Please reconsider the new artefact set bonus. Tying the damage buff to specific creature types is a bad idea, making it all but useless to the remaining 95% of the game. Even just a passive 5% to all enemies wouldn't even make it BiS for most classes, its just gonna turn into the halaster set 2.0, possibly the most useless set bonus so far.
I really don't mind the Demo set nerf. Most of us saw it coming months ago, but to give us this garbage as a possible replacement is just pouring salt into the wounds of players.
Same with some of the equip bonus's, they are awful. This is exactly why players still use older tiered gear, because you keep recycling useless or subpar bonus's.
IF you want the new 1250 dungeon gear to be BiS, like you wanted the successor gear to be ( and failed), please please please stop putting rubbish bonus's on them, or give it a set bonus. +5% AP gain for 4/4 pieces slotted, or something. Learn from your mistakes with the successor gear, both bonus's and the "revamped" bonus's were junk
Wish I could say that at least now you guys have learned from your past mistakes. When you design something, and this applies to many industries, you should think about how this item could affect things now and also a year down the road if not further.
Since it came out the community knew the Orcus set was BiS by miles. I remember joking around with guildies, back around M11-12, that the bonus was too good and a nerf had to be coming soon. Someone even remarked that someday we would be looking at another high prophet situation where things just get nerfed/removed. Who would have thought that day would come so many years later.
I mean, obviously everyone knew it was BiS. There's no way you guys didn't realize this as well.
You should have acted way sooner to fix it.
Instead.......you released lockboxes in a new format that pretty much no one liked. And what did you stuff in these new lockboxes to entice people to open them?
Why, one piece of the BiS Orcus set in each consecutive lockbox (New Opportunities, Reborn and Acquired Treasures) of course!
If the bonus was that much of an issue, and I think many can say it was since nothing could replace the set, than why would you continue to push the items at players in lockboxes?
Were you only thinking of lockbox key sales when you should have been thinking on ways to rein in a longstanding problem?
I'm not torn that the set got nerfed. I'll adjust. Not that hard to change out another set. Occasional nerfs are a thing in games.
But the fact that this frequent nerfing across the board continues to be such an issue for your team is a red flag. Hopefully the new EP can get a handle on things and use a little foresight in the future.
I'll go further, as it is standing now, this mod is almost obsolete for character progression:
-There's no weapon set, which I thought it was obviously will be in with a new tier, but less powerful than the tomm one. But no, nothing. If you want the BiS weapon set, you still need to do watchers.
-The 1 artifact set is only good for it's own dungeon. But Demogorgon already averages it's bonus and people will not optimised for the second hardest, they only go for the first, where the set bonus is useless.
-There are no artifacts introduced, but those who just have the journal sets, probably don't have space to slot in anyway.
-Now, the dungeon gear is uninteresting and the hunt items (or the antiquities, whenever they come from) have a few interesting piece, but very very few. As a wizard who can't use the melee feet, I'll choose a footwear and my full investment with the mod ended. The shirt+pant is just garbage, but I already only using the pants for the amount of Power it gives.
-I'm not even sure if I will farm the dungeon, because lomm has a higher value rewards to sell anyway.
Suggestions:
-Introduce a top tier weapon set with some marginal bonus OR make a support set so people will try to get it to get a better shot in tomm. And you can adjust tomm difficulty with it in mind of course.
-Make the artifact set for supports. Or just let players tier up their old sets. Like how Cradle let you upgrade stuff.
-If you let players tier up their old sets, make one or more component only come from the new dungeon chests, so players have incentive to do the new dungeon. Maybe place a reagent in tomm as well, just to make doing it more valuable.
-While the hunt+dungeon gear is fully underwhelming, I don't have a personal problem with that. I don't think it's reasonable to expect 20+ gear items a mod to find place. However, I think that the artifact set bonus would be better as a gear set bonus. Or just make hunt gears settable, so not every class just copies the best 2 composition.
[COLOR=CYAN]Devs... Please don't change things that don't need to be changed. Honestly the travel map in Mod 18 looks horrible... like a desert. Why change that beautiful artwork to drab? I understand the map is getting cluttered but don't destroy the beauty in doing so. Work around it. Also... You want us to use newer gear, make it worth our while without nerfing old gear that's super awesome. There are better ways to make us switch. We use old gear because it's better. Nerfing it just upsets more and more of your loyal players. Why do you do this to us all the time? Honest feedback here: Stop nerfing old stuff, make new stuff better![/COLOR] P.S. your color codes are not working here for some reason... and if I'm doing it wrong, someone please give me a code for Cyan that works.
Feedback (would be cyan but I don't know the code): -I didn't do much, really just hoped over to try and fish out the new ratings cap. I was hitting full dmg at 85k Armor Pen, so I'm going to assume Avernus and Infernal Citadel are 35k enemy ratings. I was expecting a bit higher given one of the final points of the ratings and difficulty thread, but no complaints. -The new world map layout is great. I really like the new tabs at the top. I personally like the pale brown map color scheme, gives it a antique parchment map kinda vibe. But Undermountain map is still full colored from M16-17. For consistency I'd pick one of the two schemes and run with it. -Demon Lords' set : I can't add anything that hasn't already been said. I will hope when the number crunchers and math wizards run through the arti sets again that a new king is chosen, but if not oh well. -M18 arti set : While it kinda sorta maybe makes sense thematically, in practice it is too limited an effect unless Avernus turns into a 2-3 mod monster like Chult (which, it is the Nine Hells, so the possibilities are only limited by the layers and the creativity). I will hope that it gets a slight change to be universally useful with an added effect on infernals, or that Infernal Citadel is worth the farm to justify the RP cost in making that set. -Is it too early to sell my soul for a Succubus companion? I don't even want to use it for equip power or for summoned fighter, just to summon when I'm sitting on my vampire lord throne discussing the finer points of life with guild mates.
Warlock: Don't want to let you down but I am hell bound. - Imagine Dragons Cleric: You can be an angel of mercy or give in to hate. - Shinedown Wizard: The more the dark consumes me, I pretend I'm burning bright. - Shinedown Barbarian: Am I beautiful... as I tear you to pieces? - In This Moment
The +5% dmg, -50% incoming healing piece of equipment is outrageously aggressive toward healers. Please do not put us in the situation of having to deal with this item in the wilderness of PUGs, or having to negotiate with guilds/DPS who are determined to run it. Paladins and Warlocks simply do not have the magnitudes to see their final healing figure sliced in half, and the majority of Clerics don't either. And why is this so disproportionate, anyway? Imagine a piece of gear that gives +5% outgoing healing increase to your healer, but halves the damage that your target takes from you. In its present state, this item borders on being insulting to healers... do you really rate 5% damage as equal to 50% incoming healing?
