Ok, i was at the roadmap (listen to Galactic Underwear review of it), and my dreamer head engine starts to pur. I take the roadmap more as a general path the devs will roughly follow. So order, dates, items/subjects, we see inside the roadmap may change tomorrow, because objectives or priorities (or emergencies) can change over the time (my IRL job some years ago was supply chain manager in mold/plastic injection, from supplier to production/subcontractor to client, so hell yeah, week planning in monday afternoon was often quite different the next wednesday morning ^^).
2020/09 Masterwork new reciepes <=> 2020/11 Existing dungeons rework
This two things were already widely debated in this CDP topic, but from my perspective, there is a link between each other. In some dungeons and trials you are sometimes, on bosses or in the chest, looting ingredients involved in some craft (outdated) recipes if i'm correct. (i think FBI, Demogorgon and MSP are in this category ?). Why not expanding the idea ?
Here is an exemple (because it's not cristal clear in my head at the moment, and it's easier to show it this way). I'm sorry though it's a bit redondant with what i posted earlier, with just one more idea behind :
- New mastercraft reciepes : overload ultimate reinforcements (temporary model of overload enchants, really more powerful than reinforcement we have currently, erase/destroy the current reinforcement on the equipement if any and even if it's a perma-one), - Ingredients : 5x A, 5x B, 5x C, 5x D (or any number, as long as there are even - You can find A only in MC, B only in ToNG, C only in eToS, D only in CR. So each dungeon has one exclusive ingredient, and maybe not too hard (or rare) to loot.
balance on how much reinforcements devs would want to be created or in circulation may be achieved by tuning how long the "temporary" ultimate reinforcement last to compare with the average completion of a set of 5x these 4 dungeons, and put the slider a bit off that (the timer deplete way before you can achieve all the runs to get enough ingredients for exemple as it is more intended to be use for hard content [endgame or not, depending on the level of the player involved :P]), or by playing on quantity needed in the reciepe or the RNG on the droprate.
As a crafter for myself only (or my guild) i may want to run regulary those dungeons to get what i need to craft my own reinforcements (or guildmates one). As a big fan of crafting, with plenty of time to craft, i may want to buy those ingredients in the AH to try mass-producing and make AD as a "final product" supplier while pulling the raw-material market. As a dungeon runner not interested in craft, I can maybe see those ingredients as valuable thing to loot inside the dungeon so i can sell on AH and make AD as a "raw material"-supplier, but also pulling the reinforcement market as i still want the reinforcements too. And has these reinforcement are temporary, the demand would probably stay up.
*head scratching* I'm trying to figure out in which category of player I would really fall herei, probably in all depending of the month and the wind :P.
Theorically, AH value of each ingredient should be the same, as they are equally needed, but dungeons are not the same length or difficulty, or some are more interesting in their mechanics/fun, which would led to unbalance in supply between ingredients. Which kind of autocorrect itself => rarefication of one compared to others would make the rarest one price to rise (normally, i'm not so good in supply-demand in market theory :P), hence more appealing to run the only dungeon where you can loot it. It may be better to look at this idea with "historical" dungeons in mind (old ones) rather than imply in this system the new last fresh one released.
I'm not entirely sure of the validity or the interest this "old-school" style has and if it would or could work well or make sense in NWO.
From my perspective, and as a general guideline, synergies between different activities (in this matter dungeonning-AH-crafting) always enhance the dynamism inside a community of players, especially when a circular self driving concept is involved and well done. Completely separating the activities, and you are splitting people from each other. The "endgamer-clan", the "crafter-clan", the "newbie-clan", "the RP-clan", the "plenty of IRL money-clan", "the "plenty of playtime-clan" etc.... I wish i can have the best idea of the world about that (i will never :P), but i'm quite sure win-win relation can be created, be it direct or indirect (or even invisible, lurking surreptitiously), and i believe it should create a more healthy overall ambiance which is really important for a MMORPG to have a retention factor, reputation or "newbie friendly" attraction-pull. At the end, the more you keep and/or the more you attract, as long the balance is positive with people who leave, the more potential wallets can be opened to toss a coin or two in the game .
These words are just here as a starting point (good or bad xD), to take or not, and try to open on other ideas/development/critical examinations.
Post edited by tchefi#6735 on
3
darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
edited February 2020
I did read all the posts, and still I cant understand how can be bad for the game a system that rewards people for helping others. Assuming that rewards arent overwhelming, I cant see how it would be bad or someone would be against it.
In the opposite, having something like that would help a lot player retention wich I assume is one of the top priorities of the game.
As for rewards and progression I wont enter in more details, lots of very good ideas were described here but I will make a resume of things that I should like in regard to this topic:
- Every dungeon having usefull rewards and unique - Crafting / dungeoneering / progressing should have sinergies, so players need items from duneons to craft, and crafted items are needed to improve unique items in dungeons or create the item you want - Horizontal progression as a priority with vertical progression not being abused 1 per year or some event items - Enchants should be a big part of the stats, not like now, and a secure value over time. - All the enchants should be viable, allowing new builds - Character features and feats and boons should be much more relevant, allowing different builds and should make players think on what you pick. Now in most cases you must think what to pick between lots of bad options, usually not making much of a difference. - The market should have as much items BoE as it can, even if some players can buy powerfull items from the market with some exceptions, but I dont think this is bad for the game because it closes the cycle between players with lot of time with no money and players with not much time but willing to spend money. - A mentoring system (100 % optional) with some rewards to players that help others. No idea about how this could be implemented in a way that is not abusable.
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
edited February 2020
People suggest great ideas, on a large scale. And we are late in the CDP, but I just saw a thing in the game and wanted to mention it, as this is the rewards CDP:
One of the top rewards of the current lockbox, you know the stuff we get notifications for, is heart of the dragon artifacts. Those artifacts were outdated back then, and more so now.
So one of the top lockbox rewards is an artifact that was outdated a year ago.
I did read all the posts, and still I cant understand how can be bad for the game a system that rewards people for helping others. Assuming that rewards arent overwhelming, I cant see how it would be bad or someone would be against it.
In the opposite, having something like that would help a lot player retention wich I assume is one of the top priorities of the game.
I dont think anyone said there are strictly against a mentoring system that has rewards. Ppl just did dislike the idea of a mentoring system beeing the most rewarding thing in the game.
Rewards from all content should be directly related to the stats, time and effort required to complete the content. Items should only be bound to account or unbound.
Campaigns - Boons should be worth the time/effort required to obtain them. Time gates should be removed from all but the most recent campaign. Rewards/Items should be relevant in the current game.
Professions - Time, investment and effort should be reflected in the value of items that are able to be produced. Crafting and playing the market "are" the game for some players. Professions should not be ignored for extended periods and should be updated with every MOD.
Final notes:
If rewards from any source are not able to be kept relevant from MOD to MOD maybe the rewards should be converted into things that do not require updating / developer effort. Universal currency, companion upgrade tokens, crafting ingredients and consumables could all be used to replace gear and items in older content. In the case of a universal currency only the store would require updating to keep rewards relevant across all legacy content.
