Even if you tested out all 7 classes with DPS roles and found Vorpal perform best for all them, which I highly doubt at the least, it's still worthwhile to put an exchange vendor in for those who would have chosen a different enchantment if Vorpal weren't as aggressively overperforming as it did before.
And just because you personally don't expect it to happen, that does not mean you shouldn't ask for it. Otherwise, if people just don't say out what they want, how the developers expected to know?
Regardless of any testing, the devs should never bring back the vendor.
Honestly, IMO, the exchange vendor should never have made it into the game in the first place.
Do I understand why they did it? Sure, they didn't want to deal with the pitchforks if they didn't allow an exchange with the grand scale of changes they made.
Does that make a good idea? Not at all.
And to add salt, even before the vendor went live plenty of players said "you'll regret swapping it later". Well, here we are. Later has arrived and the first thing people say is "vendor please gimme the vendor i need a vendor i cant make a new enchant you thieves". Just a bad idea from the start.
Now, of course people are allowed to ask for it to come back. Just as I'm allowed to say "terrible idea devs".
Even if you tested out all 7 classes with DPS roles and found Vorpal perform best for all them, which I highly doubt at the least, it's still worthwhile to put an exchange vendor in for those who would have chosen a different enchantment if Vorpal weren't as aggressively overperforming as it did before.
And just because you personally don't expect it to happen, that does not mean you shouldn't ask for it. Otherwise, if people just don't say out what they want, how the developers expected to know?
Regardless of any testing, the devs should never bring back the vendor.
Honestly, IMO, the exchange vendor should never have made it into the game in the first place.
Do I understand why they did it? Sure, they didn't want to deal with the pitchforks if they didn't allow an exchange with the grand scale of changes they made.
Does that make a good idea? Not at all.
And to add salt, even before the vendor went live plenty of players said "you'll regret swapping it later". Well, here we are. Later has arrived and the first thing people say is "vendor please gimme the vendor i need a vendor i cant make a new enchant you thieves". Just a bad idea from the start.
Now, of course people are allowed to ask for it to come back. Just as I'm allowed to say "terrible idea devs".
I agreed with this but just for emphasis sake. +1
the bandaid needs to come off though or it's a never ending cycle. ppl were warned about the dangers of bound to account. imo it's on them at this point for using it. but it shouldn't come back again.
Have you considered skill buffs such as tr smoke bomb or warlock npnm (idk if there are any more on other classes)? I'm guessing this will have a huge impact on pvp (due to damage being >4x with ca and crit). We will have some sick oneshottings there
Do we just test our dps with the new formula and show ACT number? ( Not even bothering to take into account gear/player skill or even bothering to compare with other classes)? If so, is it so that you can increase creep health accordingly?
Both steps would mean that the damage formula was the end goal. I am confused but wasn't this a balancing change? The only way i see it as balancing preview testing would be to have a comparison with other classes whilst the AOE can be calculated with rough maths.
Even if you tested out all 7 classes with DPS roles and found Vorpal perform best for all them, which I highly doubt at the least, it's still worthwhile to put an exchange vendor in for those who would have chosen a different enchantment if Vorpal weren't as aggressively overperforming as it did before.
And just because you personally don't expect it to happen, that does not mean you shouldn't ask for it. Otherwise, if people just don't say out what they want, how the developers expected to know?
Regardless of any testing, the devs should never bring back the vendor.
Honestly, IMO, the exchange vendor should never have made it into the game in the first place.
Do I understand why they did it? Sure, they didn't want to deal with the pitchforks if they didn't allow an exchange with the grand scale of changes they made.
Does that make a good idea? Not at all.
And to add salt, even before the vendor went live plenty of players said "you'll regret swapping it later". Well, here we are. Later has arrived and the first thing people say is "vendor please gimme the vendor i need a vendor i cant make a new enchant you thieves". Just a bad idea from the start.
Now, of course people are allowed to ask for it to come back. Just as I'm allowed to say "terrible idea devs".
Fair, but then maybe delay the Vorpal nerf until the whole enchantment system is reworked again (it can be in less than a month though). The most important aspect of the vendor is that it's a safety net for newer players and while bounding it is a loss for me and in long-term I'm better with more options, a lot of players will be forced to sell it after the price crashes on live, effectively throwing out months of work on the window.