Also, there's no gear *for* healers in this mod: no outgoing healing bonuses, no interesting procs for us, no sets, nothing with WIS... nothing.
<font color="red"> This is for bugs. </font>
<font color="cyan"> This is for feedback. </font> This is for bugs. This is for feedback. That information should have been included in the first post.
This might not be your bug, but it is for me. I am testing this on WINE 4.0.3 and 4.12 on Linux Ubuntu and cannot get beyond the black and white "Cryptic" loading screen. The progress bar stops about 75% across and the process states to have zombied. Preview Server is the only one effected the game performs flawless under the WINE in the current LIVE server. I should make it a point, never to debug on Friday the 13th. Check back with you over the weekend...
I decided to give it one more go and rebooted the machine. The load time is very sluggish compared to the LIVE. Anyone else (running Windows) having this slow loading issue?
On the same machine, I timed the loads between Preview and Live; not sure if this is "important". Preview the black and white "Cryptic" loading screen 1 m 16.68 s + "Neverwinter" loading screen 7.6 s for total time = 1m 24.28 s Live the black and white "Cryptic" loading screen 41.28 s + "Neverwinter" loading screen 3.78 s for total time = 45.04 s
Abyssal chicken! Devs, please make this a companion or vanity pet, I WANT ONE.
-- PVP Rogue, --[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]-- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin) Ingame Handle: trgluestickz Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563 Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud Platform: PC
The +5% dmg, -50% incoming healing piece of equipment is outrageously aggressive toward healers. Please do not put us in the situation of having to deal with this item in the wilderness of PUGs, or having to negotiate with guilds/DPS who are determined to run it. Paladins and Warlocks simply do not have the magnitudes to see their final healing figure sliced in half, and the majority of Clerics don't either. And why is this so disproportionate, anyway? Imagine a piece of gear that gives +5% outgoing healing increase to your healer, but halves the damage that your target takes from you. In its present state, this item borders on being insulting to healers... do you really rate 5% damage as equal to 50% incoming healing?
Also, there's no gear *for* healers in this mod: no outgoing healing bonuses, no interesting procs for us, no sets, nothing with WIS... nothing.
There are plenty of power pieces, which does help out healing. As far as the -50% incoming healing goes, it allows for player choice which some have been clamoring for. I doubt melee dps will take the piece unless they either are really good at dodging or have a death wish.
There are plenty of power pieces, which does help out healing. As far as the -50% incoming healing goes, it allows for player choice which some have been clamoring for. I doubt melee dps will take the piece unless they either are really good at dodging or have a death wish.
Of course power helps healing, but if stacking the Generic Ultra-Stat now classifies as itemisation for healers, then we truly are in the darkest of timelines. I have all five outgoing healing comps at legendary, and all the relevant mod16 rune sets at legendary... and now I just gather Power until the end of time? What's wrong with healers desiring some equivalent to the plethora of "+% to damage" gear that is available for DPS?
And having seen the number of players clomping around in Hell's Heel Crackers in PUGs, I assure you, plenty of DPS will wear the piece (which will after all come to them as "Recommended") and it will be frustrating beyond words.
The +5% dmg, -50% incoming healing piece of equipment is outrageously aggressive toward healers. Please do not put us in the situation of having to deal with this item in the wilderness of PUGs, or having to negotiate with guilds/DPS who are determined to run it. Paladins and Warlocks simply do not have the magnitudes to see their final healing figure sliced in half, and the majority of Clerics don't either. And why is this so disproportionate, anyway? Imagine a piece of gear that gives +5% outgoing healing increase to your healer, but halves the damage that your target takes from you. In its present state, this item borders on being insulting to healers... do you really rate 5% damage as equal to 50% incoming healing?
Also, there's no gear *for* healers in this mod: no outgoing healing bonuses, no interesting procs for us, no sets, nothing with WIS... nothing.
There are plenty of power pieces, which does help out healing. As far as the -50% incoming healing goes, it allows for player choice which some have been clamoring for. I doubt melee dps will take the piece unless they either are really good at dodging or have a death wish.
Does incoming healing go into negatives? If not, then the gear is nice for less intensive content. But otherwise this is just trolling your healer, -50% incoming healing is an awful a lot when you consider that the top end healers are running in the 50-60 something outgoing healing. The new gear does not give nearly enough power to warrant -50% incoming healing.
This is a cooperative game for the most part, should we even have gear the purposefully undermine our teammates? Seems like it will cause friction between party memebers.
It’s not really risk/reward if you’re not the one who has to deal with the downsides. It is still an annoying bonus to heal, but I feel a better penalty is if the boots reduced the wearer’s hp instead of incoming healing. DPS players might not feel -50% incoming healing, but they certainly will feel -50K HP (or a percentage reduction in health so the boots don’t become the next orcus when gear inflates HP pools).
There's a rune debuff in Expeditions that reduces incoming healing well below 0%, so I would assume this piece of gear would produce a similar effect. What I find remarkable is the huge number involved: even if you were running full tacticals, you'd struggle to reach 50% incoming healing. I want to believe it's a typo honestly...
@noworries#8859@nitocris83@mimicking#6533@cwhitesidedev#9752 "One main call out we'd like to make here is that the Demon Lord's artifact set bonus has been adjusted. It is now a maximum of 10% damage boost instead of 20%. We understand there will be players unhappy with this change, but it was necessary as this artifact set bonus was very much out of line with the rest of them and created a situation where a very old, lower item level artifact set was always the best choice no matter what else came along." -NoWorries
How about the next time anyone in the office wants to nerf something they have to give Julia $100.00 and an essay explaining exactly why, how many players will be affected and when / who was the last player to obtain said item. She can use the $100.00 to buy herself something nice to take her mind off of the storm that will take place on the forums and also have the essay to refer to when making excuses to us. You do realize that people are still upgrading this set as recently as yesterday right? Millions of AD worth or resources down the drain in a flash! Not only that, but MILLIONS more to make a new set.
To say I am sick of nerfs is quite an understatement. It boggles my mind to think that you guys can not come up with other ways to make the changes you need to make without penalizing those of us who have spent countless hours grinding, millions of ingame currency and often real money to obtain the very things you want to nerf.
In this case the reason so many of us still use this old artifact set is that ALL of the new ones have bonuses that SUCK! It would be one thing if they were just not as good as the older ones, but these bonuses are actually useless for 95% of content or hard to justify upgrading given the cost / benefit involved. Who am I trying to kid though, you guys know this already. I'm sure someone in the office snickered and said "Oh they are gonna be pissed about this one!".
