out the game, I didn't even know about the sparkly path for about 6 months and spent most of my time circling around maps trying to find items for quests and no idea where I was going (but I sure got to know every inch and corner of the maps). And as far as builds went, I had no idea in those days, I didn't even know what a 'build' was or what a guide was or where to find one, so I just made it up as I went along and as you would expect, the character was badly put together, slow moving, squishy and half the power it probably should have had. But I was determined to do my quests and hand them in and get to max level 60, so I learned to die a LOT. I would get killed over and over in small spaces in dungeons, basically swamped with adds who would kill me if they all hit me, I ended-up working out a trick through the sheer necessity of having to get through to the end at any cost, where I would stand in the doorway and throw a ranged hit to the closest one, just the one mind, wait for it to run at me and then run back out the way I had come in down a hall or whatever so only the one add was following me and kill it on its own without the rest all over me, then go back and do it again and lure them to me and pick them off one by one. It took effing forever. I would clear them that way and then I would finally get to the boss, many times at the boss I would die about 20 times and use loads and loads of potions, just getting the health bar down to almost the bottom whittling it down bit by bit slowly, only to be killed at the very last moments and have to start all over again. But I never gave up once. I would also run out of injury kits and get slower and weaker and have to stand at the fire for ages to get strong enough to finish things. I did not give up, I finished every task I got given and handed it back in, and I learned to run around and dash around lot and get out of their way and stay alive. This ended-up being very good training for my next main character a GWF and by now I was very good at dashing around out of the way of danger by the time I moved to him, through all the practice I had had with the Cleric who basically could not do anything else to get through it on his own but dash/hit/sunburst/dash behind everyone/ hit once/dash behind and through everyone/ hit once/sunburst/dash/dash/hit/hit/dash through/hit and just hope I killed them before they killed me. Running around in circles trying not to die. Bosses on my own with that Cleric were a nightmare with the incessant dying, and running back seeming like a version of groundhog day with every return to the boss.
So I grew and learned and made the GWF very very fast, people used to comment on how fast I moved around because I stacked darks in those days when almost no-one else did, they all used boost enchants for extra drops etc, but I was all about speed, bobbing behind mobs and confusing them, they never knew where I was and it became a lot of fun. I think I played him for a year or so.
But I eventually got tired of the bash bash bash style and after trying a few other classes found the CW and I was home. I managed to bring to him all the training I had given to myself concerning maneuvering and getting out the way from the Cleric, and the speed and bounce of the GWF. But now I had crowd control as well and I was very happy and loved him so much and played him for the rest of the 5 years. I learned and I grew and I developed and got to a place I was very happy and content at. Not the absolute best and strongest of everyone, but up there and able to hold my own in just about any situation and also offer group support in pug groups, and a good and happy place for me and my character which I found fulfilling. But I never forgot all those deaths I suffered, I think they gave me a version of PTSD, because when this mod rolled out and I heard how we had all lost our speed and cooldowns and how people were all dying over and over, those days of being a slow squishy Cleric just flooded back to me and I just could not go back there again. It was one of the reasons I decided to quit, just cause I could not stomach going back to those days of dying over and over again after all I had gone through to move past it in the first place. I spent 5 years growing and building and getting stronger only to have it all taken away. Dying over and over is no fun and I definitely did my fair share of it in the beginning and there was no way I was ever going to put myself back there again when I had worked so hard to get to where I was.
For those who are dying over and over now, I totally feel u. It's not pleasant or fun to die over and over just to get to the end of something and can be incredibly demoralizing and tests your patience massively. Best tip I can give anyone who is having trouble staying alive is not to run away from mobs as is the temptation, but to run right up to them and through them to the other side staying close, even if you are a ranged fighter like my Cleric was. For this technique you have to stack as much stamina as you can because you will need it to keep moving. As you run through them and get on the other side but still right near them, do an immediate 180 spin around to face them and throw a couple of hits at them, as they turn around 180 to face you and hit you there should be a pause when they do not hit, dash through them again to the other side and spin around and hit them again while they have their backs to you, basically try to stay behind them as much as you can and when they turn to face you, give it a second and then dash right through them (like literally through the center of the bunch, through their actual bodies to the other side of them,) and hit from behind over and over. While they are working out where you have gone and turning towards you, they will not be hitting you. Confuse the F out of them. You can't do this if you are running away from them at a distance because they will all lock onto you constantly, but while you are making them spin around to find you, they do not hit. That's what I did on all my characters after I found it worked on my Cleric who had no other choice, it may work now for you, though I have read the mobs are faster since the rollout so it may not, but still worth a try to see.
