Feedback Overview: Updated rewards in qued content, have fragments drop from endchests which can be combined into a mount/companion/transmute and the content/fragments are swapped out fairly frequently to keep the rewards fresh and exciting.
Feedback Goal/functionality: Most players that have played this game are looking for things worth running, the majority of the qued content give very outdated and lackluster rewards. This new idea would provide an incentive to run old content, I for one love visual stuff and would farm things to no end to get what I want.
Risks & Concerns: There are those players that will not care about visuals, they would rather get gear and items that improves their gameplay/stats instead a static visual. Perhaps it would be an incentive to make the reward unbound, although in my opinion that takes the fun of grinding for a reward out of the equation when you can simply buy it from the auction house.
I'm not a math wiz, I'm not technical at all, but I like conceptualizing ideas into visuals. Lastly I would like to say that this thread is looking so promising, we have so many talented and passionate members of our community that deserve to be heard and discuss things with. Keep up the good work!
Bravo can't fault anything said here .... Well put!
Combat System:
Just to add - The best thing about this game was it's fast paced rotation combat system, Feats and build choices..... The combat system right now is frankly boring the encounter skills cool downs are excruciating and character build / feat choices are gone.
Dungeons and End game challenge
The way I see it end game players only have 1 trial and 1 Dungeon left, the older content and trials is just so easy and very recently being made even easier for new players. We've never had many dungeon options available to us and with only 1 piece addition added per MoD they have been played to death - this was acceptable when the content was more challenging and fun. Nobody wants to go play content they have played to death in easy mode for substandard and outdated chest rewards.
LOMM is an end game dungeon it wasn't difficult to master the mechanics. A tank is only really useful for the boss fights - There is no traditional tank takes agro before DPS engage mechanic. DPS run ahead of the tank through the trash with relative ease - so a tanks primary function is bosses agro only. Master Difficulty dungeon option and more content in general would be very much welcomed.
Suggestion
I think it's time to remove the requirement to be standing at a fireplace to change between AOE and Single target DPS builds.... The load out system was implemented and fireplace placement was factored into dungeons for a short time at least, but that seems to be an oversight in some content now. Being able to switch builds outside of combat or enabling portable alters to facilitate build swaps would be far more practical.
The constant nerf solution to a problem is a real problem e.g Clerics have had 6 or 7 successive nerfs leading up to and post MOD 16..... player base slowly thins as people start getting annoyed.
Class balance currently is worse than ever currently even with the game and mechanics dumbed down to current levels - the length of time it takes to even acknowledge these imbalances is abysmal (current waiting time is 7 months). You can't seriously expect people to spend money on the game when no matter what BIS item they purchase, they are held back by a imbalanced damage or self buff formulas some classes have experienced for some time.
Like that you are showing an interest Whiteside
All the best in your new role and I hope you can make this game successful again.
Hi Duckie and Fireside (Replying to both posts here),
Thanks for taking the time to post we really appreciate it. Regarding:
Not to mention, if you spend millions of time and or ad or real life money you want the perks of the things you've earned to always be in effect. If I have all level 15 enchants do you expect me to be pleased to have it scaled down for most of the content in the game? My build becomes unreliable. Yes, unscaled some content may become trivial but as it is now ALL content other than Tomm is trivial for the end gamer. When things were across the board one level with no scaling to speak of there was a lot of content that was rewarding to complete AND there was an actual point to levelling up your gear to the highest level. It was never irrelevant.
We are certainly thinking about this overall point and we will discuss in more detail soon.
Regarding bugs we are very focused on release quality now as well and you will see improvements over time here.
Regarding:
I think it's time to remove the requirement to be standing at a fireplace to change between AOE and Single target DPS builds.... The load out system was implemented and fireplace placement was factored into dungeons for a short time at least, but that seems to be an oversight in some content now. Being able to switch builds outside of combat or enabling portable alters to facilitate build swaps would be far more practical.
There is news coming in this area early next year. Suffice to say we agree.
We will do a CDP on combat and class balance in the near future.
Regarding Nerfs it is our goal to drastically reduce these occurrences by increasing our release quality.
Looking forward to continued discussion. Sorry we don't have more details now, but they are coming as is more discussion with the community.
Remove uneccesary time wasted on grinding for outdated gear and legacy dungeon unlocks. This would help new players avoid the feeling of beeing overwhelmed by 6 years+ of outdated content on their way to level 80. I see absolutely no reason at all to keep the time-gating for the older campaigns.
Feedback Functionality
Use the Undermountain/Elemental evil campaign design. Let players finish legacy campaigns when they feel like it.
Risks & Concerns
Sybellas legacy campaign quests has to have a minor rework.
Hi Wilbur,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. We are looking into the below area right now and will have more info toward the end of January (in terms of direction we can all discuss):
Decrease the portion of total stats that are recieved from companions/bondings.
Feedback Goal:
Allowing easier catch up for new players and simplifying the gearing process.
Feedback Functionality:
Currenty the catch up gear available from the campaigns don't serve their purpose because a large majority of stats needed for content come from companions. If the stats from the companions were reduced to 10% of a players total stats, that would not only make catch up gear more useful but also make balancing stats for the content a lot less frustrating of an experience.
If that is achieved trough reduction in total stats, the content would have to be balanced accordingly.
Risks & Concerns:
This would be a fairly big change in regards to companions and usually there is some well placed lashback when that's done without enough testing.
Hi Cilginordek,
Thanks for taking the time to post, the response from everyone has been great and sorry for how long it is taking me to reply. I tend to read then click an emote and then reply when i have time.
So this is an area we are talking about as well. Specifically in regard to more clarity about what items, equipment and so on impact the character and class (We wont be look to take away in any area). We will be sharing our initial thoughts in the new year for discussion as part of this thread. There is a lot in the game that could be better taught and more accessible and this is a priority for us next year.
We want more content like ToMM. Its great. Makes players have a goal to upgrade their characters. We also want easier versions of hardest content with lesser rewards for other players so they can enjoy and learn the mechanics.
We want variety of ways to play each class. That means more relevant feats and class features. Now 90% of them are so bad that its embarassing. Also class bugfixes should be a priority.
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
Thank you and good luck
Hi Darthpotater,
Again thanks for taking the time to be part of the CDP. Looking forward to evolve the game with your and and the communities help.
When you say 'we' it comes across as though you are speaking for everyone who plays. So my question is to you: what about players who want to experience ToMM but who can't gain entry and obviously can't get close to completing any of therelated content. Note i am not looking for thoughts in regard to normalization. Instead how do we make all of our content more inclusive to our players. What are the benefits for all the players of this?
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
I believe our systems team have plans for just this that relates to players of all levels globally. I will follow up.
Where possible, content should be designed in a manner so that it builds on itself. This way a player is never thrown into the deep end so to speak and everything new is built upon something they should have done before. For example, with M17 if there had been encounters with Halaster in the WEs/FEs where the player fought mini Halasters using some of his attacks, to acclimatize people to them.
With that being said, I do not believe that all content should be completable by all players, there should be different tiers of content. Harder content however, should very clearly indicate in some way to players that they may not succeed at it and that this is intentional. Item level as a system should be done away with because it does not properly communicate difficulty. Instead, each dungeon should require you to have completed the previous dungeons, with some constraints.
Hi thefabricant,
Totally agree in terms of the goal. The devil is in the details and i am hoping we drill into some of those details more deeply during this CDP.
I will be commenting more this weekend. Please don't be perturbed if i don't directly answer you posts. This will be because:
A: i haven't read it yet.
B: I have read it and we are discussing.
C: I have replied to another post that is in the same area of discussion or ideation.
Thanks Chris
7
rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
I would love to see some mechanism in the game, other than selling on the Auction House, for players that don't like/can't run etc dungeons would be able to get the gear that is available in them. Yes, keep the dungeon the quickest way to get the items but add something that would enable everyone to be able to get the gear within the timeframe of a mods life.
Feedback Goal To have some vital information about items/powers available in-game without having to personally test them. There are many cases where a player is left in blind/downright misled when choosing his gear. That leads to upset users, which is probably not desirable and could be avoided.
Feedback Functionality Add relevant tooltips to the items, so a player can at least guess what he is trying to get. This is not as sarcastic as it is just stating the reality: internal cool-downs are not mentioned (for example Tenebrous enchantment tempts you to get more than one to increase your chance on proc - but in most cases it is already limited by the internal cool-down, so you are directly misled) mount insignia bonuses (not the slots, the mentioning of the bonus) are shown to you after you have the mount already in stable game mechanic - how works damage over time is not mentioned anywhere (which might lead to surprises for example while naively trying to give Warlock's Creeeping Death a chance, but the same goes for example for Dread weapon enchantments...) - how a shielding works (does it stack magnitude or duration? overrides each other?) is not mentioned as well, not for pally powers, not in Prominence weapon enchantment - powers description - this might be by some considered more of a bug, but for example Thaumaturge wizard has some well known, long therm present discrepancy between tooltip and actual reality - how scaling works... Forget it, nobody would be interested in this even if it was a rational and reliable system. But exactly because it is so mysterious magic it would be nice not to see "you are scaled to il20k" - but to have some preview what effects does it have on your stats and which stats are present at your adversaries
Why I suggest this Well, because I witnessed more than just myself getting really angry after realising the discrepancy between expectation and reality.