How about you guys fire up the old exchange again so that the 75% of the player base that uses this set can exchange it for another at the same level. I mean this whole problem was created by you guys to begin with. YOU made the set and gave it the bonus, YOU decided it was too powerful, YOU made the new sets and crappy bonuses. Yet once again WE are the ones who have to pay for those mistakes.
How about from now on any time you nerf a class or item you provide an exchange of equal value? It probably costs you nothing but labor you are already paying for anyway. Can't spend the time to code the exchange? No problem have someone do the math and give us the equivalent Zen or ingame currency instead. We will still be pissed but not nearly as pissed as we could be. I mean it's all just pixels on a screen anyway right? /s I'm sorry, but FFS it just seems like every time I turn around you guys are nerfing something else I spent hours getting, making, or paying for.
There are plenty of power pieces, which does help out healing. As far as the -50% incoming healing goes, it allows for player choice which some have been clamoring for. I doubt melee dps will take the piece unless they either are really good at dodging or have a death wish.
Of course power helps healing, but if stacking the Generic Ultra-Stat now classifies as itemisation for healers, then we truly are in the darkest of timelines. I have all five outgoing healing comps at legendary, and all the relevant mod16 rune sets at legendary... and now I just gather Power until the end of time? What's wrong with healers desiring some equivalent to the plethora of "+% to damage" gear that is available for DPS?
And having seen the number of players clomping around in Hell's Heel Crackers in PUGs, I assure you, plenty of DPS will wear the piece (which will after all come to them as "Recommended") and it will be frustrating beyond words.
(put away your dice Abed!) but yeah, the deeps ESPECIALLY the melee classes will all be wearing this gear and they will all be expecting miracles from their healers and dishing out the profanities. with the further nerfs on the current high damage dealers and the orcus nerf you can bet that people will use whatever they can. Nerfing the higher damage dealers and boosting the underperformers is just going to end up with an imbalance or everyone just nerfed to where the under performers are currently. I really wish that buffs were in use in instead of nerfs and interesting mechanics added instead of just making everything hp sinks.
I'm glad to see the hind end of orcus, but with the class nerfs on top of it I'm nervous.. and then this gear on top of it. fy da.
@oremonger#9999 yeah I'm sick of the nerfs too. I think nearly everyone is. that's all we've gotten is stick and no carrot for over a year now. we need the carrot.. you say exchange for same level item.. everything at the same level is worse. it would have to be an exchange for one of the modern sets. given they are still on the expensive side I'd be happy with just a RP value and mark value exchange.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
@noworries#8859@nitocris83@mimicking#6533@cwhitesidedev#9752 "One main call out we'd like to make here is that the Demon Lord's artifact set bonus has been adjusted. It is now a maximum of 10% damage boost instead of 20%. We understand there will be players unhappy with this change, but it was necessary as this artifact set bonus was very much out of line with the rest of them and created a situation where a very old, lower item level artifact set was always the best choice no matter what else came along." -NoWorries
How about the next time anyone in the office wants to nerf something they have to give Julia $100.00 and an essay explaining exactly why, how many players will be affected and when / who was the last player to obtain said item. She can use the $100.00 to buy herself something nice to take her mind off of the storm that will take place on the forums and also have the essay to refer to when making excuses to us. You do realize that people are still upgrading this set as recently as yesterday right? Millions of AD worth or resources down the drain in a flash! Not only that, but MILLIONS more to make a new set.
To say I am sick of nerfs is quite an understatement. It boggles my mind to think that you guys can not come up with other ways to make the changes you need to make without penalizing those of us who have spent countless hours grinding, millions of ingame currency and often real money to obtain the very things you want to nerf.
In this case the reason so many of us still use this old artifact set is that ALL of the new ones have bonuses that SUCK! It would be one thing if they were just not as good as the older ones, but these bonuses are actually useless for 95% of content or hard to justify upgrading given the cost / benefit involved. Who am I trying to kid though, you guys know this already. I'm sure someone in the office snickered and said "Oh they are gonna be pissed about this one!".
How about you guys fire up the old exchange again so that the 75% of the player base that uses this set can exchange it for another at the same level. I mean this whole problem was created by you guys to begin with. YOU made the set and gave it the bonus, YOU decided it was too powerful, YOU made the new sets and crappy bonuses. Yet once again WE are the ones who have to pay for those mistakes.
How about from now on any time you nerf a class or item you provide an exchange of equal value? It probably costs you nothing but labor you are already paying for anyway. Can't spend the time to code the exchange? No problem have someone do the math and give us the equivalent Zen or ingame currency instead. We will still be pissed but not nearly as pissed as we could be. I mean it's all just pixels on a screen anyway right? /s I'm sorry, but FFS it just seems like every time I turn around you guys are nerfing something else I spent hours getting, making, or paying for.
You will find almost every single, if not every single person involved in the closed beta requested the set be nerfed. An item should not be BiS for over 10 modules and there is a very good case for when items should be nerfed instead of stronger options created, when creating a stronger item would raise the level of power higher and introduce power creep. This item is an example of an item which should be nerfed. Yes, it was used by a lot of players, so are other items. In fact, something used by a lot of players is a very good argument for it needing to be nerfed. Something being used by a large majority of players long past its sell by date (an item which has been bis for what, 2-3 years now?) should be considered to be on the chopping block.
"But millions of AD was wasted" people cry. Yep, it was. Guess what, it doesn't matter how much you delay the set being nerfed, there is always someone who will be affected by it. Replacing it with a better item doesn't fix this either, you still need to replace the item and, "millions of ad will be wasted." The question is where do you intend the power of the set bonus to fall. The set bonus of the orcus set clearly falls above the intended level of power for a 3 piece set bonus and thus it needed to be nerfed.
Nerfs are a necessary part of any online game that wants to achieve some semblance of balance's development. Acting like they are bad is like being the child in the playground who took all the chocolate, being upset when you are being reprimanded and having it distributed more equally. It is that childish. There are good cases for nerfing things and there are good cases for buffing them too. Notice, I am not complaining about Wizard single target nerfs (although I would like some AoE buffs), as you can make a good case for why the balance needs to be done.
And on the topic of exchange vendors, no, players should have to grind for new sets. At no point is the value of an item guaranteed forever and when you invest in it, the risk is on the player, nobody else should be responsible for decisions you make. In fact, I would never have offered exchange vendors for anything in the first place, nerfing and buffing is part of the game and so is having to adapt to new changes.