Other tip I have which worked magnificently for my CW to the very end of my time in Neverwinter (and again, I don't know how the gear has changed in stats so it may or may not still work but I think it should, I just don't know what the recovery stat has turned into now, it was a big draw for this gear for my build, I was throwing out spells so fast but not relevant now post mod16 with recovery gone) was I had the Greater Lathander set, neck and waist, plus the eye of Lath artifact. I know that there are way better sets out there which give greater power/stats or whatever, but the bonus I worked out for this set-up was worth the stat sacrifice to me to survive any situation and not die. I teamed this set with a Soulforged enchant. It didn't even matter how low the enchant was, as long as I got the revive buff from it, it didn't matter how many HP's it gave really. This is because the Lath set gives you a buff which when you are revived from near death it will give you 50% of your HP's back, plus as a nice bonus it also gives all your team mates 50% of their HP's back as well. So if I did die at any stage, I would instantly get brought back to life from the Soulforged which would then proc the Lath buff and I would get an entire 50% of my Hp's returned, more than enough to get out of the way of danger and keep fighting. Lifesteal did the rest to get me up to full again in only a few seconds and that is now gone, so that part is not really relevant, but I would imagine that the Lath set plus the Soulforged combination might still help a few people in the current climate stop dying post mod16 and get you out of sticky situations as it did for me, not sure but hey try it out. Also the Lath set buff makes you immune to injuries which is handy, I never used one injury kit in all my time with that set.
Well, the manticore boss in ME's is insanely strong now
It was designed as an endgame dungeon boss. I seriously wonder who thought it was a good idea to make that something that can be encountered in solo gameplay.
Ability cooldowns on nearly all enemies seem to be out of balance since they released Undermountain, it's like enemies have gotten all the Recovery the players have lost.
Companions are no help in this matter either, they take their sweet time to join a fight, most of their attacks are too slow and too weak to even matter and enemies seem to ignore them anyway.
Well, the manticore boss in ME's is insanely strong now
It was designed as an endgame dungeon boss. I seriously wonder who thought it was a good idea to make that something that can be encountered in solo gameplay.
It's not nearly as strong as Hati. Its two more dangerous attacks are highly telegraphed and can be largely avoided through positioning and through most class shift mechanics.
It should be less challenging than before now that it wants to spam its wide-swath frontal AoE, which gives players plenty of time simply to move out of the way.
The worst of it are the seemingly endless paw swipes and the poison DoT that has a tendency to hit you through dodge or block and lasts forever. Trying to avoid all that makes it tedious on any melee character. You spend more time moving out of the way than attacking.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
Everything is easy, scaled or not scaled. Back to soloing FBI on my wizard, my paladin and my ranger like before April 23rd LoMM is a joke now, there's absolutely nothing hard in LoMM, which is good in a way because the gear there is useless. Healers are only needed because of Cocoon and the worm, if even... I spend my time as a healer there running behind the dps and waiting with the tank that something happens.
KoS HE dies in 10s with 5 people, i can solo it on all my toons (all classes did), and so on and so on. For the record, an average power base DC AC was putting people at 200k power before mod 16. What do we have now? 160-180k average and 10%HP reduction. Aside that now the cleric has to fight against Sleep urges when playing its class
So there's definitely a gap between new players that are lost and veterans who can adapt. It's too hard for new ones and too easy for veteran ones. Thing is, the latest category might become part of the Legacy real soon.