Risks & Concerns Players might no longer purchase items from Zen market that are downright useless for them.
Hi Rikitaki,
We absolutely do need to teach/inform our systems better and provide more quality with our tool tips. This is a priority for next year.
I will argue that "accessibility" as such is in some cases not the base problem, but rather a symptom of a different, underlying problem. Now, if I try to restrict myself to talking about accessibility in the narrowest sense, I note the following issues:
Disability issues
The problems of color-blind players have already been brought up, but you also have some players who are deaf or with serious hearing issues. This means they have limited ability to participate in content where synchronization over a voice channel is seen as necessary. There are ways around that, at least for those players who run with friends or a considerate guild. However, there are some bosses where there are auditory cues (as opposed to visual) for impending attacks,or which type of attack is coming. This puts deaf players at a considerable disadvantage in those situations, as they may not be able to select an optimal response in a timely manner.
"Outleveled" content
It has been possible for content to become inaccessible by outleveling it. As an example, here is my personal pet peeve: I collect titles, but I am missing one: "Arachnophile". The reason....when I was leveling up, I outleveled the "Defend the Village" skirmish, so I cannot get the corresponding achievement. If it had been brought back as a CTA it would have solved the problem, but this is one of 3 old skirmishes that have never been offered as CTAs. I have also suggested offering an event where max level restrictions on this old content get lifted temporarily, just to allow people to complete missing achievements and such.
Help, I have no idea what to do!
Having content that is "accessible" is irrelevant if you are not aware it exists or how to reach it. When the ability of low level players to ask questions and seek advice on the chat channels was taken away it resulted in many players getting into a position where they feel stuck - they have a problem - they don't know how to proceed but they cannot ask for help. The result - they give up and find some other game to play. Yes, I know this was done in order to combat spam, but that could have been implemented so much, much better.
"Help, I get slaughtered!"
This is not about accessibility as such - the content is "accessible", just not doable, so as far as the player in question is concerned it is inaccessible. Players may not know what they need to improve to reach the maximum potential for their characters. I would like to see either an "Advisor" NPC or a "Advice" button in the client, which would give players advice on how to improve their builds and or stat allocations. I'm talking about advice like:
"Your stable is not full and some of the mounts you have do not have insignia bonuses."
"Your primary weapon and head gear is inferior, considering your level ."
"Joining a guild would give you new boons and improve your stats."
"You do not have any bonding runestones"
"Switching to a better companion would increase your DPS"
"You should boost your outgoing healing bonus to become a better healer."
"You have not completed the so-and-so campaign. Finishing that would give you a couple of boon points."
I am talking about the kind of advice that experienced players typically give "newbies" in their guilds - but making advice like this available to everyone would help more players get to the point where they can tackle all the relevant content - thus making the content really "accessible" to them.
"I can't be bothered"
OK, I was going to only talk about accessibility in the strictest sense, but I cannot resist mentioning this point - it really has to be considered as a part of the "big picture". Having content that is "accessible" is pointless if people do not want to do it. There are too many places where the reward/effort ratio is just too low. Players don't care if the content is "accessible" it doing it feels like a waste of time - for all practical purposes it might not exist.
"I'm not wanted"
Apart from the issues noted above, accessibility is not really an issue for the "solo" content. However, for group content there is one more barrier to access. You may have a character that meets all the requirements,has an "optimal" build, and the player is sufficiently skilled, but is nevertheless unable to do the content in question as his particular class/paragon is just not wanted. This is partly a perception problem - some classes are seen as weaker than others and in a party with random people, players will want the "stronger" classes to keep the run as short and problem-free as possible. This means that if you belong to one of the "weaker" classes, your ability to access the content is reduced, as other players will be reluctant to bring you along. Case in point: The cleric in ToMM. A good Devoted (healer) Cleric can find a spot in a ToMM group easily, but an Arbiter (DPS) cleric will be ignored, due to the general consensus that he does maybe 25% less DPS than an equally geared and skilled member of one of the stronger classes. (Yes, I know the data you collected says the gap is smaller, but the reality is that you are comparing only the "top" Arbiters against more "average" members of some of the other classes). I mentioned the Arbiter as that is my favourite, but there are a few other classes/paragons that have the same problem. It might be informative to look at the relative number of characters of the various classes/paragons that actually complete ToMM - I think that will give you a reasonable estimate of the perceived performance of those classes, and how that is reflected in the chance of those classes basically having access to the content.
The survivor bias
There is a story from WW II about an analysis of planes that returned from missions despite being hit. The original idea was to strengthen the parts of the planes that suffered the most damage - until someone pointed out that they should be strengthening the parts where they had no damage data - as those were the planes that did not survive being hit.
How is this relevant?
Well, you are basically asking the "survivors" for their input - but maybe you should consider asking those who are no longer playing, and focus on fixing whatever caused them to stop playing. Just sending out a "we miss you" mail to former players and give them some nice stuff if they just answer a short survey....and then process that data.
Really insightful post adinosii. I/we am/are going to be thinking about the content quite a bit before replying.
Scaling Do you and other members of the CDP feel that scaling has any value at all? What about events that all players would like to take part in but can't for example from an experiential standpoint. We all want players to be enticed toward the same high level goals and pillars (which we need to do a better job of defining, guiding and bolstering) and part of that is to play the same experiences that aspirational players are playing never-mind wanting to enjoy content that much of the player base is focused on at any given time. What if scaling delivered both this opportunity and maintained the sense of empowerment earned through progression and catered in a meaningful way to the different types of players goals in terms of rewards, progression and so on?
I (personally) think that scaling, as a concept, is very interesting. For old players, it opens the possibility to keep old content relevant, and this is very important to Neverwinter since just 1 dungeon or trial or skirmish is released per mod. Upscaling, if done right, could open the possibility for new players to help their guilds right away by doing stronghold activities.
However, I think that scaling was implemented poorly. For instance, players that have the caps for level 80 content may not have caps for those old dungeons when scaled down. This completely invalidates the effort that went in getting those stats. And even worse: the main advantage that scaling could provide (keep old content relevant) is not there. Most old dungeons aren't worth the time you spend running them. Fortunately, noworries said that changes to scaling are planned so the stat cap problem can be solved, but that doesn't solve the rewards issue.
A promising idea with scaling was proposed in Mod 15, the K-Team Dungeon challenge: completing a dungeon while being scaled down to the minimum item level and without any deaths. Once again, an interesting idea that was plagued by lackluster rewards. If you plan on doing master versions for dungeons, I think having modifiers to change the difficulty of those master versions, like the ones imposed by the K-Team challenge, would be a good thing. Just make sure the challenge is actually rewarding this time.
The problem with K-team, and Tales(as it is similar concept to K-team x number of runs completed with increasing difficulty to get rewards) IMHO is that unless you have a great guild with people that you can run with on consistent basis, you can't get in. Everyone looking for groups in the the various chat channels(other than guilds/alliance) is looking for the very best players so they can guarantee they don't waste their time. Even some guilds have their elitist snobs that make access to these events for casual folks impossible. This makes it very difficult for someone that meets requirements(exceeds even by 2-4k IL) to get into such events.
It is extremely frustrating to spend over an hour or more running a dungeon(or the same dungeon over and over as is the case with tales) and lose yer rewards at the last second cuz you see the victory but also lost the last life at the same time.
For me as a typically casual player(I've had a lot of time off work this year, so I've played a lot more than I normally would) I would bypass events like Tales, as the rewards aren't worth the frustration of getting in with one toon, let alone trying to do it on more than one. In fact, I don't think I'd have been able to get even one fabled chapter in Oct Tales event if I hadn't been off of work. One suggestion I have for Tales in the future, is to grant rewards for the number of runs completed. Example you make thru 4 runs, but die during the 5th, give us the rewards for 4 runs. I can't see myself running a Tales like even in the future, and don't even know enough about Hellpit to say whether or not I'd try to run that, even though the rewards(for Hellpit at least) look like they would be worth the effort. I just don't know if it something that can be done running it on weekends only, which when I would normally only have time for gaming.
To create new Dungeons and Trials that allow both new inexperienced players to play along side experienced end-game players, and have them be able to complete the new content without each being put off by having to do it with the other. To have the rewards be valuable enough so that both a "new" player and and "endgame" player will continue to challenge themselves by quing for the content multiple times.