Mentoring system:
@haden42ee There are already two avenues in the game that can be used to mentor "new" players. Guilds and Alliances should be able to fill this role for most players. It can be argued that some do a much better job than others and that the Stronghold/Guild system in general needs some developer love, but the framework is there already and some guilds do an excellent job of supporting and mentoring new players. It is up to the new player to find the guild that meets their individual needs.
There is also a program in place that provides rewards: LINK Neverwinter Refer a Friend I'm not sure if this program still works but it could be used as a mentoring program and the levels required and the rewards could be adjusted.
Guide links from ingame:
@rainer#8575 's idea has merit, but I can see the drawbacks and liability it would represent for Cryptic. Linking to external sites from inside the game poses several risks. Instead I propose linking to the guide section on these forums, or linking to contributors who have been vetted and have agreed to rules and a standard set up by Cryptic. All it would take would be one disgruntled person with malicious intent to ruin it for everyone involved.
Post edited by oremonger#9999 on
9
darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
I did read all the posts, and still I cant understand how can be bad for the game a system that rewards people for helping others. Assuming that rewards arent overwhelming, I cant see how it would be bad or someone would be against it.
In the opposite, having something like that would help a lot player retention wich I assume is one of the top priorities of the game.
I dont think anyone said there are strictly against a mentoring system that has rewards. Ppl just did dislike the idea of a mentoring system beeing the most rewarding thing in the game.
1. Mastercraft should be kept relevant and rewarding. all tiers should have some kept relevance to the newest level of mastercraft (ie the old crafted items should have some part of the build of new items. neverembers super cereal hat mw5 should have gold wire cerulean dye and jute macrame as well as( kobolt leather and demon sinew mw5)
2.a Scaling to be removed from the player and instead put in the dungeons themselves and all dungeons made level 80 other than a couple levelling dungeons. Tiered dungeons with rewards commiserate with the level they are intended for. Ie. Malabogs fresh level 80s that give some gear that will make them strong enough to run Valindras or some introductory pet or mount gear. moving up to the most recent dungeons that keep relevant more end game centric rewards. (recent dungeons not scaled. just kept where they were when they were released)
2.B Dungeons need a better reward tree if scaling isn't removed. If scaling stays in place all dungeons should have the same rewards other than the newest dungeon. it would be nice if something could be done to make things that drop now have some retained value. Ie sinks for old artifacts and enchantments and rp. and those things taken out of modern lockboxes. Ideally lockboxes could be reworked to be like they used to be.
3. ???? there are a number of things here. like boons and campaigns but this is an area that I have a lot of respect towards complaining about because it seems like a lot of times when these are reworked they end up a lot worse than now. I'd like more trees and value in character building. right now most toons have one path they can take. lots of choices that aren't really a choice.
Masterwork; create distinction in masterwork rewards such as through set bonuses or distinct stats. Increase the range of rewards such as companion gear. Keep masterwork relevant such as via complex and challenging upgrading processes.
Boons; Make boons more interesting to choose, which creates character distinction/more options.
RNG and rewards; allow for a purchasing system where after X number of attempts you can purchase an item e.g. after 200 zok boxes you can purchase one piece of 1010 companion gear that you have not yet got.
What about implementing a mechanism to trade Coins and Currency with the game and with other players (ie. Gold to Astral Diamonds, but perhaps other currencies also)?
I don't know the details but it seems like 4th Edition (PHB, Chapter 7, Page 212) has a currency structure where Coins and Currency can be traded, from Copper < Silver < Gold < Platinum < Astral Diamonds, where 1,000,000 Copper : 10,000 Gold : 1 Astral Diamond. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8Blhc7UBgftLXhyTFQ5MkJxV0k/edit?pli=1
I did read all the posts, and still I cant understand how can be bad for the game a system that rewards people for helping others. Assuming that rewards arent overwhelming, I cant see how it would be bad or someone would be against it.
snip...
For me, the main concern would be the fact that "people helping others" shouldn't need any sort of legislative procedure to happen. (It really should be an obvious process of Enlightened Self Interest that more players who are better equipped both literally and figuratively, can only be good for the longevity of the game. But "What about ME? How does more and better players help ME? Right NOW? It's about ME remember!" is far more common than "common" sense.)
If the rewards for mentoring are not significant, why would people be more likely to do it than they are now? If they ARE significant, what prevents people from a) just getting together with pals, creating short lived accounts and "mentoring" each other's disposable toons for free stuff, and b) pestering the living HAMSTER out of genuine new players?
I remember when I first started playing and wasn't ready to throw in with any particular group of players, but joined a guild simply because I was sick to death of constantly being pinged in PE by guild invitations.
I'm not saying mentoring for rewards is a bad idea per se, just that rewarding people for their involvement in other peoples' progression more than the satisfaction of just being a decent human being, could be a dangerous path to tread unless it's very carefully thought through beforehand.
Many people don't see the "New Player Bonus" as a reward for helping new players finish content for the first time, they see it as compensation for being slowed down on their run. And THAT is the mindset you have to overcome.
1. Legacy Rewards are a mess. Too many out of date currencies and reward structures tied to legacy campaigns. Reduce the number of currencies per campaign to just a couple, impose daily/weekly limits on one to manage speed of progress. Allow currencies to be used to buy updated and relevant items for Higher Level development, subsequent to campaign completion (including Professions Ingredients and Guild Coffer donations). Should be updated and restructured to allow relevant rewards to be farmed in those areas to assist with the two following points.
2. Guild Level is too closely tied to Progression at End Game. With fewer new players, and a plethora of L20 Guilds offering open access for zero contribution, smaller guilds do not have the capacity to maintain a healthy enough end game base to farm the necessary vast quantities of resources needed. The Guild Boons, and access to Master Crafting are just too much of an incentive. The safest resolution to this is to increase the availability of the harder to gain requirements, meaning that lower level Guilds still have to graft for their growth, but aren't faced with insurmountable odds in achieving this. Problems with resolving this include; People who got Guild Bonuses for nothing don't want lose them, and the people who actually worked hard to get them for their Guild don't want other Guilds to be given them for what they see as less effort than they put in.
3. Professions were forgotten basically 5 minutes after they landed in Mod 15, most notably Master Work/Craft/whatever... The whole system needs to be taken care of. Do NOT "fix" this by simply dumping a tonne of new ingredients into new charts and add new tiers of Master Crafting. Fix the progression system so that anyone who is capable of doing MC can have access to it, and not just those in high end guilds. You have a Workshop Quest Tree. Add MC to THAT rather than the Stronghold. Or put a separate guy in the Stronghold and have them offer an alternative route or additional rewards. Unlock MC from behind the Guild Gate. Try and be creative with new recipes rather than just adding higher IL gear that will be outdated before 90%+ of the player base get anywhere near able to make it. I know the argument is that "Mastercrafting is for the elite at the top end" which probably should be the case, but, (if that is to be the intended case) until the standard Professions offer anything worth having, "Professions" is as good as dead to anyone coming new to the game. All that grind just to eventually unlock a harder grid, to unlock another... etc, one day maybe getting to a point somewhere down the line where you make something truly worth the effort...
I don't care whether these issues are fixed Horizontally, Vertically or tangentially off the interior of an inverted curve...