The gap isn't from mod 16 It's been around a long time. The gap is between people who want/accept mechanics and those who don't. At its most extreme example, look at Throne skirmish and people killing or CCing hulks or throwing them into walls. They run in and want to smash things. They don't want to think about what they're doing or read chat.
What Mod 16 did was make that behavior not viable in a lot of content. A lot of bad behavior has consequences now. Opening all portals in NDEMO worked in m15 but not so well now, as my friend noted uupthread. People who actually engage with the game weren't doing that stuff before and are fine.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
0
darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
The curious thing is that there are lots of people asking to return to mod 15 because "everything was fine"
I think devs should learn, and never again let the game go again to "smash buttons gameplay" and correct any sympthom of bypass mechanics as fast as possible. People will learn as you should in module 0-1-2 if you wanted to be successfull in dungeons.
Yesterday we failed in Arcturia with a 24k players group. The DC couldnt heal cocoon, and one CW was doing less dmg than tank (25k CW), and a rogue couldnt kill his mimic. I bet those people were the kind of guys that loved mod 15.
The worst of it are the seemingly endless paw swipes and the poison DoT that has a tendency to hit you through dodge or block and lasts forever. Trying to avoid all that makes it tedious on any melee character. You spend more time moving out of the way than attacking.
This is the same for every character. The players who never experienced mods 1-15 and try to camp out at range are the ones most likely to die since they probably won't be able to avoid the AoE. If the character has low damage, the fight will be a little tedious, but the better the damage and the more basic survivability (insignia bonuses etc.), the easier it is.
Well, the core of a game should be having fun, but they managed to turn this game into a tedious grind everywhere. I don't mind some reasonable grind to get something good in the end, but that's not the case here anymore...
And please do tell how a player can avoid AoE attacks fired every bloody second, when their red markers aren't even displayed correctly anymore, or when there is simply no safe spot left since the whole floor is covered in red?
I allready use the +Movement Speed boons and class abilities if possible, but even that is sometimes not enough.
Last but not least, anyone that's "loving" the Undermountain changes, i do hope you're putting your money where your mouth is to support the game and to keep the lights on... i haven't seen anything in Undermountain and the latest patches that would motivate me to open my wallet again, and i'm pretty sure that many other players think the same, so it's up to you to cough up the cash.
And please do tell how a player can avoid AoE attacks fired every bloody second, when their red markers aren't even displayed correctly anymore, or when there is simply no safe spot left since the whole floor is covered in red?
The only ME mob I've noticed having consistent issues with AoE markers is the yeti. The manticore telegraphs its major AoE with a gigantic line that is avoidable simply by walking around its head if you're positioned correctly (i.e. you're face-tanking it and not trying to kite and pew-pew).
Not saying that it is or should be a cakewalk for all characters, but it's not as impossible as some make it out to be.
The problem with the Master Expedition Manticore, from a melee character point of view, is that he will do his frontal poison AOE attack several times in a row. And the poison DOT is so strong that alone will kill you if you are caught just once failing to dodge. It is easy to run out of stamina trying to dodge them all when he does his attack so many times in a row. Before the balancing patch, it seemed that he would alternate his paw attack and his poison attack. Now, it is poison - paw - poison - poison - poison - poison - poison and there is no chance to rebuild stamina when you have to run around so often trying to dodge all the poison attacks.
That mini-boss used to be annoying but easy, but now, I think it is the hardest miniboss of all of them.
0
lantern22Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,111Arc User
There is something wrong with the manticore. The 45 deg AOE still gets you when you move out of the red area unless you get almost 180deg behind it (maybe lag causing it) and the 2nd hit from the two shot lunging attack always seems to hit even if you move to the side after the first attack and it appears to be going the wrong way (perhaps the hit roll is on the first attack).
Golems etc. will often face away from you when attacking and unless they are attacking a stalactite, something is wrong. I am pretty sure sometimes even they face 180deg in the wrong direction, you still get hit.
There are plenty of these kinds of bugs plaguing the game, mobs stuck in gateways, bugged kobolds etc. but good to see they still had time to implement a inconsistent 10sec cool down on changing powers because that was a real game breaker.