Feedback Funtionality:
Core Change Each Character will have the ability to Q for content choosing a level of difficulty using scaling, to keep it simple, Easy, Normal and Hard. Each mode will add a form of scaling based against the difficulty of the dungeon, but it will only be placed on that character and not on the dungeon, others joining in the q'ed Dungeon will have chosen there own difficulty. So a new player just wanting to go in story mode would choose Easy, a person who has learned the mechanics but is still looking to raise their enchants and getting more boons etc would choose Normal, and an Endgamer looking for a challenge and the highest possible rewards would choose Hard. The chosen difficulty can be lowered during the dungeon so that if someone is struggling, and the group is unable to complete the dungeon, they can lower from Hard to Normal, and Normal to Easy, but the rewards are also lowered. The goal of the difficulty modes is that each player is moved to the mean of the dungeon, meaning that a dps on easy mode should be doing the same dps as a player on Hard mode who is doing the same damage as someone on Normal mode. The important point in this system is that Normal mode is unscaled. The rewards tied to this, just going to use seals as an example, Easy 5 seals, Normal 50 seals, Hard 200 seals. My point here is that the rewards should have some significant difference tied to both time invested (Character stats, time in content).
All the content would be New Level 80, but instead of reworking older level 70 dungeons add level 80 content taking you into the old campaign area's with a new questline lasting perhaps a week leading to the new Q'd content. For example Underdark getting a Dungeon, Sharandar getting a Trial, Aquisitions Incorporated getting a Dungeon, just some examples. The concept is more about adding level 80 content to older areas without having to add to many resources or areas to create small mini story extensions and make the older areas relevent but at the same time creating NEW content, and not reworked content.
Why I suggest this: The Mantra from long time players that remain, and those that left, Rewards are not worth the effort/time outlay in the current system. The new players feel that they are being excluded from running content, the difference between to top top players like Fabricant and Mickeypoo is almost the same gap as exists between the rest of the endgamers and the new players. A scaled reward and scaled difficulty that is personal will allow the newer players to learn and play with these others and feel that they are contributing to the success of the content and not further divide them into story mode and reg content.
Risks and Concerns: The biggest risk and concern is not getting the percentages right in the scaling, the goal is that the output on dps/healing/tankability be as close to equivilant. Meaning that dps on Easy mode should be putting out the same dps as someone on Hard or Normal, the idea is to push all to the mean, and the rewards are the only diffference, but that also pushes the Easy and Normal to build to be able to play on Hard. The reward difference must be worth it.
We want more content like ToMM. Its great. Makes players have a goal to upgrade their characters. We also want easier versions of hardest content with lesser rewards for other players so they can enjoy and learn the mechanics.
We want variety of ways to play each class. That means more relevant feats and class features. Now 90% of them are so bad that its embarassing. Also class bugfixes should be a priority.
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
Thank you and good luck
Hi Darthpotater,
Again thanks for taking the time to be part of the CDP. Looking forward to evolve the game with your and and the communities help.
When you say 'we' it comes across as though you are speaking for everyone who plays. So my question is to you: what about players who want to experience ToMM but who can't gain entry and obviously can't get close to completing any of therelated content. Note i am not looking for thoughts in regard to normalization. Instead how do we make all of our content more inclusive to our players. What are the benefits for all the players of this?
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
I believe our systems team have plans for just this that relates to players of all levels globally. I will follow up.
Chris
As an Xbox player the biggest issue I have with content like ToMM being as difficult as it is, is that it makes it impossible to get into without a top tier guild. And I still haven't had a successful run. Casual players aren't going to be able to get in before the next mod drops. I was much happier with LoMM, even though it required so much more communication than previous dungeons, that you still couldn't just q up random and go do it, and succeed more often than fail. As it is you still can't q LoMM random and succeed 90% the time or more.
I think that to make the content more accessible to more players, that the devs need to go back to a normal, and master version of certain dungeons(or normal and epic versions). The normal version would have a lower IL requirement, be significantly easier than the master/epic version, and the rewards could be proportional. The only downside I foresee to this, is that the master/epic versions could end up being too difficult still for random groups of people that have in fact completed the normal version and meet the requirements to get in, that you will still have casual folks being passed over when people in chat are looking for groups, whether it's the person looking to get into the master/epic for the first time, or the folks putting groups together only taking people that are 2-4k IL higher than the "price" of admission.
I personally experienced this when trying to get into Tales during grand retelling, and wasn't able to finish collecting the pieces I wanted for the toons I was taking thru it. Granted Tales is an event, so it is a bit different, but it would have been nice to be able to finish what I wanted to finish. Having a 6 hour maintenance near the end of the event didn't help, and should be avoided in the future. I can't say for sure that the maintenance being pushed till after the even would have helped me or not, but it keep me from having the ability to at least try.
Feedback Overview: Updated rewards in qued content, have fragments drop from endchests which can be combined into a mount/companion/transmute and the content/fragments are swapped out fairly frequently to keep the rewards fresh and exciting.
Feedback Goal/functionality: Most players that have played this game are looking for things worth running, the majority of the qued content give very outdated and lackluster rewards. This new idea would provide an incentive to run old content, I for one love visual stuff and would farm things to no end to get what I want.
Risks & Concerns: There are those players that will not care about visuals, they would rather get gear and items that improves their gameplay/stats instead a static visual. Perhaps it would be an incentive to make the reward unbound, although in my opinion that takes the fun of grinding for a reward out of the equation when you can simply buy it from the auction house.
I'm not a math wiz, I'm not technical at all, but I like conceptualizing ideas into visuals. Lastly I would like to say that this thread is looking so promising, we have so many talented and passionate members of our community that deserve to be heard and discuss things with. Keep up the good work!
things should be unbound in harder content. that's part of hte grind being able to sell it. the things in your pic would all be useless to just about anyone but the newest of the new players. I think old gear should be made more relevant if its going to keep dropping.
Feedback Overview Make the Cleric Healer viable in new qued content, such as TOMM & Citadel.
Feedback Goal The goal is to allow cleric healers to be able to join the new qued content and enjoy the game likewise. Currently, OP healers are a preferred choice in groups because of the temporary shield that they grant to the team, allowing the party members to fight without fear of losing HP and stay at one place fighting, and therefore, making the most of "combat advantage" stat. Also, players prefer to "lose temporary HP than their actual HP." Hence, allowing them to play with less stress and more effectively.
Feedback Functionality Clerics could once again become part of the new content by significantly improving the effectiveness of Healing Word, which basically restores HP once it goes down. It has its similarity to the OP shield, except that it only works once the actual HP starts decreasing. So, if Healing Word is effective enough to deal with once-shots, AOE, and other damages then, I think, people would pick clerics in their teams instead of looking for OPs only.
Healing Word could also provide some shield once the players' HP drop to 50%. This would, at least, let the players know that they will not die fast so as to waste revive scrolls and would also allow the cleric in team to heal back. I know I have only focused on Healing WOrd here, but what other choice do the clerics (and other classes) have considering the post16 class skill limitations?
Risks & Concerns <> Warlock healers may feel left out because the ops and dcs will be needed, but not them. Currently, they share the same position with Cleric healers. So they are not alone.
The problem with K-team, and Tales(as it is similar concept to K-team x number of runs completed with increasing difficulty to get rewards) IMHO is that unless you have a great guild with people that you can run with on consistent basis, you can't get in. Everyone looking for groups in the the various chat channels(other than guilds/alliance) is looking for the very best players so they can guarantee they don't waste their time. Even some guilds have their elitist snobs that make access to these events for casual folks impossible. This makes it very difficult for someone that meets requirements(exceeds even by 2-4k IL) to get into such events.
I am a healer, so I had an easier time finding groups for Tales than most, but for DPS players this problem certainly seems terrible. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to provide challenging content and avoiding elitism at the same time. In fact, even if we take out the "challenging" part, this happens: I have seen people asking for 24k+ for RTQ recently. It happens in every game, and I don't really know what would be a good solution to this, other than finding a great guild or circle of friends.
It is extremely frustrating to spend over an hour or more running a dungeon(or the same dungeon over and over as is the case with tales) and lose yer rewards at the last second cuz you see the victory but also lost the last life at the same time.
For me as a typically casual player(I've had a lot of time off work this year, so I've played a lot more than I normally would) I would bypass events like Tales, as the rewards aren't worth the frustration of getting in with one toon, let alone trying to do it on more than one. In fact, I don't think I'd have been able to get even one fabled chapter in Oct Tales event if I hadn't been off of work. One suggestion I have for Tales in the future, is to grant rewards for the number of runs completed. Example you make thru 4 runs, but die during the 5th, give us the rewards for 4 runs. I can't see myself running a Tales like even in the future, and don't even know enough about Hellpit to say whether or not I'd try to run that, even though the rewards(for Hellpit at least) look like they would be worth the effort. I just don't know if it something that can be done running it on weekends only, which when I would normally only have time for gaming.
I agree 100%, the no death thing can be very frustrating. IMO, a good idea for a possible future implementation of those master dungeons would be additional rewards for not dying, i.e. if no one on the team dies, you get better rewards, but if somebody dies you won't have your run completely ruined by it. I think the same logic can be applied to other restrictions, like time limits. Making sure that future difficulty modifiers work this way, granting additional rewards instead of leaving players with nothing when they fail, will go a long way to provide more engaging content to the whole playerbase.
We want more content like ToMM. Its great. Makes players have a goal to upgrade their characters. We also want easier versions of hardest content with lesser rewards for other players so they can enjoy and learn the mechanics.
