Simple, easy, efficient!

diegoalves21

I wish I could make this a poll, but not gonna happend. Anyway here it goes.
For some of this, you devs and people have already attended, here comes the further ideia:
#1:artifact/artifact gear: for the eeapon enchantment you guys "frozen" the extra damage, and focused on the item special effect, this is exactly what I wanted to happened with artifact gear, freeze all (ALL OLD, NEW, UPCOMING...) gear stats, and fovus on set bonus ( so the tiamat set would be usefull again, for instance).
#2: companions: you guys adjusted the companions gear and runestones wich was pretty good job btw, but go further, keep on coming! IMO all companions could have 2 skills, and only 2, the augmentation of course, and a "healing word" skill. Everyone that is a little experienced on the game knows that augmentation is a must, so everyone uses an augment companion, why dont make all of them to do this? and heal people? all together?
#3: RNG, surprise mechanics, lootboxes, whatever you call this: I don't like it, and maybe I'm not the only one. You guys took away the %RNG from gear refining, ( awsome, really just loved it) BUT there's still the RNG on the dungeon end chest, and the ME... You guys did it right with the barovia hunts, and took it away, why? I would suggest a mechanic, so people spend some seals or AD at the start of the dungeon, to get a REAL chance (40~60%)for a good chosen loot, like high rank refining stones, or artifact gear. Or could be sold at the seals vendor, as a fortune shard or something. ( does it sound like ME' rune etchings? and no further? why not?)

plasticbat

I disagree with the one with companion because a non-augment companion has its place.
It provides combat advantage when augment pet can't. They need to make non-augment companion to be useful. ALL pet already provides augmentation through bonding. Augment pet just have more stat.
To make non-augment pet useful/comparable, they need to do what they did before mod 16. It can heal if it is a healer pet. It can fight if it is a fighter pet. It can take aggro if it is a tank pet.

diegoalves21

> @plasticbat said:
> I disagree with the one with companion because a non-augment companion has its place.
> It provides combat advantage when augment pet can't. They need to make non-augment companion to be useful. ALL pet already provides augmentation through bonding. Augment pet just have more stat.
> To make non-augment pet useful/comparable, they need to do what they did before mod 16. It can heal if it is a healer pet. It can fight if it is a fighter pet. It can take aggro if it is a tank pet.

well, the ideia was to make all companions to do a simple thing, that is buff, and by making this, as they've done with classes could implement more companions and simplify things. For what I've seen, people don really seemed to care about companions attack, aggro and stuff, pre-mod 16, actually, people used sellsword (+300power) as active companion just for the extra stats, well if is stats what matter, then perfect it in all companions. Of course, opinions are different, as playstyles are. ty.

sandukutupu

Let's talk about the "companion system", I know most are aware the Neverwinter game engine was just a rebuild of Star Trek. I don't play STO, but I have in the past, I understand the system. They call the companions Bridge Officers and then up to 4 can join you in your party. They operate (at least the last time I played) as tank, healer, and dps. But the biggest difference is, you can tell them where to go and what to do. The current Neverwinter companion system sucks by comparison. I never used Bonding until I was forced by module 16. Bonding never made any sense, in the table top game or video game. How are you going to be a better fighter by having someone in your party? Show me a real world example where you gain strength by fighting along side a person. Bonding should have been left to the augments.

Now let's talk about "Dungeon and Dragons" companion system, you know... what this game is suppose to be base on, it is called "retainers". The terms "henchmen" and "retainers" are fairly the same, but some DMs I played with said retainers were paid in advance, while henchmen would take a cut of the profits. Other DMs (like my husband) allowed players with high charisma to get them to work for free or at least "do it for the cause". Characters with high charisma scores capped out at 3 retainers. Asking a retainer to do something stupid always called for a morale check. Maybe even a saving throw, if you were asking them to risk life and limb.