So, I changed my mind (about not arguing). I listed the different objections I've read, trying to see if they are valid and how they should affect my thought process. I think I'll share my results with the group.
"I dislike the idea of mentoring being the most rewarding system in the game because (reason)."
Reason 1: I don't want to be a mentor. Rebuttal: You're allowed to not participate. Being a mentor is voluntary; the fact that they get rewarded doesn't take anything away from you.
Reason 2: Some players don't want to be mentored. Rebuttal: You're allowed to not participate. No-one should be able to force him/herself upon you as a mentor. Both mentor and mentee can terminate a mentoring session at any time before it's completed. You're then free to find another (hopefully more suitable) mentor if you so desire.
Reason 3: People who are not suited to be mentors will participate. Rebuttal: This has nothing to do with rewards, as it already happens in the game. There are people "assisting" newer players who should not be doing that, due to lack of skill, knowledge, or good intentions. Adding a safeguard to newer players against bad mentors is a worthwhile endeavor, but has nothing to do with the question of rewards.
Reason 4: This will change the most efficient way of playing the game. Response: YES! That is EXACTLY the point. Game as a whole does not benefit from closed BiS player groups running hardest content by themselves, for themselves. If it was more efficient to balance time-to-completion of dungeon/trial with bringing along less seasoned players, the know-how and skills would spread out, eventually helping many players improve their game due to trickle-down effect.
Reason 5: People will participate for the wrong reasons (efficiency/greed). Rebuttal: Those kinds of mentors will undoubtedly find a way to "game the system" a bit, avoiding dealing with "needy" starting players. To a point, this should be acceptable and even desirable. Let me point out that for an efficient endgame player, mentoring already happens regularly - whenever you offer advice to another endgamer who happens to have less playing time in a role you've mastered, you're being a mentor (as far as the proposed system goes).
Reason 6: Mentoring should be a calling, done for ideological reasons only. Adding rewards will somehow cheapen it. Rebuttal: By the same argument, teachers and artists in real life should not be paid for their work. Unless you're actually successfully making that argument in real life, it cannot be applied in here.
Reason 7: Game doesn't need more mentoring / guilds should do it. Rebuttal: We (the existing players) are all affected by survivorship bias. If a new system would help bring more new players through the leveling process (instead of them losing interest along the way), it is absolutely needed.
Reason 8: The idea sounds strange and I don't want to have anything to do with it. Rebuttal: Participation in CDP discussions is voluntary. Nobody is forcing you to argue on a topic you haven't given sufficient thought to.
Reason 9: I'm jealous of other people (mentors) being better rewarded than me (not a mentor). Rebuttal: Grow up and get over yourself. We're talking about the benefits to the whole game, not your personal gain.
I did read all the posts, and still I cant understand how can be bad for the game a system that rewards people for helping others. Assuming that rewards arent overwhelming, I cant see how it would be bad or someone would be against it.
snip...
For me, the main concern would be the fact that "people helping others" shouldn't need any sort of legislative procedure to happen. (It really should be an obvious process of Enlightened Self Interest that more players who are better equipped both literally and figuratively, can only be good for the longevity of the game. But "What about ME? How does more and better players help ME? Right NOW? It's about ME remember!" is far more common than "common" sense.)
If the rewards for mentoring are not significant, why would people be more likely to do it than they are now? If they ARE significant, what prevents people from a) just getting together with pals, creating short lived accounts and "mentoring" each other's disposable toons for free stuff, and b) pestering the living HAMSTER out of genuine new players?
I remember when I first started playing and wasn't ready to throw in with any particular group of players, but joined a guild simply because I was sick to death of constantly being pinged in PE by guild invitations.
I'm not saying mentoring for rewards is a bad idea per se, just that rewarding people for their involvement in other peoples' progression more than the satisfaction of just being a decent human being, could be a dangerous path to tread unless it's very carefully thought through beforehand.
Many people don't see the "New Player Bonus" as a reward for helping new players finish content for the first time, they see it as compensation for being slowed down on their run. And THAT is the mindset you have to overcome.
I perfectly understand what you are saying but:
There are people actually helping new players, even if they arent rewarded for that. If you reward this players in a way that is not worth for other people to create new accounts or cheat the system, what would change?
Just tose people get something for that, like some players got for example the icosaedrum stone as a reward for doing foundry maps. Did all the people foundry maps to get that stone? no because that stone was more like a tittle and not a BIS item.
Is just an example, you can give little rewards for doing something that helps the game player retention without having major problems.
Reason 4: This will change the most efficient way of playing the game. Response: YES! That is EXACTLY the point. Game as a whole does not benefit from closed BiS player groups running hardest content by themselves, for themselves. If it was more efficient to balance time-to-completion of dungeon/trial with bringing along less seasoned players, the know-how and skills would spread out, eventually helping many players improve their game due to trickle-down effect.
question:
what is the Point of endgame content, if the best rewards are gotten by helping newer players getting startet?
Reason 6: Mentoring should be a calling, done for ideological reasons only. Adding rewards will somehow cheapen it. Rebuttal: By the same argument, teachers and artists in real life should not be paid for their work. Unless you're actually successfully making that argument in real life, it cannot be applied in here.
In real live, ppl need to make a living in order to survive, so not paying teachers would lead to nobody beeing able to fullfill that role. Neverwinter is a game you play in your free time for enjoyment (atleast thats what most ppl do i think) so your wellbeeing (getting food, or a place to live) doesnt depend on you getting something for teaching others. There are alot of ppl that are perfectly fine, using their free time to teach others, because they enjoy it. I have no problem with mentoring having a reward tied to it. but that analogy doenst hold much water imo. And if you want to stick to real live analogies, teaching isnt the most effcient way to make money in real live. I dont think that has anything to do with neverwinter and how we should handle things in a video game tough.
what is the Point of endgame content, if the best rewards are gotten by helping newer players getting startet?
What is the point of endgame content now?
To answer your question: I have *never* stated that mentoring would completely replace completing endgame content. Mentor who doesn't practice cannot teach. However, Mentor Points should provide a more efficient boost (increased odds with RNG, progression multiplier with seals-type progress tracking, etc.) than repetitive clears with no teaching involved.
@haden42ee The fact that none of us found a practical application except rainer and that was tangent to the subject should make you wonder if we are not wishing here for -world peace-kind of ideal. The most probable outcome of this idea if it should be implemented is that most players when asked something can now in good conscience respond - get a mentor. You externalize a social service and can look in real life how that goes. .
You've made it admirably clear that you see no (applicable) benefit in discussing this idea further. Consider your position duly noted.
Mentoring - If it was an official thing that players could be mentors, perhaps rather than game enhancing rewards, there could be a voting system where people being mentored could up-vote their mentors if they found them helpful. If enough up-votes were earned, perhaps the mentor could earn a title or unique fashion item or something. I'm reluctant to include down-voting as this can lead to abuse of the system, but if a player earned no new up-votes after a period of time, their currently earned up-votes could be reset.
Guides/help - Whilst this is a good idea, I would be very sceptical of it's effectiveness....
Generally, people who want to "know" will go and seek the information on the Internet or ask friends/guildies. This is obvious from dungeons where some players can do well in their first LoMM run as they've been on youtube and watched some runs.