We want variety of ways to play each class. That means more relevant feats and class features. Now 90% of them are so bad that its embarassing. Also class bugfixes should be a priority.
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
Thank you and good luck
Hi Darthpotater,
Again thanks for taking the time to be part of the CDP. Looking forward to evolve the game with your and and the communities help.
When you say 'we' it comes across as though you are speaking for everyone who plays. So my question is to you: what about players who want to experience ToMM but who can't gain entry and obviously can't get close to completing any of therelated content. Note i am not looking for thoughts in regard to normalization. Instead how do we make all of our content more inclusive to our players. What are the benefits for all the players of this?
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
I believe our systems team have plans for just this that relates to players of all levels globally. I will follow up.
Chris
Hi Neighbour (thee is from Stoke-On-Trent),
Chris, I feel as if you want everyone to be able to participate in every content in the game. If that is your set goal, i am afraid, this game would need a complete Overhaul.
Let me give you an example. In the forums, you'll commonly find players referring to TOMM for the 1% of players. I beg to differ; it is but for everyone, until such time that you meet the requirements. This sense of progression is an incentive for players to upgrade and face a challenge. This isn't alien to MMO's out there, many content in other vastly populated MMO's are only completed by a very small percentage of their population and those are the big daddies I am talking about.
The reason why this kind of progression makes sense in NW than most other MMO's is because of it's reliance on upgrading gear. That's also where scaling falls short off.
If you strip off gear upgrading, you'll effectively will strip off a huge part of your revenue and probably the sense of progression for the end gamers.
In short, i am trying to get across the point is that there is no overlap between a casual player and an end game player. They are two sides of the same coin. That is also why you see many suggestions that are actually segregating the players i.e. tier based system and etc and I have previously mentioned that you would need to strike a balance between catering for both of these population.
Fabricant's response on creating a similar system to Path of Exile with an endless dungeon can easily sate the end gamers for a long time. Perhaps the same kind of system allows story based implementation for casuals? You basically get to choose if you want to run the story version (where you will have to wait for cutscenes to end) and a version where you are there to grind and progress deeper to get better rewards. This would mean that there would really be no need for campaigns and those "fetch", "sit", "jump" training kind of quests. The latter only gets on your nerves and many MMO's never learn and still waste time on vastly outdated method of making content.
Welcome to the game, may your stay here both beneficial and pleasant to all of us.
The only request I want to make is to NOT turn this game into a GW2 clone. Not that it is a bad game, I played it for quite the long time after all. The vertically and jumping puzzles, that IMO the camera angles never allowed to be done well in either 1st or 3rd person could have used another pass. Also the lack of advancement at max level still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Basically once you hit max level you could play dress-up and/or aim for that ascended item, that only gives a very minor improvement to your character. Builds were much more cookie cutter to the point that is you wanted to WvW you NEEDED to be rocking the build of the month or be excluded. You can never feel unique or like you are a godling no matter how long you play/grind. I guess it boils down to there will always be the BIS items, BUT these should never make your player base clone robots of each other, shunned even though you may be an amazing player.The advancement could be much different now, but I have not played that game in many years because it got so stale.
I appreciate this game simply because of the WOW factor. When I see another player that does DPS/HEAL/TANK so much better that my jaw drops and I WANT to be as strong as that character even though I know it will take tons of time! I know that everyone has different opinions on what makes a good game and I willing to try new things, but if something is clearly not working to the point that nobody plays that content any longer or hates it (I'm looking at you Acquisitions Incorporated), sometimes you just need to rethink it.
Sorry for the rant, It does seem with this thread though that you have got the communication that was lacking in GW2 down, and I truly hope it continues in the future for all of us!
Feedback Overview Show some of the important bosses mechanics along the dungeon itself
Feedback Goal During the walk in the corridors and rooms of a dungeon, make the player see or experience a version of some of the future deadly mechanics so he can get an idea of what is coming (but obviously keep some surprises too :P). It would serve as a "discover" for a new player, but also as a reminder for vets/comeback, and can help avoiding frustration to die because of an unexpected unforgiving mechanic (people who trained CoDG without any explaination may remember their first push-pull, or the wipe after the first sister of fury in CR because of not rushing soon enough to destroy the "red cristal", or the first cocoon against Arcturia)
Feedback Functionality I'm the kind of player who want to discover first hand the mechanics : I don't like being taught by another player, I will never watch a vid before getting my own idea of the mechanics. Whenever i run my first time in any dungeon, I will always put a huge priority on survavibility/cautiousness over anything else, so even if my party get beaten, at least I will try to make the fight as long as possible so I can get a view of as many mechanics involved as possible while trying to analize how to deal with those.
One of the reasons why I love the epic dungeon Castle Never over every other is because it is designed so you are given some clever hints about future deadly mechanics through the run. I can't think of any other dungeon providing that (or at least not as well and clearly as CN)
During our first CN with my brother : - we immediately saw the green elastic killing 2 guards on the bridge as a future dangerous mechanic, so we kept space between us and others all along the dungeon to avoid being caught in a smack (though obviously now we know where the elastic can appear and where you are safe). We both finished without dying by the elastic - The room with breaches helped us to understand, when we saw the sames during Orcus final fight, that maybe it would be useful to jump in and shut breaches down (back in those days, CN Orcus was not as burnable as nowdays, you were seing at least 3 or 4 phases before he was downed). - we immediately understood the cutscene of the 2nd boss showing the ceilling : spikes will drop on our head (though we discovered right after it was reversed gravity mechanic) => we looked up to see where the spikes were and positionnaly fight accordingly. And didn't die. - we recognized the wandering green balls in the corridors as a potential mechanics during the next boss battle (mostly because it was logical as some other bosses mechanics were hinted before). We died anyway against our first Orcus 3balls spawn, because of kind of panic mode (we were expecting only one at the same time ^^)
That's a well designed and clever way to introduce players to the major deadly bosses mechanics (much more clever than a downgraded version during the campaign [like sister of fury in barovia, or Ras Nsi in the soshenstar croco temple]). Moreover it's quite rewarding for someone who catches the hint and then is able to adapt is fighting even during his first run ever to survive. And personnaly i'm very ok with a hinted mechanic to be able to oneshot someone or wipe a party. I have never felt that in any other NWO dungeons, which are more a die a retry game to figure out what the mechanics are before even trying to deal with them.
I had use CN many times as an "introduction to epic dungeon" for new players in my guild, making a guild-party going private CN and only telling the new mate "keep your eyes open, and you will understand 80% of what you need to know during boss fights before actually engage the fight." At the end, every single new guildmate got it quickly, some died a bit, some were able to finish without any death. And each one felt proud to achieve the dungeon with an understanding of their own.
Risks & Concerns Balance between giving hints and keeping surprises. A boss should always have at least one or two assets in its sleeve (not oneshooting but critical ones, like the blast CN Orcus shoot at the party before go flying potentially making everyone low HP while dealing with a deadly hinted mechanic) : it's a boss, not a random trash.
Hey folks! Just under 1 week left for discussions on this topic. As a reminder, since Cryptic is on break until January 2, a summary of this thread will likely not be available until Jan 3-6.
I would love to see multiple tier's of each dungeon with rewards related to the difficulty. It'd be nice if we had 3 different tier's like easy, medium, and hard. The ad earned from each difficulty could increase with difficulty and the chance for good drops from the chest and bosses could also increase with each difficulty. Also each tier could give different types of seals. If the hard version of each dungeon gave the most sought after seals then it would give incentive for players to run the different dungeons instead of just the newest dungeon/skirmish only. Some players may not enjoy the newest dungeon for whatever reason but if you could earn the seals in a similarly difficult dungeon run in the hardest tier of other dungeons in the game then it would retain players and give them a reason to stay engaged. The stats of the hardest tier could be adjusted with each mod to reflect the stats needed for the newest dungeon. edit: misspelled word
We want more content like ToMM. Its great. Makes players have a goal to upgrade their characters. We also want easier versions of hardest content with lesser rewards for other players so they can enjoy and learn the mechanics.
We want variety of ways to play each class. That means more relevant feats and class features. Now 90% of them are so bad that its embarassing. Also class bugfixes should be a priority.
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
Thank you and good luck
Hi Darthpotater,
Again thanks for taking the time to be part of the CDP. Looking forward to evolve the game with your and and the communities help.
When you say 'we' it comes across as though you are speaking for everyone who plays. So my question is to you: what about players who want to experience ToMM but who can't gain entry and obviously can't get close to completing any of therelated content. Note i am not looking for thoughts in regard to normalization. Instead how do we make all of our content more inclusive to our players. What are the benefits for all the players of this?
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
I believe our systems team have plans for just this that relates to players of all levels globally. I will follow up.
Chris
Hi Neighbour (thee is from Stoke-On-Trent),
Chris, I feel as if you want everyone to be able to participate in every content in the game. If that is your set goal, i am afraid, this game would need a complete Overhaul.
Let me give you an example. In the forums, you'll commonly find players referring to TOMM for the 1% of players. I beg to differ; it is but for everyone, until such time that you meet the requirements. This sense of progression is an incentive for players to upgrade and face a challenge. This isn't alien to MMO's out there, many content in other vastly populated MMO's are only completed by a very small percentage of their population and those are the big daddies I am talking about.