Why did they drop the STO multiple companion system when they rebuilt the engine? It was good and it works. As it stands now, I just want the companion to do their job. Since I am stuck with only one at a time, they should be comparable to my skill set. Most orange companions seem to take forever to reload for the next swing on that sword. It would also be nice to set a flag to; Attack, Guard, or Stealth. Setting the flag to attack would extend their aggro to enemies, guard would tell them to stay close and only attack what attacks us first, and stealth would be defense only. That is my ideal revamp of the companion system.

plasticbat

diegoalves21 said:

> @plasticbat said:

> I disagree with the one with companion because a non-augment companion has its place.

> It provides combat advantage when augment pet can't. They need to make non-augment companion to be useful. ALL pet already provides augmentation through bonding. Augment pet just have more stat.

> To make non-augment pet useful/comparable, they need to do what they did before mod 16. It can heal if it is a healer pet. It can fight if it is a fighter pet. It can take aggro if it is a tank pet.



well, the ideia was to make all companions to do a simple thing, that is buff, and by making this, as they've done with classes could implement more companions and simplify things. For what I've seen, people don really seemed to care about companions attack, aggro and stuff, pre-mod 16, actually, people used sellsword (+300power) as active companion just for the extra stats, well if is stats what matter, then perfect it in all companions. Of course, opinions are different, as playstyles are. ty.

I guess you don't understand why people used sellsword before. It was not about +300 power but because she could de-buff.
People cared companion attack when it worked. That was why Tiger was great. It can de-buff and attack and aggro a bit and provide combat advantage. People cared about tank pet (especially for glass canon build) to do aggro when solo. Personally, what I did not care and do not care about is healing (not yet anyway).

wintersmoke

plasticbat said:

diegoalves21 said:

> @plasticbat said:

> I disagree with the one with companion because a non-augment companion has its place.

> It provides combat advantage when augment pet can't. They need to make non-augment companion to be useful. ALL pet already provides augmentation through bonding. Augment pet just have more stat.

> To make non-augment pet useful/comparable, they need to do what they did before mod 16. It can heal if it is a healer pet. It can fight if it is a fighter pet. It can take aggro if it is a tank pet.



well, the ideia was to make all companions to do a simple thing, that is buff, and by making this, as they've done with classes could implement more companions and simplify things. For what I've seen, people don really seemed to care about companions attack, aggro and stuff, pre-mod 16, actually, people used sellsword (+300power) as active companion just for the extra stats, well if is stats what matter, then perfect it in all companions. Of course, opinions are different, as playstyles are. ty.

I guess you don't understand why people used sellsword before. It was not about +300 power but because she could de-buff.
People cared companion attack when it worked. That was why Tiger was great. It can de-buff and attack and aggro a bit and provide combat advantage. People cared about tank pet (especially for glass canon build) to do aggro when solo. Personally, what I did not care and do not care about is healing (not yet anyway).

tiger was great... until it saw a cliff. Which it then proceeded to jump off of like a lemming with it's tail on fire...

mordekai

sandukutupu said:

Let's talk about the "companion system", I know most are aware the Neverwinter game engine was just a rebuild of Star Trek. I don't play STO, but I have in the past, I understand the system. They call the companions Bridge Officers and then up to 4 can join you in your party. They operate (at least the last time I played) as tank, healer, and dps. But the biggest difference is, you can tell them where to go and what to do. The current Neverwinter companion system sucks by comparison. I never used Bonding until I was forced by module 16. Bonding never made any sense, in the table top game or video game. How are you going to be a better fighter by having someone in your party? Show me a real world example where you gain strength by fighting along side a person. Bonding should have been left to the augments.

Now let's talk about "Dungeon and Dragons" companion system, you know... what this game is suppose to be base on, it is called "retainers". The terms "henchmen" and "retainers" are fairly the same, but some DMs I played with said retainers were paid in advance, while henchmen would take a cut of the profits. Other DMs (like my husband) allowed players with high charisma to get them to work for free or at least "do it for the cause". Characters with high charisma scores capped out at 3 retainers. Asking a retainer to do something stupid always called for a morale check. Maybe even a saving throw, if you were asking them to risk life and limb.

Why did they drop the STO multiple companion system when they rebuilt the engine? It was good and it works. As it stands now, I just want the companion to do their job. Since I am stuck with only one at a time, they should be comparable to my skill set. Most orange companions seem to take forever to reload for the next swing on that sword. It would also be nice to set a flag to; Attack, Guard, or Stealth. Setting the flag to attack would extend their aggro to enemies, guard would tell them to stay close and only attack what attacks us first, and stealth would be defense only. That is my ideal revamp of the companion system.