There is something wrong with the manticore. The 45 deg AOE still gets you when you move out of the red area unless you get almost 180deg behind it (maybe lag causing it) and the 2nd hit from the two shot lunging attack always seems to hit even if you move to the side after the first attack and it appears to be going the wrong way (perhaps the hit roll is on the first attack).
Golems etc. will often face away from you when attacking and unless they are attacking a stalactite, something is wrong. I am pretty sure sometimes even they face 180deg in the wrong direction, you still get hit.
There are plenty of these kinds of bugs plaguing the game, mobs stuck in gateways, bugged kobolds etc. but good to see they still had time to implement a inconsistent 10sec cool down on changing powers because that was a real game breaker.
The Manticore is definitely tougher than it used to be, before the balancing patch. Yes, you have to completely dodge the wide cone AOE, you can't even be near the border of the cone otherwise you'll be hit with the poison DOT.
Incidentally, trying it with a Sentinel Barbie, it takes only two of the cone attacks before the block breaks. And the manticore can easily do 5-6-7 of those in a row. So that is a challenging one to tank.
and they lost 3.4 the month before that and nearly 5% the month before that...
the population is dwindling not gaining. and it doesn't have to do with summer months. the numbers are the worst in this games history summer or not.
even just going by percentage this game has lost more players than it did at release of mod 6
Since there are some users who don't trust Steam for some reason, I am not sure why, I called out to my friends in the guild and we performed an independent census. The way the census works in real life, mailers and door knockers are sent out to count the people in their homes. Even so, not 100% of the people get counted and there is always a margin for error.
For a period of time, we all agreed to count various areas within Neverwinter using the exact same time of day within a given hour. I personally chose the time 3 PM to 4 PM EST/ Noon to 1PM Pacific. We tabulated numbers from Protector's Enclave, Chult, Yawning Portal, and as many places as we could within the hour. No actual totals were exchanged between us to avoid tainting the data. We then computed the model using percentile changes. These changes were bounced off the changes in Star Trek Online census. Between a total of 6 census takers within the game the percentages came within 0.01% meaning our blind census data had an error of maybe 1 in 10,000.
If you look at it like this, let's say Cryptic Studios is a multiplex theater in the mall, and we want to know how many people continue watching the same movie every day. They have many people watching the movie in many different rooms. We can run around from room to room for 20 minutes counting heads. Then stop and add up the numbers. From day to day the numbers change, but why? So we have another movie (Star Trek) in the same theater. On day 6, if 10% fewer people are watching the movie, did they lose interest? Maybe it rained? Maybe the theater was closed for cleaning? If the same day, the other movie suffered a loss of 11%, we have to acknowledge that the first movie did +1% better than the other movie.
Going back to Steam Charts (which in my opinion is good data) the top three lines for Neverwinter are; Last 30 Days 1,686.1 -267.8 -13.71% 3,060 May 2019 1,953.9 -68.3 -3.38% 3,768 April 2019 2,022.2 -114.7 -5.37% 4,464
Today is June 13th which means the top line (last 30 days) is still counting back into May 12th.
Last 30 Days 1,306.6 -61.6 -4.50% 2,132 May 2019 1,368.1 +52.5 +3.99% 2,604 April 2019 1,315.6 -68.5 -4.95% 2,202
In April, Star Trek lost 4.95% population and Neverwinter 5.37%, according to Steam data. When comparing the data here Star Trek showed +0.42% growth over Neverwinter or Neverwinter showed -0.42% growth to Star Trek. Star Trek did much better in May. Over all the game population, using my census or the data from Steam, is really showing minimal changes in growth in either direction. People are still flowing in and out of the game, and from month to month and module to module they are losing ground, but ever so slowly.
Comments
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
In hindsight, I think they designed a game for their existing players. That is a refreshing change. The game got a 1000 times easier once i hit Undermountain.
Here are some suggestions to help brand new players:
- Let new players chat with one another
- Inform new players that end of quest bosses require a group to complete
- Make potions stronger and shorten cool down.