@thefabricant in theory, I don't disagree but this game has been so negative to the player base this year. more nerfs are just going to bring moral lower than it already is which is off the charts low. Nerfs to the player base imo on top of nerfs to the gear is uncalled for. I don't have a problem with some power creep. I'd rather have that then slap after slap after slap. why do we need to nerf the highest dps instead of bringing the under performers up? how is that power creep? when morale is low you do things to get the player base excited. not nerf because someone had a case of the shouldas.
i'm sick of the orcus set too, and it doesn't at all bother me that it's been nerfed, but hearing the over all whine of complaint over it from the player base.. I wonder if now is the time. something does need to be done to sweeten the pot. the negative has just been too much this year. the game really does seem to be dying. this sort of thing isn't helping bring it back to life. the price of upgrading is nothing to the ultra wealthy in this game but if i were a newer player to the game and just spent time tricking out this set because EVERY guide said to do it and then a nerf hit it.. yeah I can see why some are salty and it would always be that way.. but after so much time people start to think it will never ever happen.
Just make new set relevant outide new content too and call it a day (should test but infernal citadel's last boss seem to be a construct type so could be irrelevant in new dungeon as well) Currently wizards and ranger only are getting benefit from other option aka music box set because of low dmg high utility dailies. Could also use adding power to set to prevent same issue on long term, and keep in mind demo set is still situationally bis, even after this nerf and after like 10+ mods! At last: would ppl complain the same if no nerf to demo set with new one being way more powerful? I think so, with still the issue that in long term newest gear would have to be way more broken to replace previous ones.
(This is the dps gear issue only) New headgear having bonuses to choose with... check New armgear having bonuses to choose with... check New footwear having bonuses to choose with... check New chests having bonuses to choose with... negative the bonuses are so bad that we will be forced to use the 882 chests from Master Expedition, the Ebonized ones... You were so close devs... so close... 3 out of 4 is not Exeeeeleeeent
I wasn't going to log back on the forums but my common cold has escalated to bronchitis and I am up hacking and coughing.
I am mainly here to check on the graphics and audio issues with the game and seldom "get involved" with the drama of game mechanics. I do not own the Demon Lord's artifact set, but to my understanding this was the rock you clobbered the bad guys with in module 9 "The Maze Engine" way back in 2016? Most games would have created something much better by now or found a way to make the object obsolete long ago. I am amazed they left it available this long. I never care much for games creating the Rock that Kills Gods and eliminating the mess they created at the cost of the users. This is very common practice in the gaming universe, but it doesn't make it right.
As many people know, all companies build these games to be "Free to Grind", and the hope is you will pay real cash not to grind. It is not an easy thing to destroy the Rock that Kills Gods. At this point, may I suggest the owners who obtained this item could exchange it at a vendor for another artifact set of equal value or obtain the value in the form of Zen or AD? Please remember, I don't play this game in depth, I only show up here for the tests. I hope both the staff and the users can find some middle ground. Good luck!
> @rysiek86 said: > (This is the dps gear issue only) > New headgear having bonuses to choose with... check > New armgear having bonuses to choose with... check > New footwear having bonuses to choose with... check > New chests having bonuses to choose with... negative the bonuses are so bad that we will be forced to use the 882 chests from Master Expedition, the Ebonized ones... > You were so close devs... so close... 3 out of 4 is not Exeeeeleeeent
But this gives new players a reason (in addition to companion gear ofc) to run the M16/17 content. I think it's a good thing that not all lvl 80 gear is instantly made obsolete as soon as a new mod is released.
On a side note; I'm really happy with the new gear drops, some of them will make my awesome reflect/power build even more awesome 👍
@noworries#8859@nitocris83@mimicking#6533@cwhitesidedev#9752 "One main call out we'd like to make here is that the Demon Lord's artifact set bonus has been adjusted. It is now a maximum of 10% damage boost instead of 20%. We understand there will be players unhappy with this change, but it was necessary as this artifact set bonus was very much out of line with the rest of them and created a situation where a very old, lower item level artifact set was always the best choice no matter what else came along." -NoWorries
How about the next time anyone in the office wants to nerf something they have to give Julia $100.00 and an essay explaining exactly why, how many players will be affected and when / who was the last player to obtain said item. She can use the $100.00 to buy herself something nice to take her mind off of the storm that will take place on the forums and also have the essay to refer to when making excuses to us. You do realize that people are still upgrading this set as recently as yesterday right? Millions of AD worth or resources down the drain in a flash! Not only that, but MILLIONS more to make a new set.
To say I am sick of nerfs is quite an understatement. It boggles my mind to think that you guys can not come up with other ways to make the changes you need to make without penalizing those of us who have spent countless hours grinding, millions of ingame currency and often real money to obtain the very things you want to nerf.
In this case the reason so many of us still use this old artifact set is that ALL of the new ones have bonuses that SUCK! It would be one thing if they were just not as good as the older ones, but these bonuses are actually useless for 95% of content or hard to justify upgrading given the cost / benefit involved. Who am I trying to kid though, you guys know this already. I'm sure someone in the office snickered and said "Oh they are gonna be pissed about this one!".
How about you guys fire up the old exchange again so that the 75% of the player base that uses this set can exchange it for another at the same level. I mean this whole problem was created by you guys to begin with. YOU made the set and gave it the bonus, YOU decided it was too powerful, YOU made the new sets and crappy bonuses. Yet once again WE are the ones who have to pay for those mistakes.
How about from now on any time you nerf a class or item you provide an exchange of equal value? It probably costs you nothing but labor you are already paying for anyway. Can't spend the time to code the exchange? No problem have someone do the math and give us the equivalent Zen or ingame currency instead. We will still be pissed but not nearly as pissed as we could be. I mean it's all just pixels on a screen anyway right? /s I'm sorry, but FFS it just seems like every time I turn around you guys are nerfing something else I spent hours getting, making, or paying for.
You will find almost every single, if not every single person involved in the closed beta requested the set be nerfed. An item should not be BiS for over 10 modules and there is a very good case for when items should be nerfed instead of stronger options created, when creating a stronger item would raise the level of power higher and introduce power creep. This item is an example of an item which should be nerfed. Yes, it was used by a lot of players, so are other items. In fact, something used by a lot of players is a very good argument for it needing to be nerfed. Something being used by a large majority of players long past its sell by date (an item which has been bis for what, 2-3 years now?) should be considered to be on the chopping block.
"But millions of AD was wasted" people cry. Yep, it was. Guess what, it doesn't matter how much you delay the set being nerfed, there is always someone who will be affected by it. Replacing it with a better item doesn't fix this either, you still need to replace the item and, "millions of ad will be wasted." The question is where do you intend the power of the set bonus to fall. The set bonus of the orcus set clearly falls above the intended level of power for a 3 piece set bonus and thus it needed to be nerfed.