The problem is that NW currently seems to favour pulling in the casual gamer and often, these are people who just want to mash buttons and see what happens (and I don't intend that as a critisism, that is how I started). This is obvious from a variety of areas, such as players at level 80 who are appallingly geared or players in TotDG who still don't know what the hulks are for even though that is the only mechanic in that dungeon. The point being that no amount of well written guides will help as they simply won't be read.
Personally, I my preference is also the most time consuming for the developer. In game cut-scenes and guides that you have to work through (i.e. things you can't simply ignore).
Having said that, button mashing is fine whilst levelling and even when working through most campaigns. So if you boil it down, there are probably only a finite number of things that you can actually be seen to fail on if you have no idea what you're doing.
@haden42ee I think you are discounting the systems already in place without considering them fully. There is already a "rewards" system in place for recruiting new players that can easily be used for what you are talking about. If you are not satisfied with that then there are guilds and alliances.
Guilds IMO are the best place to train and mentor new players. Several guilds in this game have external websites and entire training programs and libraries for new players. This is by far much better than anything they can get from an individual because they have an entire guild of players to help, many times with players of their own level to play with. Many guilds have officers or "trainers" on during peak hours for both EU and US time zones who are often more than willing to "mentor" for free without rewards. An added bonus is that when they are ready for endgame it is also often easier to find groups for dungeons because they are in a guild and have developed a group of like minded friends already.
The new player / member process for my guild even has a document that is sent to every new member that contains detailed information and references to help them get started in the game and provides direction all the way to level 80 and beyond. They can request specific dungeon training on our forums and can find groups easily because of the guild and alliance chat.
I have personally "mentored" or trained more than 50 players during my time playing Neverwinter. (probably more than that, I never counted.) To be quite honest I relied heavily on the great work @thefabricant, @micky1p00, @rainer#8575 and many other community and guild members spent hours creating for free and often without thanks.
My point is that there are many willing and able players who are already in well organized "mentoring" roles solely from their own choice. These guilds are out there all the new player has to do is look.
The problem is not that there are not players that are willing to mentor it is that as discussed in the Accessibility CPD the new players are not allowed to communicate when they first start playing and they are unaware of the help that is out there because that information is not given to them, as also discussed in the Accessibility CDP and this CDP by @rainer#8575 when he replied to your post.
My main question for you is why you think there needs to be a reward for mentoring? Exactly what kind of reward are you aiming for? Surely you don't want more rAD, RP or XP. IMO it should in no way be the "Most rewarding" in the sense of actual physical rewards.
If your guild does not have such a program or if anyone else that reads this post is interested in setting up a program like I am describing just ask, there are quite a few of us in this thread that are willing and capable of helping.
Beyond what I have discussed here though I really do not see a need for yet another "mentoring" program just for rewards sake. The reward is the friendship and progression of the ones you help. The greatest reward is seeing someone you mentored teaching someone else. Why would you need anything more than that?
Post edited by oremonger#9999 on
6
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
Reason 4: This will change the most efficient way of playing the game. Response: YES! That is EXACTLY the point. Game as a whole does not benefit from closed BiS player groups running hardest content by themselves, for themselves. If it was more efficient to balance time-to-completion of dungeon/trial with bringing along less seasoned players, the know-how and skills would spread out, eventually helping many players improve their game due to trickle-down effect.
I will use the numbers you proposed initially to try to illustrate why this is a bad idea. Lets say everything else is 20% as effective as mentoring in terms of trying to advance your character. That means that people who mentor, will advance 5x as fast as people who do not. If you care about efficiency (and I am sure there are plenty of people in this thread and in game who do) that means, you do this basic calculation and you realize that if you want to be competitive at endgame and don't want to get left behind, you have to mentor.
So lets say now, you have 10,000 people who all want to mentor because this system is now the most efficient way to progress. Of that 10,000 people, I would hazard a guess and say maybe 200-300 of them would make a good teacher and I am being optimistic here (approximately 2-3% of the US population are teachers and of that, I would bet some of them are not good teachers). There is also probably not much overlap between people who teach and people who care about efficiency, because people who teach in real life, aren't getting much for it so the statistic is probably not exactly valid for this population, but we will go with it for now. That means there are 9700-9800 people who should not be teaching at all, which means that the majority of people who are being taught, have a bad teacher.
You now have 9700-9800 teacher-pupil pairs who are very likely frustrated and aren't exactly happy with where they are in the game. You are essentially proposing a system that has a 98% fail rate, just because it will marginally increase the number of successes. That does not sound like a good system to me.
Reason 7: Game doesn't need more mentoring / guilds should do it. Rebuttal: We (the existing players) are all affected by survivorship bias. If a new system would help bring more new players through the leveling process (instead of them losing interest along the way), it is absolutely needed.
There was an podcast featuring the developers of Path of Exile and on it they talked about trying to retain new players. One of the things they said is that it didn't matter what they or the devs of Warframe tried, how many new tutorials they added and different methods they attempted, they could not raise the percentage of new players who stayed in the game after starting it. The conclusion they came to was that new players were not quitting due to insufficient hand holding or poor tutorials, they were quitting because they disliked some other aspect of the game and that the chances are, if someone likes the game enough starting out, they will end up looking up anything they need help with.
Whilst I cannot prove this to be the same with regards to Neverwinter, I would suspect there is some similarities here. If someone likes the game enough starting out, they will probably look up the stuff that they don't understand. Investing into better tutorials won't help there, investing into better content however, to get them hooked to the stage where they do want to look things up, might.
Whilst I don't think it will do anything, I don't think theres any harm in having a mentoring system, provided it feels optional and not forced. What you are proposing is a system that forces far more people to mentor than the number of people who should be mentoring, which is not the purpose of such a system. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush, don't upset the existing player base for hypothetical new players, player which we do not know if they are going to stay or not.
I did read all the posts, and still I cant understand how can be bad for the game a system that rewards people for helping others. Assuming that rewards arent overwhelming, I cant see how it would be bad or someone would be against it.
snip...
For me, the main concern would be the fact that "people helping others" shouldn't need any sort of legislative procedure to happen. (It really should be an obvious process of Enlightened Self Interest that more players who are better equipped both literally and figuratively, can only be good for the longevity of the game. But "What about ME? How does more and better players help ME? Right NOW? It's about ME remember!" is far more common than "common" sense.)
If the rewards for mentoring are not significant, why would people be more likely to do it than they are now? If they ARE significant, what prevents people from a) just getting together with pals, creating short lived accounts and "mentoring" each other's disposable toons for free stuff, and b) pestering the living HAMSTER out of genuine new players?
I remember when I first started playing and wasn't ready to throw in with any particular group of players, but joined a guild simply because I was sick to death of constantly being pinged in PE by guild invitations.
I'm not saying mentoring for rewards is a bad idea per se, just that rewarding people for their involvement in other peoples' progression more than the satisfaction of just being a decent human being, could be a dangerous path to tread unless it's very carefully thought through beforehand.
Many people don't see the "New Player Bonus" as a reward for helping new players finish content for the first time, they see it as compensation for being slowed down on their run. And THAT is the mindset you have to overcome.