- Do not stack 10+ mobs with a quest end boss in tiny rooms where you do not have space to get away
- Give guides to players for end of quest bosses, like "If you kill the mobs, they will just keep respawning." Everything available is from Mod 15 and before. None of that is relavent any longer.
All that said, everything changed once I got to undermountain. The game became infinitely easier. Undermountain has been a blast so far. I can solo quests, all the mobs do not respawn as fast as you kill them, Boss mobs in quests do not kill me in one or two shots. I usually have 5 mobs plus the boss at a time to deal with, not 10. The potions in undermountain heal more than 10% of your life.I am having no problems whatsoever since hitting 70.
Literally, every problem I have wanted to smash my keyboard over is gone.
Perhaps this doesn't work now, but it was the trick since Beta.
1) our speed bonuses were removed
2) mobs move super fast
3) we have less things to do in combat, because Recovery was removed
4) mobs casting time is almost instant
Now you don't bother much with combat tactics, you just do your damage until you die, respawn and continue dmg, repeat, etc.
If mobs were slower (both: move speed and casting speed) then we would have some interesting tactics to do in combat.
Without that it's a boring combat, so the game is boring now.
Like I stated, if someone wants to play a challenging game they will go play a game like Dark Souls. This game is very casual as you can buy your way to end game. With that said, content should be always set for the lowest skilled players, not the median or mean player or top end player but the lowest skilled player.
Even in its prior state, NWO wasn't easy nor was it super hard. It leaned more towards the easy spectrum where it should be. This game isn't hardcore like other MMOs and because it has a pay to advance model content needs to be, well easy.
Using potions and dying are not what the casual player expects. If you are a hardcore highly skilled player also this game should not be for you as it is clearly designed around casual players do to it structure. Games like FF and ESO offer better and more challenging content but even those games hard content isn't as bad as a game like Dark Souls.
IMO 10% health reduction was a waste. I rather see the devs increase our damage by 25%. That would have been better.
And btw. the red marker of the power attacks from the oversized mole on steroids boss point in one direction while the real attack actually goes into another direction...
So, instead of just cutting 10% HP of every- or anything, it might be an better idea to adjust bosses on a more direct level, and then see which other critters might also need some work done too.
About increasing player damage directly, i'd rather like to see them increase the damage bonus from weapon enchantments according to the enchantments ranking, for example an R8 enchantment would give 8% more damage. And they should do something similar for armor enchantments too.
So I grew and learned and made the GWF very very fast, people used to comment on how fast I moved around because I stacked darks in those days when almost no-one else did, they all used boost enchants for extra drops etc, but I was all about speed, bobbing behind mobs and confusing them, they never knew where I was and it became a lot of fun. I think I played him for a year or so.
But I eventually got tired of the bash bash bash style and after trying a few other classes found the CW and I was home. I managed to bring to him all the training I had given to myself concerning maneuvering and getting out the way from the Cleric, and the speed and bounce of the GWF. But now I had crowd control as well and I was very happy and loved him so much and played him for the rest of the 5 years. I learned and I grew and I developed and got to a place I was very happy and content at. Not the absolute best and strongest of everyone, but up there and able to hold my own in just about any situation and also offer group support in pug groups, and a good and happy place for me and my character which I found fulfilling. But I never forgot all those deaths I suffered, I think they gave me a version of PTSD, because when this mod rolled out and I heard how we had all lost our speed and cooldowns and how people were all dying over and over, those days of being a slow squishy Cleric just flooded back to me and I just could not go back there again. It was one of the reasons I decided to quit, just cause I could not stomach going back to those days of dying over and over again after all I had gone through to move past it in the first place. I spent 5 years growing and building and getting stronger only to have it all taken away. Dying over and over is no fun and I definitely did my fair share of it in the beginning and there was no way I was ever going to put myself back there again when I had worked so hard to get to where I was.