And the enchantments does not seem to be balanced at all. The new debuff effects on the weapon enchantments are laughable. Stackable -900 Critical avoidance/Defense/Deflect at Rank 14?
I have not tested out all of them on all classes (as it's a time and energy drain), but only a handful of few seems considerable and reworking the system would mean that players not just throwing away their old enchantment, but might be using more than one as different roles or play modes (PvP technically exists) might require different ones.
Fair, but then maybe delay the Vorpal nerf until the whole enchantment system is reworked again (it can be in less than a month though). The most important aspect of the vendor is that it's a safety net for newer players and while bounding it is a loss for me and in long-term I'm better with more options, a lot of players will be forced to sell it after the price crashes on live, effectively throwing out months of work on the window.
And the enchantments does not seem to be balanced at all. The new debuff effects on the weapon enchantments are laughable. Stackable -900 Critical avoidance/Defense/Deflect at Rank 14?
I have not tested out all of them on all classes (as it's a time and energy drain), but only a handful of few seems considerable and reworking the system would mean that players not just throwing away their old enchantment, but might be using more than one as different roles or play modes (PvP technically exists) might require different ones.
I suppose at the end of the day I just don't believe there should be any safety net. Part of the game is replacing items with newer/fixed/overpowered/etc items and that's been the case for a long time. I see no reason a new player shouldn't learn that right out of the gate.
I'm also boggled when people sell/trade their enchantments. Things are constantly changing whether it be weapon/armor enchants, single/double/triple stat enchants, runestones, gear, etc.
You know what makes people sell a weapon enchantment to get the new FoTM is? Impatience. It's not that hard to take up another enchantment. I've been playing this game for many, many....dear god...many years and I have an armory of ranked up weapon and armor enchants. Dread great? I'm covered. Lightning great? Covered. Feytouch? Yup, still in the bank. Vorpal BiS again? Hey hold on, let me dig in this here bank, oh yeah, there it was gathering dust but you know what, I'm covered.
Every time they nerfed an enchant, I didnt run off and sell it (or throw it away, are you crazy). I took up another and swapped it out. This whole notion that people have to be able to have what's BiS right now because something changed is just pampering IMO.
And let's say, just for giggles, when the smoke clear what if Vorpal still ends up the best for every class. Not saying it will, but if it does how many of you are going to come in here asking for an exchange vendor?
I'm going to guess very few if any will ask for it. Why? The vorpal will still have been changed. So the fact is people don't want to exchange because the vorpal changed and they want to experiment.
They want to exchange because "omg i heard so and so tested and xxxxx enchant does 2% more damage and I must have it right now".
Fair, but then maybe delay the Vorpal nerf until the whole enchantment system is reworked again (it can be in less than a month though). The most important aspect of the vendor is that it's a safety net for newer players and while bounding it is a loss for me and in long-term I'm better with more options, a lot of players will be forced to sell it after the price crashes on live, effectively throwing out months of work on the window.
And the enchantments does not seem to be balanced at all. The new debuff effects on the weapon enchantments are laughable. Stackable -900 Critical avoidance/Defense/Deflect at Rank 14?
I have not tested out all of them on all classes (as it's a time and energy drain), but only a handful of few seems considerable and reworking the system would mean that players not just throwing away their old enchantment, but might be using more than one as different roles or play modes (PvP technically exists) might require different ones.
I suppose at the end of the day I just don't believe there should be any safety net. Part of the game is replacing items with newer/fixed/overpowered/etc items and that's been the case for a long time. I see no reason a new player shouldn't learn that right out of the gate.
I'm also boggled when people sell/trade their enchantments. Things are constantly changing whether it be weapon/armor enchants, single/double/triple stat enchants, runestones, gear, etc.
You know what makes people sell a weapon enchantment to get the new FoTM is? Impatience. It's not that hard to take up another enchantment. I've been playing this game for many, many....dear god...many years and I have an armory of ranked up weapon and armor enchants. Dread great? I'm covered. Lightning great? Covered. Feytouch? Yup, still in the bank. Vorpal BiS again? Hey hold on, let me dig in this here bank, oh yeah, there it was gathering dust but you know what, I'm covered.