Nerfs are a necessary part of any online game that wants to achieve some semblance of balance's development. Acting like they are bad is like being the child in the playground who took all the chocolate, being upset when you are being reprimanded and having it distributed more equally. It is that childish. There are good cases for nerfing things and there are good cases for buffing them too. Notice, I am not complaining about Wizard single target nerfs (although I would like some AoE buffs), as you can make a good case for why the balance needs to be done.
And on the topic of exchange vendors, no, players should have to grind for new sets. At no point is the value of an item guaranteed forever and when you invest in it, the risk is on the player, nobody else should be responsible for decisions you make. In fact, I would never have offered exchange vendors for anything in the first place, nerfing and buffing is part of the game and so is having to adapt to new changes.
With all due respect, i think you are completely misunderstanding the point here. The argument isn't about whether orcus should still stay BiS or not, it is rather about the method used. Nerfing should never be a part of any game whatsoever, unless it is a hindsight and the developers are trying to correct it and i doubt that the developers realised this after 10 mods. What nerfing essentially does, is that it creates an atmosphere of distrust where every player from now on wards, that would like to buy a piece of gear, is in fear of it being dumped by the developers. What every online game should do is to introduce newer piece of gears that surpass the older ones and give the playerbase something to work towards and at the very same time, make the process enjoyable.
What an online should never do is to ridiculously buff a piece of gear, and then nerf it when it is possessed by masses. The subtle difference between the two processes of nerfing existing gear and introducing better gear is that the former comes with the cost of distrust. Imagine i just started this game, i buy the BiS gear for what it is worth, and then a month later i am told that it is nerfed by half. This not only makes me lose trust on the dev's, it devalues for what i paid for or put effort into and it would make all of it seem worthless. If you simply introduce a new gear, i would understand that it is part of the process of development. The reason of this backlash is Mod 16, the players are fed up with nerfs, and i believe that cryptic has a tough year ahead if they don't make real life changes to how they work.
@thefabricant My attempt at sarcasm and humor missed the mark a bit. I am not the world's best communicator.
I agree that nerfs to gear and classes are part of life in MMOs and are actually needed in the life of games to keep things fresh. My point is more about the number that have happened in this game in the past few MODs and how it affects new folks who are just starting out and the morale of the player base when nerfs seem to be the "go to" tool for every occasion.
I honestly read that someone just got their first Demon lords set fully upgraded the day before yesterday. They were surely heartbroken to hear about the pending nerf. I remember how hard it was to get this set and how I had to scrimp and save back in the day not to mention the hours and hours spent in CN. I just want the Devs to remember this when they choose to nerf things. Although they are just pixels on the screen and a few lines of code these items represent a lot of hard work and effort. The decision to nerf them should not be taken lightly or made frequently.
Like others here I think the Devs should have a little more foresight when creating these items so that when the inevitable nerfs do come there is a viable option for players to turn to that is just as shiny as the one that will be lost.
You have to admit that nerfs have been hard and heavy for the past few mods. People like you and me can just shrug it off because we have several endgame characters, several million AD and plenty of zen to absorb the changes. Some do not though so any form of compensation helps take the sting out of the nerf even if it is just destroying the item and giving 75% of the materials back in return. I mean there are several options and it does only cost them labor they are already paying for.
For the record I appreciate your efforts and the efforts of the folks like you who are still playing the game after all of these years. I know many like you have quit and moved on out of frustration. Your efforts and community involvement is appreciated more than you know and your insights are very valuable. I am glad that Cryptic continues to invite you to help Beta test even if I don't always agree with you 100% of the time.
I think that both @thefiresidecat and @sobi#1980 explained what I was trying to say much better than I did. Like I said, I'm not the world's best communicator.
3
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
@noworries#8859@nitocris83@mimicking#6533@cwhitesidedev#9752 "One main call out we'd like to make here is that the Demon Lord's artifact set bonus has been adjusted. It is now a maximum of 10% damage boost instead of 20%. We understand there will be players unhappy with this change, but it was necessary as this artifact set bonus was very much out of line with the rest of them and created a situation where a very old, lower item level artifact set was always the best choice no matter what else came along." -NoWorries
How about the next time anyone in the office wants to nerf something they have to give Julia $100.00 and an essay explaining exactly why, how many players will be affected and when / who was the last player to obtain said item. She can use the $100.00 to buy herself something nice to take her mind off of the storm that will take place on the forums and also have the essay to refer to when making excuses to us. You do realize that people are still upgrading this set as recently as yesterday right? Millions of AD worth or resources down the drain in a flash! Not only that, but MILLIONS more to make a new set.
To say I am sick of nerfs is quite an understatement. It boggles my mind to think that you guys can not come up with other ways to make the changes you need to make without penalizing those of us who have spent countless hours grinding, millions of ingame currency and often real money to obtain the very things you want to nerf.
In this case the reason so many of us still use this old artifact set is that ALL of the new ones have bonuses that SUCK! It would be one thing if they were just not as good as the older ones, but these bonuses are actually useless for 95% of content or hard to justify upgrading given the cost / benefit involved. Who am I trying to kid though, you guys know this already. I'm sure someone in the office snickered and said "Oh they are gonna be pissed about this one!".
How about you guys fire up the old exchange again so that the 75% of the player base that uses this set can exchange it for another at the same level. I mean this whole problem was created by you guys to begin with. YOU made the set and gave it the bonus, YOU decided it was too powerful, YOU made the new sets and crappy bonuses. Yet once again WE are the ones who have to pay for those mistakes.
How about from now on any time you nerf a class or item you provide an exchange of equal value? It probably costs you nothing but labor you are already paying for anyway. Can't spend the time to code the exchange? No problem have someone do the math and give us the equivalent Zen or ingame currency instead. We will still be pissed but not nearly as pissed as we could be. I mean it's all just pixels on a screen anyway right? /s I'm sorry, but FFS it just seems like every time I turn around you guys are nerfing something else I spent hours getting, making, or paying for.
You will find almost every single, if not every single person involved in the closed beta requested the set be nerfed. An item should not be BiS for over 10 modules and there is a very good case for when items should be nerfed instead of stronger options created, when creating a stronger item would raise the level of power higher and introduce power creep. This item is an example of an item which should be nerfed. Yes, it was used by a lot of players, so are other items. In fact, something used by a lot of players is a very good argument for it needing to be nerfed. Something being used by a large majority of players long past its sell by date (an item which has been bis for what, 2-3 years now?) should be considered to be on the chopping block.
"But millions of AD was wasted" people cry. Yep, it was. Guess what, it doesn't matter how much you delay the set being nerfed, there is always someone who will be affected by it. Replacing it with a better item doesn't fix this either, you still need to replace the item and, "millions of ad will be wasted." The question is where do you intend the power of the set bonus to fall. The set bonus of the orcus set clearly falls above the intended level of power for a 3 piece set bonus and thus it needed to be nerfed.