For those who are dying over and over now, I totally feel u. It's not pleasant or fun to die over and over just to get to the end of something and can be incredibly demoralizing and tests your patience massively. Best tip I can give anyone who is having trouble staying alive is not to run away from mobs as is the temptation, but to run right up to them and through them to the other side staying close, even if you are a ranged fighter like my Cleric was. For this technique you have to stack as much stamina as you can because you will need it to keep moving. As you run through them and get on the other side but still right near them, do an immediate 180 spin around to face them and throw a couple of hits at them, as they turn around 180 to face you and hit you there should be a pause when they do not hit, dash through them again to the other side and spin around and hit them again while they have their backs to you, basically try to stay behind them as much as you can and when they turn to face you, give it a second and then dash right through them (like literally through the center of the bunch, through their actual bodies to the other side of them,) and hit from behind over and over. While they are working out where you have gone and turning towards you, they will not be hitting you. Confuse the F out of them. You can't do this if you are running away from them at a distance because they will all lock onto you constantly, but while you are making them spin around to find you, they do not hit. That's what I did on all my characters after I found it worked on my Cleric who had no other choice, it may work now for you, though I have read the mobs are faster since the rollout so it may not, but still worth a try to see.
contd next post...
Other tip I have which worked magnificently for my CW to the very end of my time in Neverwinter (and again, I don't know how the gear has changed in stats so it may or may not still work but I think it should, I just don't know what the recovery stat has turned into now, it was a big draw for this gear for my build, I was throwing out spells so fast but not relevant now post mod16 with recovery gone) was I had the Greater Lathander set, neck and waist, plus the eye of Lath artifact. I know that there are way better sets out there which give greater power/stats or whatever, but the bonus I worked out for this set-up was worth the stat sacrifice to me to survive any situation and not die. I teamed this set with a Soulforged enchant. It didn't even matter how low the enchant was, as long as I got the revive buff from it, it didn't matter how many HP's it gave really. This is because the Lath set gives you a buff which when you are revived from near death it will give you 50% of your HP's back, plus as a nice bonus it also gives all your team mates 50% of their HP's back as well. So if I did die at any stage, I would instantly get brought back to life from the Soulforged which would then proc the Lath buff and I would get an entire 50% of my Hp's returned, more than enough to get out of the way of danger and keep fighting. Lifesteal did the rest to get me up to full again in only a few seconds and that is now gone, so that part is not really relevant, but I would imagine that the Lath set plus the Soulforged combination might still help a few people in the current climate stop dying post mod16 and get you out of sticky situations as it did for me, not sure but hey try it out. Also the Lath set buff makes you immune to injuries which is handy, I never used one injury kit in all my time with that set.
Companions are no help in this matter either, they take their sweet time to join a fight, most of their attacks are too slow and too weak to even matter and enemies seem to ignore them anyway.
It should be less challenging than before now that it wants to spam its wide-swath frontal AoE, which gives players plenty of time simply to move out of the way.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
LoMM is a joke now, there's absolutely nothing hard in LoMM, which is good in a way because the gear there is useless. Healers are only needed because of Cocoon and the worm, if even... I spend my time as a healer there running behind the dps and waiting with the tank that something happens.
KoS HE dies in 10s with 5 people, i can solo it on all my toons (all classes did), and so on and so on. For the record, an average power base DC AC was putting people at 200k power before mod 16. What do we have now? 160-180k average and 10%HP reduction. Aside that now the cleric has to fight against Sleep urges when playing its class
So there's definitely a gap between new players that are lost and veterans who can adapt. It's too hard for new ones and too easy for veteran ones. Thing is, the latest category might become part of the Legacy real soon.
What Mod 16 did was make that behavior not viable in a lot of content. A lot of bad behavior has consequences now. Opening all portals in NDEMO worked in m15 but not so well now, as my friend noted uupthread. People who actually engage with the game weren't doing that stuff before and are fine.
I think devs should learn, and never again let the game go again to "smash buttons gameplay" and correct any sympthom of bypass mechanics as fast as possible. People will learn as you should in module 0-1-2 if you wanted to be successfull in dungeons.