I perfectly understand what you are saying but:
There are people actually helping new players, even if they arent rewarded for that. If you reward this players in a way that is not worth for other people to create new accounts or cheat the system, what would change?
Just tose people get something for that, like some players got for example the icosaedrum stone as a reward for doing foundry maps. Did all the people foundry maps to get that stone? no because that stone was more like a tittle and not a BIS item.
Is just an example, you can give little rewards for doing something that helps the game player retention without having major problems.
I know. Didn't want to go down this route, but... I created and still run a small guild specifically aimed at new players (not low level toons on experienced players...) offering them that help. I get a fairly regular, though somewhat reduced these days, number of new people asking to join (I don't recruit in open world unless I meet someone in a leveling queue and get talking to them first.)
This costs me far more than I make out of it (which in terms of tangible benefits is literally nothing), since most of them leave to join a level 20 Guild around the time they get to level 70-80. Some even contact me and apologise that they feel the need to do so, but the disparity in stats is much easier to close with those Boons. I equip most with a cheap augment, a blue mount and a set of bondings, plus whatever they need in terms of kits, potions and so on.
What I do find, doing this with some regularity is that most don't want to be "mentored" and just want available advice on stuff as and when they need it. I offer an open door/email policy and occasionally get quizzed on how the AH works, best practice in Crafting, etc, and sometimes what order to do the levelling campaigns. I rarely get asked about builds, or paragons or boons because as has been mentioned before... all that stuff's readily available online. I have been asked from time to time for help completing quests, The Beholder guarding the artifact quest (can't remember it's name), and "Ghost Stories" being the most common. But beyond that, as I did, most prefer to find out on their own and just want a fall back in case they get stuck.
A couple of years ago I had a very eager Guild Officer who took the position very seriously and was "always there" to help the new players. I got a message from one of them regarding my eager officer asking me, "Please...get him to back the @%^$ off..." and I KNOW that that is a pretty unusual situation, but I think just asking new players, "If you need any help do you want to drop me a line and I'll do what I can" is plenty.
I, and the people who've helped me over the years, don't do any of this for reward in the same way that I don't hold a door open for the person behind me in the hope they'll tip me, because when you reward that stuff it stops being simple courtesy and instead becomes an opportunity to be a means to an end, which is open to exploitation or manipulation by people who don't give a toss about the other player they may end up putting off the game for life.
I understand that the game's future depends on new players regularly joining and ENJOYING their experience enough to keep playing. And if I had to look at it from a "what do I get out of this" point of view, well... any little bit that I can do when I'm playing to help that player base stay active is only serving my own long term self interest.
If you want to throw me a sparkly for that... fine, but make it a really cheap one. Then we'll see how many "Mentors" decide helping other people is worth it.
In a sense of honesty and openness I just remembered the other side of the coin... A "new player" experience my subconscious had obviously been trying to keep suppressed.
I had the joyous experience of one player who took my offer of "Yeah, if you need any help just give me a shout, and I'll do what I can" to mean, "I am here at your beck and call, from now until the end of time..."
He/she shall remain nameless, but sweet Mary Jane... If there were rewards for helping new players that bugger would have netted me about 50 Coal wards worth of stuff.
"Can you get me a month of VIP so I can see whether I like it..." "I need a legendary Mount!" "When can you get me some rank 12 Bondings?" "I need a Lightning weapon enchant... at least Rank 9" "I'm running Sharandar and need some help" "I've been trying to finish this quest for 5 hours and needed help, where were you?"
I'm not proud of the fact that I took the bold and noble option of avoiding the game for a week in the hope they HAMSTER off and found someone else to drive insane... thankfully, they did.
lol yeah I've had a couple like that thru the years that I ended up blocking. sometimes when I see a new player and I have a backload of HAMSTER that I've been hoarding and is pretty mcuh worthless to me I'll set them up. not in grand style but blue mount and some insignias artifacts a full deck of r9s sometimes up to r11 depending on how generous I'm feeling. a couple decent comps and r9 or 10 bondings and empowereds. some take that to mean gimme more gimme more. some are cool about it and are just gee thanks you made my day. the first time I nearly avoided the game for a week too before I said F it. i'm blocking. but I've also had them come back to me a couple months later and I have no memory of them but they remember me. and they're all grown up now. that's kind of a nice feeling. they're like you inspired me to do better. other than running random ques with them though I've always bowed out of helping more than that.
This CDP topic is just so big, it is difficult to be concise. So, biting my lip to be brief; my top 3 are (currently) character progression, scaling and professions (but of course, there are many more).
Top 3 reasoning:
1. Character progression. The most fun I've ever had from this game was levelling. The content is solid, you get guided through progressive areas as harder content is only unlocked once you clear easier content (although there is scope to skip to harder levels later on), importantly to me; you get to see you character improve (end-game is all about "my sword is bigger than yours". Levelling is about your actual character improving which to me is more meaningful). Filling the XP progress bar has meaning (more so pre-mod16 as every level got you something new; a new power/ability/etc). Generally, you feel you are working towards something and are being rewarded along the way (I do mourn the loss of the old character paragon paths as well, but accept they weren't perfect).
End game people start to feel lost as there are so many campaigns and there is no guidance to which to tackle first. However, the truth is that from when Vistani gear first entered the game and later undermountain gear, also since boons were nerfed, the majority of campaigns can be skipped entirely. When I first hit level 60+ (some years ago) there was some kind of order to work through campaigns getting progressively harder; Sharandar, Dread ring, Tyranny of dragons, Icewindale, etc. Importantly, working through a campaign got you improved gear ready to tackle the next campaign. i.e. there was a feeling of progression (and yes, you had the option to tackle things in a different order if you were good enough or so wished). *sigh* I miss those days.
Since mod 16, all that has been reset. Now, you get to level 70, go to undermountain to get to 80. Run ME's/FE's/WE/s to get better gear. Jobs done (Ok, PC players now have the "painted orange stronghold" Mod (18)).
I would love to see progression brought back and all campaigns become relevant again (just a pipe dream). Maybe since Mod 16 that will be a thing again moving forwards, although it would be a shame to see so much content (older campaigns) go to waste.
1.a. I will throw inter-class balance in here too, although I think that is a well known common dream of players and devs alike.
2. Scaling. Related to point 1 really. I agree scaling was just poorly executed in NW. I could see what they were trying to achieve, but it just wasn't well thought through and has never sat well with players. The whole driver for the majority of players is to improve you character and yet scaling takes that way when in any content other than max level. This implementation just confounds me (and many others) completely?!
Whilst I hate to drop another game name. I recently played Destiny 2 (and Destiny out of interest). One thing that struck me coming from NW is that whilst you get better gear and your character improves. Go back into lower level content and, yes, you do feel stronger, but you don't simply wipe the floor with everything and you will die if you aren't paying attention. It feels like character improvement is a narrower band making the overall combat system more 'balanced' across levels or at least under the control of the devs.
3. Professions. Personally, I never got into professions. However, it was quite a big part of the game for some and received a big update in mod 15, but has since just fallen by the wayside. That seems a shame.
Additional:
I read a post somewhere that mentioned having training modes for end-game dungeons where new players could practice the mechanics without ruining a dungeon run of other players. I like that idea.