The reason why this kind of progression makes sense in NW than most other MMO's is because of it's reliance on upgrading gear. That's also where scaling falls short off.
If you strip off gear upgrading, you'll effectively will strip off a huge part of your revenue and probably the sense of progression for the end gamers.
In short, i am trying to get across the point is that there is no overlap between a casual player and an end game player. They are two sides of the same coin. That is also why you see many suggestions that are actually segregating the players i.e. tier based system and etc and I have previously mentioned that you would need to strike a balance between catering for both of these population.
Fabricant's response on creating a similar system to Path of Exile with an endless dungeon can easily sate the end gamers for a long time. Perhaps the same kind of system allows story based implementation for casuals? You basically get to choose if you want to run the story version (where you will have to wait for cutscenes to end) and a version where you are there to grind and progress deeper to get better rewards. This would mean that there would really be no need for campaigns and those "fetch", "sit", "jump" training kind of quests. The latter only gets on your nerves and many MMO's never learn and still waste time on vastly outdated method of making content.
Hey Sobi,
Thanks for your reply. I was born in Macclesfield but spent a lot of my early dev days in Leamington with Codemasters and BigBig Studios.
Some great insight in your post and it allows me to reinforce the goal (at least as it pertains to this thread):
'I feel as if you want everyone to be able to participate in every content in the game'
I would like us to think about (which we have been thanks all) the goal being to be able to have everyone participate (where appropriate) in the 'Experience' and the systems, mechanics and progression that make the game compelling and fun so we have a more focused community. The goal is not normalisation in any way shape or form. So the idea would be to have a hardcore trial with an easier version with nearly identical mechanics. Rewards for both sets of players would be aspirational and for the less progressed group there would still be the compulsion to do the Trial in hardcore mode as they increase their viability through progression and related rewards to be able to do so. Effectively allowing the community to enjoy the experiences we create and to properly align players in terms of progression goals.
To be honest, I must agree with adinosii on a few points about content acsessability (I know I am horrible at spelling). That being said most of the issues with being able to get into the content is a lack of the support characters in the game currently. Most left the game when mod 16 went live on PC and consoles. Before I go to far into this, yes I play a dps character on Xbox and PC, but that is the way i am. I did find the adjustment from MOD 15 to Mod 16 as a challenge, but i did notice that most of the player base had to choose one path over another due to performance. I believe the main reason most of the support classes left the game is this. 1) we spent most if not all of the previous 15 mods used to the support class running buffs to damage and damage resistance. 2) when the change happened in Mod 16 taking the buffs, and some might say taking recovery away was part of the issue as well, a lot of the players didn't want to change. That is human nature. Changes over time are not bad, but major changes all at once hurt the player base more than expected. Most of those that left were the support classes which makes getting into group content a long process. I stopped running Q's because I was tired of waiting for almost an hour to get a random q to pop.
Honestly, I don't know if bring back buffs to damage is the answer. people hitting for hundreds of millions in damage is what initially caused all the changes in the first place.
I am willing to talk ideas with everyone on what the next steps are, I'm good at taking notes and working up plans of action.
Thank you for taking the time to read this everyone.
I notice a lot of feedback with regards to dungeons. I would like to further engage on this matter.
Let's face it. While trying to make the game better, you executed a well thought out plan very poorly when you made changes to the Dungeon Queuing System when FBI was added. Besides the fact that the level cap should have been raised to 80 back then, due to the increased difficulty of FBI and everything that we had to go through to even meet requirements to enter the dungeon, you alienated the bulk of players from being able to get into this dungeon because the 'elite' players could 'private queue', and 'private queue' they did. No one, and I mean no one would use the public queue. I remember sitting in a public queue for FBI for 10 hours before it popped. No, not I typo. My playing time spans 10-12, sometimes as much as 14-16 hours a day when not working.
When new dungeons are introduced to the game, we all want to get in there and see what PC players have been raving or ranting about for 3 months. Yes, I'm a console player. The problem is that most of us on console don't get to enter that new dungeon until the second or third month, sometimes as much as the fourth month down the line. It's not because we don't have the Item Level or the Stat Caps. It's because the elite players and guilds control the masses. Trying to put together a group on your own to private queue is grueling enough, but it's really disheartening when you are looked over because of your class, guild or alliance affiliation, etc. Not to mention that it's a total slap in the face when SOME GUILDS are going so far as to PAY PC players to come over to console and teach them how to beat the dungeon, so that they can get a jump on the new rewards.
So, my proposal is this, with a typical campaign release, the new dungeon/skirmish is not able to be unlocked until the third week of daily game play, after which you may now enter the dungeon/skirmish. How about making it so that for the first week, or two, you may only public queue for the dungeon. After that point, you may enter into a private queue at any time. Now you have a level playing field for all. And don't tell me that it can't be done, since you have timers on coupons, overload enchantments, and even items from lock boxes now. It's a simple coding equation that gets triggered when the player completes the campaign.
A few things are going to happen at this point. People are going to be forced to play and communicate with others again to get through a dungeon, and players will not have a bitter disgust every time a new mod is introduced. Along with the fact that everyone will have a equal chance at the new rewards.
Whether you want to admit it or not, Elitists control the Astral Diamond Exchange and Auction House. They ban together and gather new rewards before the rest of us can even get to them. Elitists control Neverwinter.
Give something back the the masses. Face it. When less than 1% of your players have completed the dungeon two months after it was introduced.... there is a problem, and it needs to be addressed.
Heya! As a reminder, when providing new feedback (versus replying/commenting on existing posts) please use the format noted in the OP. This will really help streamline the feedback summary/action plan process. Thank you!
Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback) Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish) Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter) Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum)
@adinosii brought up several good points that I would like to add to.
Feedback Overview
Disability issues There are many Disabled Veterans and older community members that play this game who also bring with them certain disabilities. I am a member of a guild that has over the years had many members with physical or mental challenges. Over the years our guild has been made up of hundreds of 30-75 y/o gamers many of whom are Veterans. Several of our members have faced problems with the game and its interface that we have been able to "work around" through discussion and problem solving on our forums.
While we have had great success with helping those that are color blind or hard of hearing we have been unsuccessful in other areas. For the most part many of the problems we face are not something that are faced by the majority of the Neverwinter community and discussing things like this is often difficult on such an open forum.
Feedback Goal
To further explore the types of disability faced by a subset of the community and explore solutions and more private avenues to seek help with these problems.
Feedback Functionality
One of the biggest unsolved problems for some of our members has to do with hand injuries or ailments like arthritis or nerve damage that restricts the person's ability to properly use the mouse and keyboard in game. We found many solutions that helped some of our members but failed to help some that had more severe challenges. When we approached customer service we hit a wall or our emails went unanswered. This was most likely because this type of problem is far beyond the scope of what they are allowed to discuss and because the solutions we came up with may violate the TOS and would be seen as "cheating" or an "unfair advantage" if used by people without this type of disability.
Could accounts be marked in a way to allow the use of some kind of approved 3rd party applications like Voice attack, that would allow people with this kind of disability to use them?
One solution would be to provide a dedicated POC within Cryptic / PWE that is able to help and make decisions on a case by case basis. Many of our members are willing to provide “Proof” of disability, but are unwilling to do so in an open forum.
Risks & Concerns
The community as a whole may not understand, and could see the solutions as "cheating" or an "unfair advantage" if allowed.
Abuse of the system by people who do not have disabilities.
We understand this problem and have tried to come up with solutions as we expressed in our emails.
Another thing I have noticed and it has not been discussed is Voice chat. Many lets call them end game players want and ask for anyone teaming to have a voice chat for easier ways to deal with team work. See a lot of them using Discord and the like. Might this game look at ways to improve on its own voice chat or at the very least adding some more support for other third part chats going forward.
I agree and think you are right on target with your entire post but I would also add that leveling in this game is the fastest of any MMO I have played over the years. You can literally go from level 1-70 in days if you really try. Sadly, you can do the same in two weeks without trying at all. I actually tried to not level on several of my characters so that I could do content with newer guild members. It was impossible. Because leveling is so fast it leads to many people just "rushing" to level 80 and skipping a majority of the game content.
IMO this tendency to "rush" leads to players missing out on much of what makes this game great / fun and also leads to people getting to endgame content with little or no understanding of how to play their class.
Maybe they should remove or redistribute level caps for key content below level 70 and then again for levels 70 - 80. As it is now if I make a new character I am often over level for the Tower district if I do all of the quests and content that comes before it. This is compounded if the character is in a guild because of the quest rewards.
This problem is compounded yet again because of “time gates” that were designed to keep players in certain areas longer. Players often out level the time gated content while doing other things while waiting for the time gated content. What is the point of gating pre level 80 content when the actual game starts at level 80?
If a player starts ANY questline at level 70 they are often "Over Level" for the other Level 70 areas before they even finish the first area. This means that they are scaled because they hit level 71-80 and are required to finish quests in a level 70 area while scaled. Not Cool!