Every time they nerfed an enchant, I didnt run off and sell it (or throw it away, are you crazy). I took up another and swapped it out. This whole notion that people have to be able to have what's BiS right now because something changed is just pampering IMO.
And let's say, just for giggles, when the smoke clear what if Vorpal still ends up the best for every class. Not saying it will, but if it does how many of you are going to come in here asking for an exchange vendor?
I'm going to guess very few if any will ask for it. Why? The vorpal will still have been changed. So the fact is people don't want to exchange because the vorpal changed and they want to experiment.
They want to exchange because "omg i heard so and so tested and xxxxx enchant does 2% more damage and I must have it right now".
the difference between the worst enchant and the best is not really game breaking unless you're a leaderboard xxxx and NEED TO BE FIRST NO MATTER WHAT. I've ran with people in lomm who forgot to slot their weap enchant and still did reallly good damage. what makes mmos tick is the need to upgrade. right now there isn't a lot to work for. they need to give people things to work for or the game goes kaput. lord knows there isn't much in the way of new things to run. heck we're not even getting the tales of old stuff. it is a mistake to give crutches as far as this sort of thing goes.
Whether a vendor should be implemented to swap out vorpal or not, is seriously a completely different topic to this. Can we talk about the formula and the disparity?
What i am noticing live in randoms is that i am finding that rogues are easily matching my aoe, the only thing as a dps cleric has it going.
I'll wait and see how the dev's respond to the data, but i am pretty sure the disparity of 20-30% is intended by the dev's. Well, game is mostly dead, hardly anyone left to moan.
Just a question. How many replies from developers in this developer thread? I'll count and edit this post in a moment.
EDIT: I counted 2.
This is better than years passed, but there were huge gaps and this allowed for player morale to sink, especially among LONG TIME players. 1. There is HUGE HEAT for pushing PvP when the overall player base is JUST NOT INTERESTED in PvP. We discussed this in alpha and the community spoke.
2. BUGS BUGS BUGS. Just one big massive bug update would likely be the MOST POPULAR MOD you ever produced.
3. You need to focus on THE PLAYERS. REPLAYABILITY is paramount so we guild leaders and alliance leaders can offer our members ENTERTAINMENT.
Do you devs LOVE THIS GAME? Or are you answering to those bean counters and ignoring your playerbase? I should know the answer to that considering I started playing in ALPHA. I was also, proudly I might add, a forum moderator here. But you know, I DON'T know. And that here is the problem this community is having.
The SOLUTION: COMMUNICATION. 2 way communication.
By the by this is in no way a troll post or a doom post. This is STRAIGHT from the minds of your MOST LOYAL players. The ones that have been around the block, been to a few rodeos, yearning to STILL play Neverwinter with the friends they've made over the years, rooting for this game to succeed in today's climate.
I propose a Developer Roundtable Sit down with guild leaders, alliance leaders and a hand selected assortment of forum personalities. A Player Council sitdown with Developers. It can be private or public.
What better way for developers to learn what keeps folks playing the game long term vs what makes folks upset and leave. I'm sure many guild leaders would LOVE to explain what has worked and what hasnt worked to keep guildies happy.
It really does not need to be CRAZY TALK. It can go a long way to making us understand each other. And knowledge isn't only power, its profit. Its direction. Its FUN.
Has anyone considered how this change affects solo players? As a Justicar Paladin using an augment companion, I am never going to have combat advantage while doing my daily quests. Even using a combat companion is no guarantee that the companion will attack. I quit using combat companions because they were constantly in the way.
The point is, I get no benefits from this change, but all the creatures are now harder to kill. This means encounters take longer without giving any additional rewards.
I propose that you NOWORRIES propose to those who make the budget here this: WHAT is more important than playerbase morale? "BUGS BUGS BUGS. Just one big massive bug update would likely be the MOST POPULAR MOD you ever produced. " 'Common.. you can SAY IT!!
I grew up in the Bronx NY. Street Cred. RESPECT. That is what made you a leader or follower on "the Road".