Nerfs are a necessary part of any online game that wants to achieve some semblance of balance's development. Acting like they are bad is like being the child in the playground who took all the chocolate, being upset when you are being reprimanded and having it distributed more equally. It is that childish. There are good cases for nerfing things and there are good cases for buffing them too. Notice, I am not complaining about Wizard single target nerfs (although I would like some AoE buffs), as you can make a good case for why the balance needs to be done.
And on the topic of exchange vendors, no, players should have to grind for new sets. At no point is the value of an item guaranteed forever and when you invest in it, the risk is on the player, nobody else should be responsible for decisions you make. In fact, I would never have offered exchange vendors for anything in the first place, nerfing and buffing is part of the game and so is having to adapt to new changes.
With all due respect, i think you are completely misunderstanding the point here. The argument isn't about whether orcus should still stay BiS or not, it is rather about the method used. Nerfing should never be a part of any game whatsoever, unless it is a hindsight and the developers are trying to correct it and i doubt that the developers realised this after 10 mods. What nerfing essentially does, is that it creates an atmosphere of distrust where every player from now on wards, that would like to buy a piece of gear, is in fear of it being dumped by the developers. What every online game should do is to introduce newer piece of gears that surpass the older ones and give the playerbase something to work towards and at the very same time, make the process enjoyable.
What an online should never do is to ridiculously buff a piece of gear, and then nerf it when it is possessed by masses. The subtle difference between the two processes of nerfing existing gear and introducing better gear is that the former comes with the cost of distrust. Imagine i just started this game, i buy the BiS gear for what it is worth, and then a month later i am told that it is nerfed by half. This not only makes me lose trust on the dev's, it devalues for what i paid for or put effort into and it would make all of it seem worthless. If you simply introduce a new gear, i would understand that it is part of the process of development. The reason of this backlash is Mod 16, the players are fed up with nerfs, and i believe that cryptic has a tough year ahead if they don't make real life changes to how they work.
Nerfing is a very important part of the development process, if something is too powerful, it needs to be reduced. Say the devs want a set bonus to on average provide a 5% increase, then 1 set, through oversight, provides a 10% increase. Either they have to increase every set up to 10% and then rebalance around that, or they need to reduce that other set down to the base line. This is exactly what has happened here.
Furthermore, I see absolutely 0 reason to compensate players. In the real world if you play the stock market, you are not compensated if you bet on a stock going up and it ends up tanking and that is exactly the same scenario here. You made an investment into an item, knowing that it may not always be ideal and there is always the possibility that it may be nerfs. It actually plays an important part of the gearing process, because it gives you something new to aim for. If you never have to improve, you eventually quit so yes, this is something that keeps players on the treadmill.
And its not like I am not affected by many of the nerfs that this game has gone through, but I acknowledge that they were often for the good of the game. An easy example I can give is when professions were changed in M15, I had spent over 100M on legendary tools before M15 and suddenly they were all worth nothing. I wasn't crying on the forums about that. The problem isn't the process of nerfing, the problem is you, seeing a problem with it. It is entirely psychological. It is like children complaining their parents took away their toys.
Comments
Tying the damage buff to specific creature types is a bad idea, making it all but useless to the remaining 95% of the game.
Even just a passive 5% to all enemies wouldn't even make it BiS for most classes, its just gonna turn into the halaster set 2.0, possibly the most useless set bonus so far.
I really don't mind the Demo set nerf. Most of us saw it coming months ago, but to give us this garbage as a possible replacement is just pouring salt into the wounds of players.
Same with some of the equip bonus's, they are awful. This is exactly why players still use older tiered gear, because you keep recycling useless or subpar bonus's.
IF you want the new 1250 dungeon gear to be BiS, like you wanted the successor gear to be ( and failed), please please please stop putting rubbish bonus's on them, or give it a set bonus. +5% AP gain for 4/4 pieces slotted, or something.
Learn from your mistakes with the successor gear, both bonus's and the "revamped" bonus's were junk
Since it came out the community knew the Orcus set was BiS by miles. I remember joking around with guildies, back around M11-12, that the bonus was too good and a nerf had to be coming soon. Someone even remarked that someday we would be looking at another high prophet situation where things just get nerfed/removed. Who would have thought that day would come so many years later.
I mean, obviously everyone knew it was BiS. There's no way you guys didn't realize this as well.
You should have acted way sooner to fix it.
Instead.......you released lockboxes in a new format that pretty much no one liked. And what did you stuff in these new lockboxes to entice people to open them?
Why, one piece of the BiS Orcus set in each consecutive lockbox (New Opportunities, Reborn and Acquired Treasures) of course!
If the bonus was that much of an issue, and I think many can say it was since nothing could replace the set, than why would you continue to push the items at players in lockboxes?
Were you only thinking of lockbox key sales when you should have been thinking on ways to rein in a longstanding problem?
I'm not torn that the set got nerfed. I'll adjust. Not that hard to change out another set. Occasional nerfs are a thing in games.
But the fact that this frequent nerfing across the board continues to be such an issue for your team is a red flag. Hopefully the new EP can get a handle on things and use a little foresight in the future.
I'll go further, as it is standing now, this mod is almost obsolete for character progression:
-There's no weapon set, which I thought it was obviously will be in with a new tier, but less powerful than the tomm one. But no, nothing. If you want the BiS weapon set, you still need to do watchers.
-The 1 artifact set is only good for it's own dungeon. But Demogorgon already averages it's bonus and people will not optimised for the second hardest, they only go for the first, where the set bonus is useless.
-There are no artifacts introduced, but those who just have the journal sets, probably don't have space to slot in anyway.
-Now, the dungeon gear is uninteresting and the hunt items (or the antiquities, whenever they come from) have a few interesting piece, but very very few. As a wizard who can't use the melee feet, I'll choose a footwear and my full investment with the mod ended. The shirt+pant is just garbage, but I already only using the pants for the amount of Power it gives.
-I'm not even sure if I will farm the dungeon, because lomm has a higher value rewards to sell anyway.
Suggestions:
-Introduce a top tier weapon set with some marginal bonus OR make a support set so people will try to get it to get a better shot in tomm. And you can adjust tomm difficulty with it in mind of course.
-Make the artifact set for supports. Or just let players tier up their old sets. Like how Cradle let you upgrade stuff.
-If you let players tier up their old sets, make one or more component only come from the new dungeon chests, so players have incentive to do the new dungeon. Maybe place a reagent in tomm as well, just to make doing it more valuable.
-While the hunt+dungeon gear is fully underwhelming, I don't have a personal problem with that. I don't think it's reasonable to expect 20+ gear items a mod to find place. However, I think that the artifact set bonus would be better as a gear set bonus. Or just make hunt gears settable, so not every class just copies the best 2 composition.