I think an effort should be made to gather data to see how the average player levels and adjust the “level caps” to more realistically represent the current state of the game.
I think something needs to be done for those who just aren't any good at video games, but enjoy the game (and if they felt they could make progress would spend money on it, too). I think someone posted about different difficulty levels for the same content... I like this idea. With different rewards, perhaps you can still get the highest rewards but you have to complete it more times for example, but at least people who are terrible at games like this can build a fun powerful endgame character. I've never been good at video games, I can't multitask and I've never had the finger speed/typing ability despite much effort an practice. I don't have any handicaps, I am just terrible at, and have been my whole life. Plus some people aren't into really difficult games, but they might really enjoy the stories and really enjoy playing the game. Being able to adjust the difficulty allows those who want really hard/nearly impossible challenges, can do so and reap immediate high rewards for doing so. Those who can't/don't can still enjoy the game and the stories and the content, and can achieve high rewards for more times doing it, for putting in the time.
I think this is balanced and fair and can bring in more people who will get to enjoy all the aspects of the game, the stories, the adventures, the battles. If there would be a way for any player ant any time to alter the difficulty of the challenges they face, that would be great... I don't think you can mix tiers of difficulty for a group of players, but they could be grouped by their chosen tier for queued content. Non-queued content perhaps there is more flexibility there... You can still have people achieve access to certain things with item level, or certain missions completed and things like that, so that the story/game still progresses for the player the way it's intended to... Maybe those ideas can be a starting point...
This has been on my mind for a very long time. There are things I will likely never get to play and experience in this game otherwise, and I'm sure there are others that feel similarly. I can also say this much, I am much more likely to spend money on a game that I really enjoy getting into and exploring. I haven't renewed my vip and I don't really know if/when I will. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Comments
Updated rewards in qued content, have fragments drop from endchests which can be combined into a mount/companion/transmute and the content/fragments are swapped out fairly frequently to keep the rewards fresh and exciting.
Feedback Goal/functionality:
Most players that have played this game are looking for things worth running, the majority of the qued content give very outdated and lackluster rewards. This new idea would provide an incentive to run old content, I for one love visual stuff and would farm things to no end to get what I want.
Risks & Concerns:
There are those players that will not care about visuals, they would rather get gear and items that improves their gameplay/stats instead a static visual. Perhaps it would be an incentive to make the reward unbound, although in my opinion that takes the fun of grinding for a reward out of the equation when you can simply buy it from the auction house.
I'm not a math wiz, I'm not technical at all, but I like conceptualizing ideas into visuals. Lastly I would like to say that this thread is looking so promising, we have so many talented and passionate members of our community that deserve to be heard and discuss things with. Keep up the good work!
Combat System:
Just to add - The best thing about this game was it's fast paced rotation combat system, Feats and build choices..... The combat system right now is frankly boring the encounter skills cool downs are excruciating and character build / feat choices are gone.
Dungeons and End game challenge
The way I see it end game players only have 1 trial and 1 Dungeon left, the older content and trials is just so easy and very recently being made even easier for new players. We've never had many dungeon options available to us and with only 1 piece addition added per MoD they have been played to death - this was acceptable when the content was more challenging and fun. Nobody wants to go play content they have played to death in easy mode for substandard and outdated chest rewards.
LOMM is an end game dungeon it wasn't difficult to master the mechanics. A tank is only really useful for the boss fights - There is no traditional tank takes agro before DPS engage mechanic. DPS run ahead of the tank through the trash with relative ease - so a tanks primary function is bosses agro only. Master Difficulty dungeon option and more content in general would be very much welcomed.
Suggestion
I think it's time to remove the requirement to be standing at a fireplace to change between AOE and Single target DPS builds.... The load out system was implemented and fireplace placement was factored into dungeons for a short time at least, but that seems to be an oversight in some content now. Being able to switch builds outside of combat or enabling portable alters to facilitate build swaps would be far more practical.
The constant nerf solution to a problem is a real problem e.g Clerics have had 6 or 7 successive nerfs leading up to and post MOD 16..... player base slowly thins as people start getting annoyed.
Class balance currently is worse than ever currently even with the game and mechanics dumbed down to current levels - the length of time it takes to even acknowledge these imbalances is abysmal (current waiting time is 7 months). You can't seriously expect people to spend money on the game when no matter what BIS item they purchase, they are held back by a imbalanced damage or self buff formulas some classes have experienced for some time.
Like that you are showing an interest Whiteside
All the best in your new role and I hope you can make this game successful again.
Hi Duckie and Fireside (Replying to both posts here),
Thanks for taking the time to post we really appreciate it. Regarding:
Not to mention, if you spend millions of time and or ad or real life money you want the perks of the things you've earned to always be in effect. If I have all level 15 enchants do you expect me to be pleased to have it scaled down for most of the content in the game? My build becomes unreliable. Yes, unscaled some content may become trivial but as it is now ALL content other than Tomm is trivial for the end gamer. When things were across the board one level with no scaling to speak of there was a lot of content that was rewarding to complete AND there was an actual point to levelling up your gear to the highest level. It was never irrelevant.
We are certainly thinking about this overall point and we will discuss in more detail soon.
Regarding bugs we are very focused on release quality now as well and you will see improvements over time here.
Regarding:
I think it's time to remove the requirement to be standing at a fireplace to change between AOE and Single target DPS builds.... The load out system was implemented and fireplace placement was factored into dungeons for a short time at least, but that seems to be an oversight in some content now. Being able to switch builds outside of combat or enabling portable alters to facilitate build swaps would be far more practical.
There is news coming in this area early next year. Suffice to say we agree.
We will do a CDP on combat and class balance in the near future.
Regarding Nerfs it is our goal to drastically reduce these occurrences by increasing our release quality.
Looking forward to continued discussion. Sorry we don't have more details now, but they are coming as is more discussion with the community.
Chris
Thanks for taking the time to comment. We are looking into the below area right now and will have more info toward the end of January (in terms of direction we can all discuss):
Major rework of legacy campaigns
Chris
Thanks for taking the time to post, the response from everyone has been great and sorry for how long it is taking me to reply. I tend to read then click an emote and then reply when i have time.
So this is an area we are talking about as well. Specifically in regard to more clarity about what items, equipment and so on impact the character and class (We wont be look to take away in any area). We will be sharing our initial thoughts in the new year for discussion as part of this thread. There is a lot in the game that could be better taught and more accessible and this is a priority for us next year.
Thanks again for your time,
Chris
Again thanks for taking the time to be part of the CDP. Looking forward to evolve the game with your and and the communities help.
When you say 'we' it comes across as though you are speaking for everyone who plays. So my question is to you: what about players who want to experience ToMM but who can't gain entry and obviously can't get close to completing any of therelated content. Note i am not looking for thoughts in regard to normalization. Instead how do we make all of our content more inclusive to our players. What are the benefits for all the players of this?
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
I believe our systems team have plans for just this that relates to players of all levels globally. I will follow up.
Chris
Totally agree in terms of the goal. The devil is in the details and i am hoping we drill into some of those details more deeply during this CDP.
Chris
I will be commenting more this weekend. Please don't be perturbed if i don't directly answer you posts. This will be because:
A: i haven't read it yet.
B: I have read it and we are discussing.
C: I have replied to another post that is in the same area of discussion or ideation.
Thanks
Chris
We absolutely do need to teach/inform our systems better and provide more quality with our tool tips. This is a priority for next year.
Thanks
Chris
Chris
It is extremely frustrating to spend over an hour or more running a dungeon(or the same dungeon over and over as is the case with tales) and lose yer rewards at the last second cuz you see the victory but also lost the last life at the same time.
For me as a typically casual player(I've had a lot of time off work this year, so I've played a lot more than I normally would) I would bypass events like Tales, as the rewards aren't worth the frustration of getting in with one toon, let alone trying to do it on more than one. In fact, I don't think I'd have been able to get even one fabled chapter in Oct Tales event if I hadn't been off of work. One suggestion I have for Tales in the future, is to grant rewards for the number of runs completed. Example you make thru 4 runs, but die during the 5th, give us the rewards for 4 runs. I can't see myself running a Tales like even in the future, and don't even know enough about Hellpit to say whether or not I'd try to run that, even though the rewards(for Hellpit at least) look like they would be worth the effort. I just don't know if it something that can be done running it on weekends only, which when I would normally only have time for gaming.
if scaling is still present it would not.
Dungeons, Time/ Risk V Rewards
Feedback Goal:
To create new Dungeons and Trials that allow both new inexperienced players to play along side experienced end-game players, and have them be able to complete the new content without each being put off by having to do it with the other. To have the rewards be valuable enough so that both a "new" player and and "endgame" player will continue to challenge themselves by quing for the content multiple times.