One of the early posts here mentioned having an alternative means to guarantee getting gear if RNG doesn't favour you. I do like that idea. It might take longer to get (e.g. on campaign completion or through additional quests) or you might get a relic version that needs upgrading (provided there isn't an insane amount of grind to upgrade it), but it would help those who really fall foul of RNG. That could also work for lock boxes (also mentioned elsewhere) in that if you have opened, say, 1000 lock boxes and haven't already got a legendary mount, you automatically get one. That just seems fair for paying customers.
Finally:
It feels like over the last few years, Cryptic have (had to?) focus so heavily on meeting their commitments of releasing new content 2 or 3 times a year that there was never time to go back and sort out what was already there. Whilst there might be contractual reasons for that, it still feels like such a short sighted and wasteful approach (how much content has been removed from the game or is currently irrelevant). I'm sure if they had just cut back on the number of new content mods per year by just one and instead set aside a few months of each year to get the NW house into order, things would be in a better position now and there would be less of a headache all around trying to bring it back into order at this time.
NW is still a good game with lots of potential. Fingers crossed for this new injection of direction.
3
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
Coming from an SH20 guild (and SH20 for a very long time) and enough mentoring capability in every single NW topic you can find, from capes and transmutes, lore, to nitty gritty of the stats. With having 35+ age adults with patience to spare.
From casuals who don't run dungeons at all, and do not like them, to in-guild (+some extra) ToMM group
With a very clear upfront hands off approach, ask for help or a run and people will join. Though from time to time we kidnap and drag people to higher dungeons if they don't join just to get that 'fear' out of the way. + Active alliance mainly at the "fresh end-game" level, constant MEs, LoMM, RTQ, REDQ.
Yet, there is new player attrition. To the point that I just wrote upfront that people should except every help but no free items and gear (though still I'll give stuff when I see a player sticks for a while). The issue is, IMO, in two gear gaps. The game creates an extremely fast level up and gear up process, with catch up gear, and easy to get companion gear and so on, that a player reaches this "almost LoMM" gear level extremely fast and then it all slows down to a crawl. The next step is to slowly grind AD and boons. Which is not a problem on its own, grind is expected in an MMO and more so in a F2P one, but the problem is in the expectations. The game set a standard for an extremely fast progress and then kicks new players in the face with a brick wall.
"gearing up" stage between content unlocks would be acceptable if the expectation was set in advance correctly. Instead, it is a mess. No pretty or reworked event can cover this, nor any mentorship initiative. This reaches a point when I feel responsible for new player retention, and a failure when they quit. I don't want this on me.
----
To the various Mentoring ideas.
1. Did anyone notice that with a paring system no one assures equal number of people. What happens when there are 100 people for every new player in a time window?
2. I was and still am very vocal about MMO is based on player interactions, social grouping and is not a solo game, but this doesn't mean that players need to be forced into social interaction. It should come on their terms. If a shy or introvert person starts a game, and finds out that their best way is to find a mentor about which they have no control, and no choice (in terms of too early in the game, hard to judge), unlike guilds, they will be discouraged. Or worse, pressured into something they don't want, and will try avoiding it, avoiding loging into the game eventually.
3. Recognition and rewards are great, but people who are "Mentoring" for recognition or reward shouldn't do it to begin with. And those that want to help, already do it without rewards. So where does this leaves us? Lets give recognition and rewards in hindsight, for people who mentored for free. My mailbox is open, thanks. jk
4. Built in system must have some minimal quality. Guilds have reputation, and yet people stuck in drama centrals. How an officially endorsed built in system assures that their mentors are not complete hamsters? It takes me just minutes to read PE Zone to get nonsense overflow with all the "help" people provide there. If I would have listened to all that advice, I would be broke, with useless char, and disappointed in the game.
5. How this work exactly? If I'm giving advice and per the post I'm considered a mentor, I get rewards for a correct answer? How it is quantified. We can't dis-chain the implementation so much from the idea. It needs some practicality.
5b. How the proposed system solves the proposed issues. I'll admit I could have missed it among the posts, but I don't understand how it does. Will me running with less geared people give me mentor points that give me better RNG? Should we strip and run in turns? Or should I find some new player who is attached to me, and for how long? Where I get them?
We are all here because we want to see a better game (I hope) so, IMO, disagreement is a tool that helps refine ideas and reach something better. This is the spirit in which any criticism is given.
Comments
Pros - Easy for PC gamers
Cons - Not so easy for console players
I take the roadmap more as a general path the devs will roughly follow. So order, dates, items/subjects, we see inside the roadmap may change tomorrow, because objectives or priorities (or emergencies) can change over the time (my IRL job some years ago was supply chain manager in mold/plastic injection, from supplier to production/subcontractor to client, so hell yeah, week planning in monday afternoon was often quite different the next wednesday morning ^^).
2020/09 Masterwork new reciepes <=> 2020/11 Existing dungeons rework
This two things were already widely debated in this CDP topic, but from my perspective, there is a link between each other.
In some dungeons and trials you are sometimes, on bosses or in the chest, looting ingredients involved in some craft (outdated) recipes if i'm correct. (i think FBI, Demogorgon and MSP are in this category ?). Why not expanding the idea ?
Here is an exemple (because it's not cristal clear in my head at the moment, and it's easier to show it this way). I'm sorry though it's a bit redondant with what i posted earlier, with just one more idea behind :
- New mastercraft reciepes : overload ultimate reinforcements (temporary model of overload enchants, really more powerful than reinforcement we have currently, erase/destroy the current reinforcement on the equipement if any and even if it's a perma-one),
- Ingredients : 5x A, 5x B, 5x C, 5x D (or any number, as long as there are even
- You can find A only in MC, B only in ToNG, C only in eToS, D only in CR. So each dungeon has one exclusive ingredient, and maybe not too hard (or rare) to loot.
balance on how much reinforcements devs would want to be created or in circulation may be achieved by tuning how long the "temporary" ultimate reinforcement last to compare with the average completion of a set of 5x these 4 dungeons, and put the slider a bit off that (the timer deplete way before you can achieve all the runs to get enough ingredients for exemple as it is more intended to be use for hard content [endgame or not, depending on the level of the player involved :P]), or by playing on quantity needed in the reciepe or the RNG on the droprate.
As a crafter for myself only (or my guild) i may want to run regulary those dungeons to get what i need to craft my own reinforcements (or guildmates one). As a big fan of crafting, with plenty of time to craft, i may want to buy those ingredients in the AH to try mass-producing and make AD as a "final product" supplier while pulling the raw-material market. As a dungeon runner not interested in craft, I can maybe see those ingredients as valuable thing to loot inside the dungeon so i can sell on AH and make AD as a "raw material"-supplier, but also pulling the reinforcement market as i still want the reinforcements too. And has these reinforcement are temporary, the demand would probably stay up.
*head scratching* I'm trying to figure out in which category of player I would really fall herei, probably in all depending of the month and the wind :P.