Yesterday we failed in Arcturia with a 24k players group. The DC couldnt heal cocoon, and one CW was doing less dmg than tank (25k CW), and a rogue couldnt kill his mimic. I bet those people were the kind of guys that loved mod 15.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
And please do tell how a player can avoid AoE attacks fired every bloody second, when their red markers aren't even displayed correctly anymore, or when there is simply no safe spot left since the whole floor is covered in red?
I allready use the +Movement Speed boons and class abilities if possible, but even that is sometimes not enough.
Last but not least, anyone that's "loving" the Undermountain changes, i do hope you're putting your money where your mouth is to support the game and to keep the lights on... i haven't seen anything in Undermountain and the latest patches that would motivate me to open my wallet again, and i'm pretty sure that many other players think the same, so it's up to you to cough up the cash.
Not saying that it is or should be a cakewalk for all characters, but it's not as impossible as some make it out to be.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
That mini-boss used to be annoying but easy, but now, I think it is the hardest miniboss of all of them.
Golems etc. will often face away from you when attacking and unless they are attacking a stalactite, something is wrong. I am pretty sure sometimes even they face 180deg in the wrong direction, you still get hit.
There are plenty of these kinds of bugs plaguing the game, mobs stuck in gateways, bugged kobolds etc. but good to see they still had time to implement a inconsistent 10sec cool down on changing powers because that was a real game breaker.
https://steamcharts.com/app/109600#48h
and they lost 3.4 the month before that and nearly 5% the month before that...
the population is dwindling not gaining. and it doesn't have to do with summer months. the numbers are the worst in this games history summer or not.
even just going by percentage this game has lost more players than it did at release of mod 6
Incidentally, trying it with a Sentinel Barbie, it takes only two of the cone attacks before the block breaks. And the manticore can easily do 5-6-7 of those in a row. So that is a challenging one to tank.
For a period of time, we all agreed to count various areas within Neverwinter using the exact same time of day within a given hour. I personally chose the time 3 PM to 4 PM EST/ Noon to 1PM Pacific. We tabulated numbers from Protector's Enclave, Chult, Yawning Portal, and as many places as we could within the hour. No actual totals were exchanged between us to avoid tainting the data. We then computed the model using percentile changes. These changes were bounced off the changes in Star Trek Online census. Between a total of 6 census takers within the game the percentages came within 0.01% meaning our blind census data had an error of maybe 1 in 10,000.
If you look at it like this, let's say Cryptic Studios is a multiplex theater in the mall, and we want to know how many people continue watching the same movie every day. They have many people watching the movie in many different rooms. We can run around from room to room for 20 minutes counting heads. Then stop and add up the numbers. From day to day the numbers change, but why? So we have another movie (Star Trek) in the same theater. On day 6, if 10% fewer people are watching the movie, did they lose interest? Maybe it rained? Maybe the theater was closed for cleaning? If the same day, the other movie suffered a loss of 11%, we have to acknowledge that the first movie did +1% better than the other movie.
Going back to Steam Charts (which in my opinion is good data) the top three lines for Neverwinter are;
Last 30 Days 1,686.1 -267.8 -13.71% 3,060
May 2019 1,953.9 -68.3 -3.38% 3,768
April 2019 2,022.2 -114.7 -5.37% 4,464
Today is June 13th which means the top line (last 30 days) is still counting back into May 12th.
Last 30 Days 1,306.6 -61.6 -4.50% 2,132
May 2019 1,368.1 +52.5 +3.99% 2,604
April 2019 1,315.6 -68.5 -4.95% 2,202
In April, Star Trek lost 4.95% population and Neverwinter 5.37%, according to Steam data. When comparing the data here Star Trek showed +0.42% growth over Neverwinter or Neverwinter showed -0.42% growth to Star Trek. Star Trek did much better in May. Over all the game population, using my census or the data from Steam, is really showing minimal changes in growth in either direction. People are still flowing in and out of the game, and from month to month and module to module they are losing ground, but ever so slowly.
Yet it is my opinion, population doesn't matter.