A similar system applied to the Neverwinter Nights 2 system. You could have an entire party of characters who you could switch between, but also a number of henchmen/hirelings/whatever the hell you wanted to call them.

While I understand the need to limit the number of single player "party members" in NWO, one thing that I would absolutely LOVE to see brought over from NWN2 is the slider system to adjust how a companion behaves.

Set it's aggression level, decide who it buffs/heals, go ranged or melee, decide how close it follows you, and it positions itself in combat... and so on.

That way you could instruct a companion to "Fight at range" as its priority, or "Move to best CA position" during combat at the expense of longer cast time special attacks as basic examples. Different situations have different settings so for group play a Healing companion could be set to "Heal Tank" or a Tank companion set to "draw aggro away" allowing ranged players to use their powers while the companion draws monsters away from them.

I could go on, but the list of potential uses for a "Companion Instruction" system is pretty extensive.

(One downside to the STO Bridge Officers is that they often seem to lose their minds and run around bumping into each other. It's not especially bad for play as they still do pretty much what they are supposed to, but it looks awful and can be a bit annoying. I often find myself yelling "Stand still for HAMSTER' sake!!!" at my lot, one Andorian in particular is like a squirrel with St Vitus' Dance. When they overcome that, then it will be much better...)

sandukutupu

hitchslapped said:

the problem with the idea of porting the STO companion system is that the STO system works in STO at least partially because combat in STO is very different from combat in NW, it's mostly ranged, melee exists but is rarely used, the pacing of combat is different, the way positioning works in STO is very different from how it works in NW. they can't just straight port it over from STO and expect it to work in NW, they'd need to totally rebuild NW's companion system effectively from scratch, to bring something similar to the STO system to NW and have it actually work, and the time investment that would require.... crossed with the devs habit of breaking a hell of a lot of stuff when they take on large projects like that....

it's unlikely to happen, and if it did, we probably wouldn't like the results.

I said why did they remove it? Not why can't they port it into Neverwinter. You do realize (I hope) that Neverwinter was built from STO and not the other way around? No melee. I had friend in STO who ran around using a Nausicaan Blade and slicing through enemies. I have a Klingon with a bat'leth however I guess I was just the only weird Klingon like that in the whole game? All they needed to do was leave it in the game, not remake it. Speaking of "leftovers" we still have an option for Underwater View in our graphics setting... this is a left over from when the game engine was Champions!

mongol69

I have a high dexterity.

sandukutupu

hitchslapped said:

sigh. yes, i know STO predates NW. neither was built from the other, though, they're both using the same core engine, but the core engine predates both games, and it's the core engine that games get built around. some things are shared between games, others aren't. asking why NW doesn't have 'x' from STO is like asking why NW doesn't have 'x' from PWI, or Champions. it's like asking why doesn't blade & soul have the same character system as borderlands 3. using the same core engine doesn't mean other apsects of games are going to be compatible.

I don't promote hacking but a user (not naming and shaming, so don't ask), years ago, showed excerpts of the leaked source code for both games. This old code still exists on the internet and shows they just wrote one from the other. While I do not understand the coding, the comments made by the programmers are the same and date all the way back to creating Champions. The same user went on to explained both games share parts in audio and graphic libraries of NW and STO contain models of the Basilisk and robotic arms parts. This illustrates to me, the core is the same, they wrote one on top another.