To break this down into our Neverwinter world, Promote a BUG MOD. Free to everyone. You will have a THREAD full of thank yous and more people coming back.. and for a longer period of time... than your LAST TWO mods COMBINED.
Currently on live, Bilethorn is a 10% damage increase for a Wizard: It is likely it is higher for other classes, since Wizard already has a large number of procs and conditions don't favour Wizard for proc enchantments.
Assuming you have 75 base crit severity, 25% from potions etc and 100% combat advantage, on live Vorpal is a: (1+1+1.5*0.5)/(1+1+0.5)-1 = 10% increase excluding the DoT, ~12% if you include it.
On preview, if you have 15% vorpal, 25% from potions and 75% base then it is a:
(1+1.15*0.5)/(1+1*0.5)-1=5% increase, excluding the DoT.
If you have Vorpal at 25% critical severity, it is a: (1+1.25*0.5)/(1+1*0.5)-1=8.3% increase, excluding the DoT.
In the second scenario, Vorpal is more or less even with Bilethorn, in the first, Bilethorn replaces Vorpal. In addition to this, Lightning is better than Bilethorn on trash, so you would have a situation where the new BiS is Bile (bosse) and Lightning (trash).
I recommend leaving Vorpal at 25%.
Apparently, Bile is about 10% more damage increase THAN VORPAL for classes that heavily rely on at-wills aka barb. So we now have a situation where the balance is *** up again, because Bile is so much more stronger on specific classes and there is no alternative to those disadvantaged classes as well. This needs more testing on rogues/rangers and barb that presumably benefit much more with Bile.
Currently as a dps cleric, Bile is giving me 8.5% damage increase, in comparison to 6.5% from Vorpal. That is all fine, however, other classes are benefiting twice as much from Bile or so and we have no alternative to go with? This isn't specific to cleric.
Has anyone considered how this change affects solo players? As a Justicar Paladin using an augment companion, I am never going to have combat advantage while doing my daily quests. Even using a combat companion is no guarantee that the companion will attack. I quit using combat companions because they were constantly in the way.
The point is, I get no benefits from this change, but all the creatures are now harder to kill. This means encounters take longer without giving any additional rewards.
My justicar tank is not a DPS tank my armor pen is at cap everything else offense is well under cap power just a little over 100k and i was hitting noticeable harder with Smite then before the change and on a good group i did about 40% more DPS on a LOMM run than my previous average
Comments
Honestly, IMO, the exchange vendor should never have made it into the game in the first place.
Do I understand why they did it? Sure, they didn't want to deal with the pitchforks if they didn't allow an exchange with the grand scale of changes they made.
Does that make a good idea? Not at all.
And to add salt, even before the vendor went live plenty of players said "you'll regret swapping it later". Well, here we are. Later has arrived and the first thing people say is "vendor please gimme the vendor i need a vendor i cant make a new enchant you thieves". Just a bad idea from the start.
Now, of course people are allowed to ask for it to come back. Just as I'm allowed to say "terrible idea devs".
the bandaid needs to come off though or it's a never ending cycle. ppl were warned about the dangers of bound to account. imo it's on them at this point for using it. but it shouldn't come back again.
Do we just test for bugs now?
OR
Do we just test our dps with the new formula and show ACT number? ( Not even bothering to take into account gear/player skill or even bothering to compare with other classes)? If so, is it so that you can increase creep health accordingly?
Both steps would mean that the damage formula was the end goal. I am confused but wasn't this a balancing change? The only way i see it as balancing preview testing would be to have a comparison with other classes whilst the AOE can be calculated with rough maths.
And the enchantments does not seem to be balanced at all. The new debuff effects on the weapon enchantments are laughable. Stackable -900 Critical avoidance/Defense/Deflect at Rank 14?
I have not tested out all of them on all classes (as it's a time and energy drain), but only a handful of few seems considerable and reworking the system would mean that players not just throwing away their old enchantment, but might be using more than one as different roles or play modes (PvP technically exists) might require different ones.
I'm also boggled when people sell/trade their enchantments. Things are constantly changing whether it be weapon/armor enchants, single/double/triple stat enchants, runestones, gear, etc.