Feedback Funtionality:
Core Change
Each Character will have the ability to Q for content choosing a level of difficulty using scaling, to keep it simple, Easy, Normal and Hard. Each mode will add a form of scaling based against the difficulty of the dungeon, but it will only be placed on that character and not on the dungeon, others joining in the q'ed Dungeon will have chosen there own difficulty. So a new player just wanting to go in story mode would choose Easy, a person who has learned the mechanics but is still looking to raise their enchants and getting more boons etc would choose Normal, and an Endgamer looking for a challenge and the highest possible rewards would choose Hard. The chosen difficulty can be lowered during the dungeon so that if someone is struggling, and the group is unable to complete the dungeon, they can lower from Hard to Normal, and Normal to Easy, but the rewards are also lowered. The goal of the difficulty modes is that each player is moved to the mean of the dungeon, meaning that a dps on easy mode should be doing the same dps as a player on Hard mode who is doing the same damage as someone on Normal mode. The important point in this system is that Normal mode is unscaled. The rewards tied to this, just going to use seals as an example, Easy 5 seals, Normal 50 seals, Hard 200 seals. My point here is that the rewards should have some significant difference tied to both time invested (Character stats, time in content).
All the content would be New Level 80, but instead of reworking older level 70 dungeons add level 80 content taking you into the old campaign area's with a new questline lasting perhaps a week leading to the new Q'd content. For example Underdark getting a Dungeon, Sharandar getting a Trial, Aquisitions Incorporated getting a Dungeon, just some examples. The concept is more about adding level 80 content to older areas without having to add to many resources or areas to create small mini story extensions and make the older areas relevent but at the same time creating NEW content, and not reworked content.
Why I suggest this:
The Mantra from long time players that remain, and those that left, Rewards are not worth the effort/time outlay in the current system. The new players feel that they are being excluded from running content, the difference between to top top players like Fabricant and Mickeypoo is almost the same gap as exists between the rest of the endgamers and the new players. A scaled reward and scaled difficulty that is personal will allow the newer players to learn and play with these others and feel that they are contributing to the success of the content and not further divide them into story mode and reg content.
Risks and Concerns:
The biggest risk and concern is not getting the percentages right in the scaling, the goal is that the output on dps/healing/tankability be as close to equivilant. Meaning that dps on Easy mode should be putting out the same dps as someone on Hard or Normal, the idea is to push all to the mean, and the rewards are the only diffference, but that also pushes the Easy and Normal to build to be able to play on Hard. The reward difference must be worth it.
I think that to make the content more accessible to more players, that the devs need to go back to a normal, and master version of certain dungeons(or normal and epic versions). The normal version would have a lower IL requirement, be significantly easier than the master/epic version, and the rewards could be proportional. The only downside I foresee to this, is that the master/epic versions could end up being too difficult still for random groups of people that have in fact completed the normal version and meet the requirements to get in, that you will still have casual folks being passed over when people in chat are looking for groups, whether it's the person looking to get into the master/epic for the first time, or the folks putting groups together only taking people that are 2-4k IL higher than the "price" of admission.
I personally experienced this when trying to get into Tales during grand retelling, and wasn't able to finish collecting the pieces I wanted for the toons I was taking thru it. Granted Tales is an event, so it is a bit different, but it would have been nice to be able to finish what I wanted to finish. Having a 6 hour maintenance near the end of the event didn't help, and should be avoided in the future. I can't say for sure that the maintenance being pushed till after the even would have helped me or not, but it keep me from having the ability to at least try.
things should be unbound in harder content. that's part of hte grind being able to sell it. the things in your pic would all be useless to just about anyone but the newest of the new players. I think old gear should be made more relevant if its going to keep dropping.
Make the Cleric Healer viable in new qued content, such as TOMM & Citadel.
Feedback Goal
The goal is to allow cleric healers to be able to join the new qued content and enjoy the game likewise. Currently, OP healers are a preferred choice in groups because of the temporary shield that they grant to the team, allowing the party members to fight without fear of losing HP and stay at one place fighting, and therefore, making the most of "combat advantage" stat. Also, players prefer to "lose temporary HP than their actual HP." Hence, allowing them to play with less stress and more effectively.
Feedback Functionality
Clerics could once again become part of the new content by significantly improving the effectiveness of Healing Word, which basically restores HP once it goes down. It has its similarity to the OP shield, except that it only works once the actual HP starts decreasing. So, if Healing Word is effective enough to deal with once-shots, AOE, and other damages then, I think, people would pick clerics in their teams instead of looking for OPs only.
Healing Word could also provide some shield once the players' HP drop to 50%. This would, at least, let the players know that they will not die fast so as to waste revive scrolls and would also allow the cleric in team to heal back. I know I have only focused on Healing WOrd here, but what other choice do the clerics (and other classes) have considering the post16 class skill limitations?
Risks & Concerns
<> Warlock healers may feel left out because the ops and dcs will be needed, but not them. Currently, they share the same position with Cleric healers. So they are not alone.
Chris, I feel as if you want everyone to be able to participate in every content in the game. If that is your set goal, i am afraid, this game would need a complete Overhaul.
Let me give you an example. In the forums, you'll commonly find players referring to TOMM for the 1% of players. I beg to differ; it is but for everyone, until such time that you meet the requirements. This sense of progression is an incentive for players to upgrade and face a challenge. This isn't alien to MMO's out there, many content in other vastly populated MMO's are only completed by a very small percentage of their population and those are the big daddies I am talking about.
The reason why this kind of progression makes sense in NW than most other MMO's is because of it's reliance on upgrading gear. That's also where scaling falls short off.
If you strip off gear upgrading, you'll effectively will strip off a huge part of your revenue and probably the sense of progression for the end gamers.
In short, i am trying to get across the point is that there is no overlap between a casual player and an end game player. They are two sides of the same coin. That is also why you see many suggestions that are actually segregating the players i.e. tier based system and etc and I have previously mentioned that you would need to strike a balance between catering for both of these population.
Fabricant's response on creating a similar system to Path of Exile with an endless dungeon can easily sate the end gamers for a long time. Perhaps the same kind of system allows story based implementation for casuals? You basically get to choose if you want to run the story version (where you will have to wait for cutscenes to end) and a version where you are there to grind and progress deeper to get better rewards. This would mean that there would really be no need for campaigns and those "fetch", "sit", "jump" training kind of quests. The latter only gets on your nerves and many MMO's never learn and still waste time on vastly outdated method of making content.
The only request I want to make is to NOT turn this game into a GW2 clone. Not that it is a bad game, I played it for quite the long time after all. The vertically and jumping puzzles, that IMO the camera angles never allowed to be done well in either 1st or 3rd person could have used another pass. Also the lack of advancement at max level still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Basically once you hit max level you could play dress-up and/or aim for that ascended item, that only gives a very minor improvement to your character. Builds were much more cookie cutter to the point that is you wanted to WvW you NEEDED to be rocking the build of the month or be excluded. You can never feel unique or like you are a godling no matter how long you play/grind. I guess it boils down to there will always be the BIS items, BUT these should never make your player base clone robots of each other, shunned even though you may be an amazing player.The advancement could be much different now, but I have not played that game in many years because it got so stale.
I appreciate this game simply because of the WOW factor. When I see another player that does DPS/HEAL/TANK so much better that my jaw drops and I WANT to be as strong as that character even though I know it will take tons of time! I know that everyone has different opinions on what makes a good game and I willing to try new things, but if something is clearly not working to the point that nobody plays that content any longer or hates it (I'm looking at you Acquisitions Incorporated), sometimes you just need to rethink it.
Sorry for the rant, It does seem with this thread though that you have got the communication that was lacking in GW2 down, and I truly hope it continues in the future for all of us!
Edit: clarity
Show some of the important bosses mechanics along the dungeon itself
Feedback Goal
During the walk in the corridors and rooms of a dungeon, make the player see or experience a version of some of the future deadly mechanics so he can get an idea of what is coming (but obviously keep some surprises too :P).
It would serve as a "discover" for a new player, but also as a reminder for vets/comeback, and can help avoiding frustration to die because of an unexpected unforgiving mechanic (people who trained CoDG without any explaination may remember their first push-pull, or the wipe after the first sister of fury in CR because of not rushing soon enough to destroy the "red cristal", or the first cocoon against Arcturia)
Feedback Functionality
I'm the kind of player who want to discover first hand the mechanics : I don't like being taught by another player, I will never watch a vid before getting my own idea of the mechanics.
Whenever i run my first time in any dungeon, I will always put a huge priority on survavibility/cautiousness over anything else, so even if my party get beaten, at least I will try to make the fight as long as possible so I can get a view of as many mechanics involved as possible while trying to analize how to deal with those.
One of the reasons why I love the epic dungeon Castle Never over every other is because it is designed so you are given some clever hints about future deadly mechanics through the run. I can't think of any other dungeon providing that (or at least not as well and clearly as CN)
During our first CN with my brother :
- we immediately saw the green elastic killing 2 guards on the bridge as a future dangerous mechanic, so we kept space between us and others all along the dungeon to avoid being caught in a smack (though obviously now we know where the elastic can appear and where you are safe). We both finished without dying by the elastic
- The room with breaches helped us to understand, when we saw the sames during Orcus final fight, that maybe it would be useful to jump in and shut breaches down (back in those days, CN Orcus was not as burnable as nowdays, you were seing at least 3 or 4 phases before he was downed).