My apologies but Cryptic didn't make Perfect World the game. If you take time to research company history, Cryptic was bought and sold to Perfect World.
"On May 17, 2011, Atari announced the divesting of its interest in Cryptic Studios. On May 31, 2011 it was announced that Perfect World had acquired Cryptic Studios" ~ Wikipedia.
The video game Perfect World was released in China in 2005 and ported to North America the next year. The games created by Cryptic are; City of Heroes/Villains, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, Neverwinter, and currently working on Magic: The Gathering. Meanwhile City of Heroes/Villains is no longer their property as it is owned by NCSoft and was shutdown August 31, 2012.

hitchslapped said:

also, you'll notice, i didn't say " there is no melee in STO ", i said that combat is mostly ranged, and that melee exists, but isn't used frequently. for example... there are no melee classes in STO, and while some people ( not many. ) do prefer it for RP purposes, the meta is very ranged-centric, because melee weapons simply don't keep up with ranged weapons, they can't multitarget, they don't have the same amount of melee-focused powers and such... and the companions are the same way. your away team's abilities are usually ranged, the weaponry you kit them out with is usually ranged....

And how does this differ from NW?? Neverwinter is mostly ranged too. Wizards and clerics don't melee, rogues, warlocks and rangers are both, this leave paladins, fighters, and barbarians as melee. Seems to me that is 5 out of 8 with ranged skill sets.

hitchslapped said:

tldr : they didn't have sto's companion system in NW because it wouldn't work in NW as-was. they could perhaps have used some aspects of it, i suppose, but you know how that goes, trying to split apart existing code to keep what you want and discard what you don't, and then trying to get new code to fit with the remnants of pre-existing code, is usually more work than just writing a bunch of new code... especially when dealing with a dev team like the one for NW, where they don't really understand the code, don't document their code well enough to facilitate future understanding, and as a result, can't predict what change is going to affect other code.

I will agree to disagree with you at this point. You and I are not mind readers, we don't know what the old crew was thinking back six years ago or what the new crew at Cryptic are doing or planning next. I can imagine they are doing another hacked up version of the same engine code with Magic: The Gathering, as I have the Tarroka card artifact on my warlock, she draws 3 cards and picks one to fling at the enemy. Sounds like one of the old cartoon shows from Japan. I never got into the card game so I am not interested in the video game either. Time for Cryptic to either make a new engine or maybe buy one and/or pay the royalties.

sandukutupu

greenwirez#3409 said:

Back in the days of Neverwinter Nights/ Baldur's gate...etc, they used to use a standard model for checks based off the D&D d100 dice. Worked as intended.....no RNG nonsense, stacked in the house's favour. Combat check.....roll the dice....opposing check....roll the dice. You roll high, you win and you've successfully evaded an attack....you roll low, you lose and take the hit depending on your Armour Class(AC), buffs etc....All of which have their own 'roll of the dice' to determine the percentages of hit's and misses. Worked for players (PVE/PVP), A.I., Pets(companions), and the loot system.

The current model employed is broken, and no amount of number fudging is going to change that imho. Sometimes the simpliest solution to a problem is the right one. Why travel around the globe, when you only want to visit next door. A needlessly convoluted system.

Now that was: Simple, easy, efficient!

You do know the dice rolling is a RNG (random number generator). But I understand, I have said this before as well, there is no way in this online version of D&D to miss your target. The spells and arrows fling and curve around corners, fighters can randomly whack their target from a greater distance than the length of their sword allows. As long as the target is "painted" you hit. I try not to pay attention to the mechanics, but Dungeons & Dragons Online has the better game mechanics, they lack in graphic quality and a clunky user interface. When you start in that online game, you have something like 8 to 12 health, and do 1 point damage - assuming you hit. I don't know the level cap or current state, but it too is in serious need of an upgrade.

By the way, recently they completely removed Armor Class as they admitted here it did nothing.
"I rolled a one! Did I hit?", you ask the Dungeon Master.
"Yes and the dragon is now dead".
You stare at the Dungeon Master, "What about rolling for damage?"

regenerde

Well, as mentioned before, they should simply use the players weapon damage as base for any damaging or healing abilities from companions, add a little bonus from the companion level to it, and adjust the cooldowns of their abilities to a more reasonable level too. That should give players real choices in the companion department, use an augment if they want the stats boost, or use a regular companion if they want support during fights.

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/11249883
besides, they've allready done it for the Remorhaz's Presence ability, so why not do it for all companions?

And when all companions are working properly again, they should also bring back the former Class Packs in an improved version back to the ZEN shop. Considering that every player is using companions in one way or the other, i really can't understand why it's taking so long for the Devs to repair them...