Theorically, AH value of each ingredient should be the same, as they are equally needed, but dungeons are not the same length or difficulty, or some are more interesting in their mechanics/fun, which would led to unbalance in supply between ingredients. Which kind of autocorrect itself => rarefication of one compared to others would make the rarest one price to rise (normally, i'm not so good in supply-demand in market theory :P), hence more appealing to run the only dungeon where you can loot it.
It may be better to look at this idea with "historical" dungeons in mind (old ones) rather than imply in this system the new last fresh one released.
I'm not entirely sure of the validity or the interest this "old-school" style has and if it would or could work well or make sense in NWO.
From my perspective, and as a general guideline, synergies between different activities (in this matter dungeonning-AH-crafting) always enhance the dynamism inside a community of players, especially when a circular self driving concept is involved and well done. Completely separating the activities, and you are splitting people from each other. The "endgamer-clan", the "crafter-clan", the "newbie-clan", "the RP-clan", the "plenty of IRL money-clan", "the "plenty of playtime-clan" etc....
I wish i can have the best idea of the world about that (i will never :P), but i'm quite sure win-win relation can be created, be it direct or indirect (or even invisible, lurking surreptitiously), and i believe it should create a more healthy overall ambiance which is really important for a MMORPG to have a retention factor, reputation or "newbie friendly" attraction-pull. At the end, the more you keep and/or the more you attract, as long the balance is positive with people who leave, the more potential wallets can be opened to toss a coin or two in the game
These words are just here as a starting point (good or bad xD), to take or not, and try to open on other ideas/development/critical examinations.
Assuming that rewards arent overwhelming, I cant see how it would be bad or someone would be against it.
In the opposite, having something like that would help a lot player retention wich I assume is one of the top priorities of the game.
As for rewards and progression I wont enter in more details, lots of very good ideas were described here but I will make a resume of things that I should like in regard to this topic:
- Every dungeon having usefull rewards and unique
- Crafting / dungeoneering / progressing should have sinergies, so players need items from duneons to craft, and crafted items are needed to improve unique items in dungeons or create the item you want
- Horizontal progression as a priority with vertical progression not being abused 1 per year or some event items
- Enchants should be a big part of the stats, not like now, and a secure value over time.
- All the enchants should be viable, allowing new builds
- Character features and feats and boons should be much more relevant, allowing different builds and should make players think on what you pick. Now in most cases you must think what to pick between lots of bad options, usually not making much of a difference.
- The market should have as much items BoE as it can, even if some players can buy powerfull items from the market with some exceptions, but I dont think this is bad for the game because it closes the cycle between players with lot of time with no money and players with not much time but willing to spend money.
- A mentoring system (100 % optional) with some rewards to players that help others. No idea about how this could be implemented in a way that is not abusable.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
One of the top rewards of the current lockbox, you know the stuff we get notifications for, is heart of the dragon artifacts. Those artifacts were outdated back then, and more so now.
So one of the top lockbox rewards is an artifact that was outdated a year ago.
My top three would be:
Final notes:
If rewards from any source are not able to be kept relevant from MOD to MOD maybe the rewards should be converted into things that do not require updating / developer effort. Universal currency, companion upgrade tokens, crafting ingredients and consumables could all be used to replace gear and items in older content. In the case of a universal currency only the store would require updating to keep rewards relevant across all legacy content.Mentoring system:
@haden42eeThere are already two avenues in the game that can be used to mentor "new" players. Guilds and Alliances should be able to fill this role for most players. It can be argued that some do a much better job than others and that the Stronghold/Guild system in general needs some developer love, but the framework is there already and some guilds do an excellent job of supporting and mentoring new players. It is up to the new player to find the guild that meets their individual needs.
There is also a program in place that provides rewards: LINK Neverwinter Refer a Friend
I'm not sure if this program still works but it could be used as a mentoring program and the levels required and the rewards could be adjusted.
Guide links from ingame:
@rainer#8575 's idea has merit, but I can see the drawbacks and liability it would represent for Cryptic. Linking to external sites from inside the game poses several risks. Instead I propose linking to the guide section on these forums, or linking to contributors who have been vetted and have agreed to rules and a standard set up by Cryptic. All it would take would be one disgruntled person with malicious intent to ruin it for everyone involved.Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
1.
Mastercraft should be kept relevant and rewarding. all tiers should have some kept relevance to the newest level of mastercraft (ie the old crafted items should have some part of the build of new items. neverembers super cereal hat mw5 should have gold wire cerulean dye and jute macrame as well as( kobolt leather and demon sinew mw5)
2.a
Scaling to be removed from the player and instead put in the dungeons themselves and all dungeons made level 80 other than a couple levelling dungeons. Tiered dungeons with rewards commiserate with the level they are intended for. Ie. Malabogs fresh level 80s that give some gear that will make them strong enough to run Valindras or some introductory pet or mount gear. moving up to the most recent dungeons that keep relevant more end game centric rewards. (recent dungeons not scaled. just kept where they were when they were released)
2.B
Dungeons need a better reward tree if scaling isn't removed. If scaling stays in place all dungeons should have the same rewards other than the newest dungeon. it would be nice if something could be done to make things that drop now have some retained value. Ie sinks for old artifacts and enchantments and rp. and those things taken out of modern lockboxes. Ideally lockboxes could be reworked to be like they used to be.
3. ???? there are a number of things here. like boons and campaigns but this is an area that I have a lot of respect towards complaining about because it seems like a lot of times when these are reworked they end up a lot worse than now. I'd like more trees and value in character building. right now most toons have one path they can take. lots of choices that aren't really a choice.
Masterwork; create distinction in masterwork rewards such as through set bonuses or distinct stats. Increase the range of rewards such as companion gear. Keep masterwork relevant such as via complex and challenging upgrading processes.
Boons; Make boons more interesting to choose, which creates character distinction/more options.
RNG and rewards; allow for a purchasing system where after X number of attempts you can purchase an item e.g. after 200 zok boxes you can purchase one piece of 1010 companion gear that you have not yet got.
Some Archers are Imaginary....
I don't know the details but it seems like 4th Edition (PHB, Chapter 7, Page 212) has a currency structure where Coins and Currency can be traded, from Copper < Silver < Gold < Platinum < Astral Diamonds, where 1,000,000 Copper : 10,000 Gold : 1 Astral Diamond. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8Blhc7UBgftLXhyTFQ5MkJxV0k/edit?pli=1
It looks like 5th edition removed Astral Diamonds (PHB, Chapter 5, Page 143). https://online.anyflip.com/ofsj/cxmj/mobile/index.html#p=134
(It really should be an obvious process of Enlightened Self Interest that more players who are better equipped both literally and figuratively, can only be good for the longevity of the game. But "What about ME? How does more and better players help ME? Right NOW? It's about ME remember!" is far more common than "common" sense.)
If the rewards for mentoring are not significant, why would people be more likely to do it than they are now?
If they ARE significant, what prevents people from a) just getting together with pals, creating short lived accounts and "mentoring" each other's disposable toons for free stuff, and b) pestering the living HAMSTER out of genuine new players?
I remember when I first started playing and wasn't ready to throw in with any particular group of players, but joined a guild simply because I was sick to death of constantly being pinged in PE by guild invitations.