Also... You want us to use newer gear, make it worth our while without nerfing old gear that's super awesome. There are better ways to make us switch. We use old gear because it's better. Nerfing it just upsets more and more of your loyal players. Why do you do this to us all the time? Honest feedback here: Stop nerfing old stuff, make new stuff better![/COLOR]
P.S. your color codes are not working here for some reason... and if I'm doing it wrong, someone please give me a code for Cyan that works.
-I didn't do much, really just hoped over to try and fish out the new ratings cap. I was hitting full dmg at 85k Armor Pen, so I'm going to assume Avernus and Infernal Citadel are 35k enemy ratings. I was expecting a bit higher given one of the final points of the ratings and difficulty thread, but no complaints.
-The new world map layout is great. I really like the new tabs at the top. I personally like the pale brown map color scheme, gives it a antique parchment map kinda vibe. But Undermountain map is still full colored from M16-17. For consistency I'd pick one of the two schemes and run with it.
-Demon Lords' set : I can't add anything that hasn't already been said. I will hope when the number crunchers and math wizards run through the arti sets again that a new king is chosen, but if not oh well.
-M18 arti set : While it kinda sorta maybe makes sense thematically, in practice it is too limited an effect unless Avernus turns into a 2-3 mod monster like Chult (which, it is the Nine Hells, so the possibilities are only limited by the layers and the creativity). I will hope that it gets a slight change to be universally useful with an added effect on infernals, or that Infernal Citadel is worth the farm to justify the RP cost in making that set.
-Is it too early to sell my soul for a Succubus companion? I don't even want to use it for equip power or for summoned fighter, just to summon when I'm sitting on my vampire lord throne discussing the finer points of life with guild mates.
Cleric: You can be an angel of mercy or give in to hate. - Shinedown
Wizard: The more the dark consumes me, I pretend I'm burning bright. - Shinedown
Barbarian: Am I beautiful... as I tear you to pieces? - In This Moment
Also, there's no gear *for* healers in this mod: no outgoing healing bonuses, no interesting procs for us, no sets, nothing with WIS... nothing.
<font color="red"> This is for bugs. </font><font color="cyan"> This is for feedback. </font>This is for bugs.
This is for feedback.
That information should have been included in the first post.
Patching now.
Dang, only had to edit my html 6 or 7 times! lol
PSN Zen AD Exchange - Forecasting Spreadsheet
Preview Server is the only one effected the game performs flawless under the WINE in the current LIVE server. I should make it a point, never to debug on Friday the 13th. Check back with you over the weekend...
I decided to give it one more go and rebooted the machine. The load time is very sluggish compared to the LIVE. Anyone else (running Windows) having this slow loading issue?
On the same machine, I timed the loads between Preview and Live; not sure if this is "important".
Preview the black and white "Cryptic" loading screen 1 m 16.68 s + "Neverwinter" loading screen 7.6 s for total time = 1m 24.28 s
Live the black and white "Cryptic" loading screen 41.28 s + "Neverwinter" loading screen 3.78 s for total time = 45.04 s
PSN Zen AD Exchange - Forecasting Spreadsheet
Abyssal chicken! Devs, please make this a companion or vanity pet, I WANT ONE.
PVP Rogue,
--[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin)
Ingame Handle: trgluestickz
Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563
Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression
Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud
Platform: PC
And having seen the number of players clomping around in Hell's Heel Crackers in PUGs, I assure you, plenty of DPS will wear the piece (which will after all come to them as "Recommended") and it will be frustrating beyond words.
This is a cooperative game for the most part, should we even have gear the purposefully undermine our teammates? Seems like it will cause friction between party memebers.
It’s not really risk/reward if you’re not the one who has to deal with the downsides. It is still an annoying bonus to heal, but I feel a better penalty is if the boots reduced the wearer’s hp instead of incoming healing. DPS players might not feel -50% incoming healing, but they certainly will feel -50K HP (or a percentage reduction in health so the boots don’t become the next orcus when gear inflates HP pools).
"One main call out we'd like to make here is that the Demon Lord's artifact set bonus has been adjusted. It is now a maximum of 10% damage boost instead of 20%. We understand there will be players unhappy with this change, but it was necessary as this artifact set bonus was very much out of line with the rest of them and created a situation where a very old, lower item level artifact set was always the best choice no matter what else came along." -NoWorries
How about the next time anyone in the office wants to nerf something they have to give Julia $100.00 and an essay explaining exactly why, how many players will be affected and when / who was the last player to obtain said item. She can use the $100.00 to buy herself something nice to take her mind off of the storm that will take place on the forums and also have the essay to refer to when making excuses to us. You do realize that people are still upgrading this set as recently as yesterday right? Millions of AD worth or resources down the drain in a flash! Not only that, but MILLIONS more to make a new set.
To say I am sick of nerfs is quite an understatement. It boggles my mind to think that you guys can not come up with other ways to make the changes you need to make without penalizing those of us who have spent countless hours grinding, millions of ingame currency and often real money to obtain the very things you want to nerf.
In this case the reason so many of us still use this old artifact set is that ALL of the new ones have bonuses that SUCK! It would be one thing if they were just not as good as the older ones, but these bonuses are actually useless for 95% of content or hard to justify upgrading given the cost / benefit involved. Who am I trying to kid though, you guys know this already. I'm sure someone in the office snickered and said "Oh they are gonna be pissed about this one!".
How about you guys fire up the old exchange again so that the 75% of the player base that uses this set can exchange it for another at the same level. I mean this whole problem was created by you guys to begin with. YOU made the set and gave it the bonus, YOU decided it was too powerful, YOU made the new sets and crappy bonuses. Yet once again WE are the ones who have to pay for those mistakes.
How about from now on any time you nerf a class or item you provide an exchange of equal value? It probably costs you nothing but labor you are already paying for anyway. Can't spend the time to code the exchange? No problem have someone do the math and give us the equivalent Zen or ingame currency instead. We will still be pissed but not nearly as pissed as we could be. I mean it's all just pixels on a screen anyway right? /s I'm sorry, but FFS it just seems like every time I turn around you guys are nerfing something else I spent hours getting, making, or paying for.
I'm glad to see the hind end of orcus, but with the class nerfs on top of it I'm nervous.. and then this gear on top of it. fy da.
"But millions of AD was wasted" people cry. Yep, it was. Guess what, it doesn't matter how much you delay the set being nerfed, there is always someone who will be affected by it. Replacing it with a better item doesn't fix this either, you still need to replace the item and, "millions of ad will be wasted." The question is where do you intend the power of the set bonus to fall. The set bonus of the orcus set clearly falls above the intended level of power for a 3 piece set bonus and thus it needed to be nerfed.