- we immediately understood the cutscene of the 2nd boss showing the ceilling : spikes will drop on our head (though we discovered right after it was reversed gravity mechanic) => we looked up to see where the spikes were and positionnaly fight accordingly. And didn't die.
- we recognized the wandering green balls in the corridors as a potential mechanics during the next boss battle (mostly because it was logical as some other bosses mechanics were hinted before). We died anyway against our first Orcus 3balls spawn, because of kind of panic mode (we were expecting only one at the same time ^^)
That's a well designed and clever way to introduce players to the major deadly bosses mechanics (much more clever than a downgraded version during the campaign [like sister of fury in barovia, or Ras Nsi in the soshenstar croco temple]).
Moreover it's quite rewarding for someone who catches the hint and then is able to adapt is fighting even during his first run ever to survive. And personnaly i'm very ok with a hinted mechanic to be able to oneshot someone or wipe a party.
I have never felt that in any other NWO dungeons, which are more a die a retry game to figure out what the mechanics are before even trying to deal with them.
I had use CN many times as an "introduction to epic dungeon" for new players in my guild, making a guild-party going private CN and only telling the new mate "keep your eyes open, and you will understand 80% of what you need to know during boss fights before actually engage the fight."
At the end, every single new guildmate got it quickly, some died a bit, some were able to finish without any death. And each one felt proud to achieve the dungeon with an understanding of their own.
Risks & Concerns
Balance between giving hints and keeping surprises. A boss should always have at least one or two assets in its sleeve (not oneshooting but critical ones, like the blast CN Orcus shoot at the party before go flying potentially making everyone low HP while dealing with a deadly hinted mechanic) : it's a boss, not a random trash.
edit: misspelled word
Thanks for your reply. I was born in Macclesfield but spent a lot of my early dev days in Leamington with Codemasters and BigBig Studios.
Some great insight in your post and it allows me to reinforce the goal (at least as it pertains to this thread):
'I feel as if you want everyone to be able to participate in every content in the game'
I would like us to think about (which we have been thanks all) the goal being to be able to have everyone participate (where appropriate) in the 'Experience' and the systems, mechanics and progression that make the game compelling and fun so we have a more focused community. The goal is not normalisation in any way shape or form. So the idea would be to have a hardcore trial with an easier version with nearly identical mechanics. Rewards for both sets of players would be aspirational and for the less progressed group there would still be the compulsion to do the Trial in hardcore mode as they increase their viability through progression and related rewards to be able to do so. Effectively allowing the community to enjoy the experiences we create and to properly align players in terms of progression goals.
Great conversation. Lets keep it going!
Chris
Honestly, I don't know if bring back buffs to damage is the answer. people hitting for hundreds of millions in damage is what initially caused all the changes in the first place.
I am willing to talk ideas with everyone on what the next steps are, I'm good at taking notes and working up plans of action.
Thank you for taking the time to read this everyone.
Let's face it. While trying to make the game better, you executed a well thought out plan very poorly when you made changes to the Dungeon Queuing System when FBI was added. Besides the fact that the level cap should have been raised to 80 back then, due to the increased difficulty of FBI and everything that we had to go through to even meet requirements to enter the dungeon, you alienated the bulk of players from being able to get into this dungeon because the 'elite' players could 'private queue', and 'private queue' they did. No one, and I mean no one would use the public queue. I remember sitting in a public queue for FBI for 10 hours before it popped. No, not I typo. My playing time spans 10-12, sometimes as much as 14-16 hours a day when not working.
When new dungeons are introduced to the game, we all want to get in there and see what PC players have been raving or ranting about for 3 months. Yes, I'm a console player. The problem is that most of us on console don't get to enter that new dungeon until the second or third month, sometimes as much as the fourth month down the line. It's not because we don't have the Item Level or the Stat Caps. It's because the elite players and guilds control the masses. Trying to put together a group on your own to private queue is grueling enough, but it's really disheartening when you are looked over because of your class, guild or alliance affiliation, etc. Not to mention that it's a total slap in the face when SOME GUILDS are going so far as to PAY PC players to come over to console and teach them how to beat the dungeon, so that they can get a jump on the new rewards.
So, my proposal is this, with a typical campaign release, the new dungeon/skirmish is not able to be unlocked until the third week of daily game play, after which you may now enter the dungeon/skirmish. How about making it so that for the first week, or two, you may only public queue for the dungeon. After that point, you may enter into a private queue at any time. Now you have a level playing field for all. And don't tell me that it can't be done, since you have timers on coupons, overload enchantments, and even items from lock boxes now. It's a simple coding equation that gets triggered when the player completes the campaign.
A few things are going to happen at this point. People are going to be forced to play and communicate with others again to get through a dungeon, and players will not have a bitter disgust every time a new mod is introduced. Along with the fact that everyone will have a equal chance at the new rewards.
Whether you want to admit it or not, Elitists control the Astral Diamond Exchange and Auction House. They ban together and gather new rewards before the rest of us can even get to them. Elitists control Neverwinter.
Give something back the the masses. Face it. When less than 1% of your players have completed the dungeon two months after it was introduced.... there is a problem, and it needs to be addressed.
Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback)
Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish)
Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter)
Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum)
Feedback Overview
Disability issuesThere are many Disabled Veterans and older community members that play this game who also bring with them certain disabilities. I am a member of a guild that has over the years had many members with physical or mental challenges. Over the years our guild has been made up of hundreds of 30-75 y/o gamers many of whom are Veterans. Several of our members have faced problems with the game and its interface that we have been able to "work around" through discussion and problem solving on our forums.
While we have had great success with helping those that are color blind or hard of hearing we have been unsuccessful in other areas. For the most part many of the problems we face are not something that are faced by the majority of the Neverwinter community and discussing things like this is often difficult on such an open forum.
Feedback Goal
To further explore the types of disability faced by a subset of the community and explore solutions and more private avenues to seek help with these problems.Feedback Functionality
One of the biggest unsolved problems for some of our members has to do with hand injuries or ailments like arthritis or nerve damage that restricts the person's ability to properly use the mouse and keyboard in game. We found many solutions that helped some of our members but failed to help some that had more severe challenges. When we approached customer service we hit a wall or our emails went unanswered. This was most likely because this type of problem is far beyond the scope of what they are allowed to discuss and because the solutions we came up with may violate the TOS and would be seen as "cheating" or an "unfair advantage" if used by people without this type of disability.Could accounts be marked in a way to allow the use of some kind of approved 3rd party applications like Voice attack, that would allow people with this kind of disability to use them?
One solution would be to provide a dedicated POC within Cryptic / PWE that is able to help and make decisions on a case by case basis. Many of our members are willing to provide “Proof” of disability, but are unwilling to do so in an open forum.
Risks & Concerns
The community as a whole may not understand, and could see the solutions as "cheating" or an "unfair advantage" if allowed.Abuse of the system by people who do not have disabilities.
We understand this problem and have tried to come up with solutions as we expressed in our emails.
More feedback to come....
I agree and think you are right on target with your entire post but I would also add that leveling in this game is the fastest of any MMO I have played over the years. You can literally go from level 1-70 in days if you really try. Sadly, you can do the same in two weeks without trying at all. I actually tried to not level on several of my characters so that I could do content with newer guild members. It was impossible. Because leveling is so fast it leads to many people just "rushing" to level 80 and skipping a majority of the game content.
IMO this tendency to "rush" leads to players missing out on much of what makes this game great / fun and also leads to people getting to endgame content with little or no understanding of how to play their class.
Maybe they should remove or redistribute level caps for key content below level 70 and then again for levels 70 - 80. As it is now if I make a new character I am often over level for the Tower district if I do all of the quests and content that comes before it. This is compounded if the character is in a guild because of the quest rewards.
This problem is compounded yet again because of “time gates” that were designed to keep players in certain areas longer. Players often out level the time gated content while doing other things while waiting for the time gated content. What is the point of gating pre level 80 content when the actual game starts at level 80?
If a player starts ANY questline at level 70 they are often "Over Level" for the other Level 70 areas before they even finish the first area. This means that they are scaled because they hit level 71-80 and are required to finish quests in a level 70 area while scaled. Not Cool!
I think an effort should be made to gather data to see how the average player levels and adjust the “level caps” to more realistically represent the current state of the game.
I think this is balanced and fair and can bring in more people who will get to enjoy all the aspects of the game, the stories, the adventures, the battles. If there would be a way for any player ant any time to alter the difficulty of the challenges they face, that would be great... I don't think you can mix tiers of difficulty for a group of players, but they could be grouped by their chosen tier for queued content. Non-queued content perhaps there is more flexibility there... You can still have people achieve access to certain things with item level, or certain missions completed and things like that, so that the story/game still progresses for the player the way it's intended to... Maybe those ideas can be a starting point...
This has been on my mind for a very long time. There are things I will likely never get to play and experience in this game otherwise, and I'm sure there are others that feel similarly. I can also say this much, I am much more likely to spend money on a game that I really enjoy getting into and exploring. I haven't renewed my vip and I don't really know if/when I will. I'm sure I'm not the only one.