You know what makes people sell a weapon enchantment to get the new FoTM is? Impatience. It's not that hard to take up another enchantment. I've been playing this game for many, many....dear god...many years and I have an armory of ranked up weapon and armor enchants. Dread great? I'm covered. Lightning great? Covered. Feytouch? Yup, still in the bank. Vorpal BiS again? Hey hold on, let me dig in this here bank, oh yeah, there it was gathering dust but you know what, I'm covered.
Every time they nerfed an enchant, I didnt run off and sell it (or throw it away, are you crazy). I took up another and swapped it out. This whole notion that people have to be able to have what's BiS right now because something changed is just pampering IMO.
And let's say, just for giggles, when the smoke clear what if Vorpal still ends up the best for every class. Not saying it will, but if it does how many of you are going to come in here asking for an exchange vendor?
I'm going to guess very few if any will ask for it. Why? The vorpal will still have been changed. So the fact is people don't want to exchange because the vorpal changed and they want to experiment.
They want to exchange because "omg i heard so and so tested and xxxxx enchant does 2% more damage and I must have it right now".
What i am noticing live in randoms is that i am finding that rogues are easily matching my aoe, the only thing as a dps cleric has it going.
I'll wait and see how the dev's respond to the data, but i am pretty sure the disparity of 20-30% is intended by the dev's. Well, game is mostly dead, hardly anyone left to moan.
EDIT: I counted 2.
This is better than years passed, but there were huge gaps and this allowed for player morale to sink, especially among LONG TIME players.
1. There is HUGE HEAT for pushing PvP when the overall player base is JUST NOT INTERESTED in PvP. We discussed this in alpha and the community spoke.
2. BUGS BUGS BUGS. Just one big massive bug update would likely be the MOST POPULAR MOD you ever produced.
3. You need to focus on THE PLAYERS. REPLAYABILITY is paramount so we guild leaders and alliance leaders can offer our members ENTERTAINMENT.
Do you devs LOVE THIS GAME? Or are you answering to those bean counters and ignoring your playerbase? I should know the answer to that considering I started playing in ALPHA. I was also, proudly I might add, a forum moderator here. But you know, I DON'T know. And that here is the problem this community is having.
The SOLUTION: COMMUNICATION. 2 way communication.
By the by this is in no way a troll post or a doom post. This is STRAIGHT from the minds of your MOST LOYAL players. The ones that have been around the block, been to a few rodeos, yearning to STILL play Neverwinter with the friends they've made over the years, rooting for this game to succeed in today's climate.
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
What better way for developers to learn what keeps folks playing the game long term vs what makes folks upset and leave. I'm sure many guild leaders would LOVE to explain what has worked and what hasnt worked to keep guildies happy.
It really does not need to be CRAZY TALK. It can go a long way to making us understand each other. And knowledge isn't only power, its profit. Its direction. Its FUN.
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
The point is, I get no benefits from this change, but all the creatures are now harder to kill. This means encounters take longer without giving any additional rewards.
Bugs = "Street Cred"
No no... not THAT Bugs.
I propose that you NOWORRIES propose to those who make the budget here this: WHAT is more important than playerbase morale? "BUGS BUGS BUGS. Just one big massive bug update would likely be the MOST POPULAR MOD you ever produced. " 'Common.. you can SAY IT!!
I grew up in the Bronx NY. Street Cred. RESPECT. That is what made you a leader or follower on "the Road".
To break this down into our Neverwinter world, Promote a BUG MOD. Free to everyone. You will have a THREAD full of thank yous and more people coming back.. and for a longer period of time... than your LAST TWO mods COMBINED.
Wanna bet?
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
Apparently, Bile is about 10% more damage increase THAN VORPAL for classes that heavily rely on at-wills aka barb. So we now have a situation where the balance is *** up again, because Bile is so much more stronger on specific classes and there is no alternative to those disadvantaged classes as well. This needs more testing on rogues/rangers and barb that presumably benefit much more with Bile.
Currently as a dps cleric, Bile is giving me 8.5% damage increase, in comparison to 6.5% from Vorpal. That is all fine, however, other classes are benefiting twice as much from Bile or so and we have no alternative to go with? This isn't specific to cleric.