Nerfs are a necessary part of any online game that wants to achieve some semblance of balance's development. Acting like they are bad is like being the child in the playground who took all the chocolate, being upset when you are being reprimanded and having it distributed more equally. It is that childish. There are good cases for nerfing things and there are good cases for buffing them too. Notice, I am not complaining about Wizard single target nerfs (although I would like some AoE buffs), as you can make a good case for why the balance needs to be done.
And on the topic of exchange vendors, no, players should have to grind for new sets. At no point is the value of an item guaranteed forever and when you invest in it, the risk is on the player, nobody else should be responsible for decisions you make. In fact, I would never have offered exchange vendors for anything in the first place, nerfing and buffing is part of the game and so is having to adapt to new changes.
i'm sick of the orcus set too, and it doesn't at all bother me that it's been nerfed, but hearing the over all whine of complaint over it from the player base.. I wonder if now is the time. something does need to be done to sweeten the pot. the negative has just been too much this year. the game really does seem to be dying. this sort of thing isn't helping bring it back to life. the price of upgrading is nothing to the ultra wealthy in this game but if i were a newer player to the game and just spent time tricking out this set because EVERY guide said to do it and then a nerf hit it.. yeah I can see why some are salty and it would always be that way.. but after so much time people start to think it will never ever happen.
Could also use adding power to set to prevent same issue on long term, and keep in mind demo set is still situationally bis, even after this nerf and after like 10+ mods!
At last: would ppl complain the same if no nerf to demo set with new one being way more powerful? I think so, with still the issue that in long term newest gear would have to be way more broken to replace previous ones.
New headgear having bonuses to choose with... check
New armgear having bonuses to choose with... check
New footwear having bonuses to choose with... check
New chests having bonuses to choose with... negative
You were so close devs... so close... 3 out of 4 is not Exeeeeleeeent
I am mainly here to check on the graphics and audio issues with the game and seldom "get involved" with the drama of game mechanics. I do not own the Demon Lord's artifact set, but to my understanding this was the rock you clobbered the bad guys with in module 9 "The Maze Engine" way back in 2016? Most games would have created something much better by now or found a way to make the object obsolete long ago. I am amazed they left it available this long. I never care much for games creating the Rock that Kills Gods and eliminating the mess they created at the cost of the users. This is very common practice in the gaming universe, but it doesn't make it right.
As many people know, all companies build these games to be "Free to Grind", and the hope is you will pay real cash not to grind. It is not an easy thing to destroy the Rock that Kills Gods. At this point, may I suggest the owners who obtained this item could exchange it at a vendor for another artifact set of equal value or obtain the value in the form of Zen or AD? Please remember, I don't play this game in depth, I only show up here for the tests. I hope both the staff and the users can find some middle ground. Good luck!
PSN Zen AD Exchange - Forecasting Spreadsheet
> (This is the dps gear issue only)
> New headgear having bonuses to choose with... check
> New armgear having bonuses to choose with... check
> New footwear having bonuses to choose with... check
> New chests having bonuses to choose with... negative
> You were so close devs... so close... 3 out of 4 is not Exeeeeleeeent
But this gives new players a reason (in addition to companion gear ofc) to run the M16/17 content. I think it's a good thing that not all lvl 80 gear is instantly made obsolete as soon as a new mod is released.
On a side note; I'm really happy with the new gear drops, some of them will make my awesome reflect/power build even more awesome 👍
What an online should never do is to ridiculously buff a piece of gear, and then nerf it when it is possessed by masses. The subtle difference between the two processes of nerfing existing gear and introducing better gear is that the former comes with the cost of distrust. Imagine i just started this game, i buy the BiS gear for what it is worth, and then a month later i am told that it is nerfed by half. This not only makes me lose trust on the dev's, it devalues for what i paid for or put effort into and it would make all of it seem worthless. If you simply introduce a new gear, i would understand that it is part of the process of development. The reason of this backlash is Mod 16, the players are fed up with nerfs, and i believe that cryptic has a tough year ahead if they don't make real life changes to how they work.
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My attempt at sarcasm and humor missed the mark a bit. I am not the world's best communicator.
I agree that nerfs to gear and classes are part of life in MMOs and are actually needed in the life of games to keep things fresh. My point is more about the number that have happened in this game in the past few MODs and how it affects new folks who are just starting out and the morale of the player base when nerfs seem to be the "go to" tool for every occasion.
I honestly read that someone just got their first Demon lords set fully upgraded the day before yesterday. They were surely heartbroken to hear about the pending nerf. I remember how hard it was to get this set and how I had to scrimp and save back in the day not to mention the hours and hours spent in CN. I just want the Devs to remember this when they choose to nerf things. Although they are just pixels on the screen and a few lines of code these items represent a lot of hard work and effort.
The decision to nerf them should not be taken lightly or made frequently.
Like others here I think the Devs should have a little more foresight when creating these items so that when the inevitable nerfs do come there is a viable option for players to turn to that is just as shiny as the one that will be lost.
You have to admit that nerfs have been hard and heavy for the past few mods. People like you and me can just shrug it off because we have several endgame characters, several million AD and plenty of zen to absorb the changes. Some do not though so any form of compensation helps take the sting out of the nerf even if it is just destroying the item and giving 75% of the materials back in return. I mean there are several options and it does only cost them labor they are already paying for.
For the record I appreciate your efforts and the efforts of the folks like you who are still playing the game after all of these years. I know many like you have quit and moved on out of frustration. Your efforts and community involvement is appreciated more than you know and your insights are very valuable. I am glad that Cryptic continues to invite you to help Beta test even if I don't always agree with you 100% of the time.
I think that both @thefiresidecat and @sobi#1980 explained what I was trying to say much better than I did. Like I said, I'm not the world's best communicator.
Furthermore, I see absolutely 0 reason to compensate players. In the real world if you play the stock market, you are not compensated if you bet on a stock going up and it ends up tanking and that is exactly the same scenario here. You made an investment into an item, knowing that it may not always be ideal and there is always the possibility that it may be nerfs. It actually plays an important part of the gearing process, because it gives you something new to aim for. If you never have to improve, you eventually quit so yes, this is something that keeps players on the treadmill.
And its not like I am not affected by many of the nerfs that this game has gone through, but I acknowledge that they were often for the good of the game. An easy example I can give is when professions were changed in M15, I had spent over 100M on legendary tools before M15 and suddenly they were all worth nothing. I wasn't crying on the forums about that. The problem isn't the process of nerfing, the problem is you, seeing a problem with it. It is entirely psychological. It is like children complaining their parents took away their toys.