I'm not saying mentoring for rewards is a bad idea per se, just that rewarding people for their involvement in other peoples' progression more than the satisfaction of just being a decent human being, could be a dangerous path to tread unless it's very carefully thought through beforehand.
Many people don't see the "New Player Bonus" as a reward for helping new players finish content for the first time, they see it as compensation for being slowed down on their run. And THAT is the mindset you have to overcome.
1. Legacy Rewards are a mess. Too many out of date currencies and reward structures tied to legacy campaigns. Reduce the number of currencies per campaign to just a couple, impose daily/weekly limits on one to manage speed of progress. Allow currencies to be used to buy updated and relevant items for Higher Level development, subsequent to campaign completion (including Professions Ingredients and Guild Coffer donations). Should be updated and restructured to allow relevant rewards to be farmed in those areas to assist with the two following points.
2. Guild Level is too closely tied to Progression at End Game. With fewer new players, and a plethora of L20 Guilds offering open access for zero contribution, smaller guilds do not have the capacity to maintain a healthy enough end game base to farm the necessary vast quantities of resources needed. The Guild Boons, and access to Master Crafting are just too much of an incentive. The safest resolution to this is to increase the availability of the harder to gain requirements, meaning that lower level Guilds still have to graft for their growth, but aren't faced with insurmountable odds in achieving this.
Problems with resolving this include; People who got Guild Bonuses for nothing don't want lose them, and the people who actually worked hard to get them for their Guild don't want other Guilds to be given them for what they see as less effort than they put in.
3. Professions were forgotten basically 5 minutes after they landed in Mod 15, most notably Master Work/Craft/whatever... The whole system needs to be taken care of. Do NOT "fix" this by simply dumping a tonne of new ingredients into new charts and add new tiers of Master Crafting.
Fix the progression system so that anyone who is capable of doing MC can have access to it, and not just those in high end guilds.
You have a Workshop Quest Tree. Add MC to THAT rather than the Stronghold. Or put a separate guy in the Stronghold and have them offer an alternative route or additional rewards. Unlock MC from behind the Guild Gate.
Try and be creative with new recipes rather than just adding higher IL gear that will be outdated before 90%+ of the player base get anywhere near able to make it. I know the argument is that "Mastercrafting is for the elite at the top end" which probably should be the case, but, (if that is to be the intended case) until the standard Professions offer anything worth having, "Professions" is as good as dead to anyone coming new to the game. All that grind just to eventually unlock a harder grid, to unlock another... etc, one day maybe getting to a point somewhere down the line where you make something truly worth the effort...
I don't care whether these issues are fixed Horizontally, Vertically or tangentially off the interior of an inverted curve...
"I dislike the idea of mentoring being the most rewarding system in the game because (reason)."
Reason 1: I don't want to be a mentor.
Rebuttal: You're allowed to not participate. Being a mentor is voluntary; the fact that they get rewarded doesn't take anything away from you.
Reason 2: Some players don't want to be mentored.
Rebuttal: You're allowed to not participate. No-one should be able to force him/herself upon you as a mentor. Both mentor and mentee can terminate a mentoring session at any time before it's completed. You're then free to find another (hopefully more suitable) mentor if you so desire.
Reason 3: People who are not suited to be mentors will participate.
Rebuttal: This has nothing to do with rewards, as it already happens in the game. There are people "assisting" newer players who should not be doing that, due to lack of skill, knowledge, or good intentions. Adding a safeguard to newer players against bad mentors is a worthwhile endeavor, but has nothing to do with the question of rewards.
Reason 4: This will change the most efficient way of playing the game.
Response: YES! That is EXACTLY the point. Game as a whole does not benefit from closed BiS player groups running hardest content by themselves, for themselves. If it was more efficient to balance time-to-completion of dungeon/trial with bringing along less seasoned players, the know-how and skills would spread out, eventually helping many players improve their game due to trickle-down effect.
Reason 5: People will participate for the wrong reasons (efficiency/greed).
Rebuttal: Those kinds of mentors will undoubtedly find a way to "game the system" a bit, avoiding dealing with "needy" starting players. To a point, this should be acceptable and even desirable. Let me point out that for an efficient endgame player, mentoring already happens regularly - whenever you offer advice to another endgamer who happens to have less playing time in a role you've mastered, you're being a mentor (as far as the proposed system goes).
Reason 6: Mentoring should be a calling, done for ideological reasons only. Adding rewards will somehow cheapen it.
Rebuttal: By the same argument, teachers and artists in real life should not be paid for their work. Unless you're actually successfully making that argument in real life, it cannot be applied in here.
Reason 7: Game doesn't need more mentoring / guilds should do it.
Rebuttal: We (the existing players) are all affected by survivorship bias. If a new system would help bring more new players through the leveling process (instead of them losing interest along the way), it is absolutely needed.
Reason 8: The idea sounds strange and I don't want to have anything to do with it.
Rebuttal: Participation in CDP discussions is voluntary. Nobody is forcing you to argue on a topic you haven't given sufficient thought to.
Reason 9: I'm jealous of other people (mentors) being better rewarded than me (not a mentor).
Rebuttal: Grow up and get over yourself. We're talking about the benefits to the whole game, not your personal gain.
There are people actually helping new players, even if they arent rewarded for that. If you reward this players in a way that is not worth for other people to create new accounts or cheat the system, what would change?
Just tose people get something for that, like some players got for example the icosaedrum stone as a reward for doing foundry maps. Did all the people foundry maps to get that stone? no because that stone was more like a tittle and not a BIS item.
Is just an example, you can give little rewards for doing something that helps the game player retention without having major problems.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
what is the Point of endgame content, if the best rewards are gotten by helping newer players getting startet?
And if you want to stick to real live analogies, teaching isnt the most effcient way to make money in real live. I dont think that has anything to do with neverwinter and how we should handle things in a video game tough.
To answer your question: I have *never* stated that mentoring would completely replace completing endgame content. Mentor who doesn't practice cannot teach. However, Mentor Points should provide a more efficient boost (increased odds with RNG, progression multiplier with seals-type progress tracking, etc.) than repetitive clears with no teaching involved.
Mentoring - If it was an official thing that players could be mentors, perhaps rather than game enhancing rewards, there could be a voting system where people being mentored could up-vote their mentors if they found them helpful. If enough up-votes were earned, perhaps the mentor could earn a title or unique fashion item or something. I'm reluctant to include down-voting as this can lead to abuse of the system, but if a player earned no new up-votes after a period of time, their currently earned up-votes could be reset.
Guides/help - Whilst this is a good idea, I would be very sceptical of it's effectiveness....
Generally, people who want to "know" will go and seek the information on the Internet or ask friends/guildies. This is obvious from dungeons where some players can do well in their first LoMM run as they've been on youtube and watched some runs.
The problem is that NW currently seems to favour pulling in the casual gamer and often, these are people who just want to mash buttons and see what happens (and I don't intend that as a critisism, that is how I started). This is obvious from a variety of areas, such as players at level 80 who are appallingly geared or players in TotDG who still don't know what the hulks are for even though that is the only mechanic in that dungeon. The point being that no amount of well written guides will help as they simply won't be read.
Personally, I my preference is also the most time consuming for the developer. In game cut-scenes and guides that you have to work through (i.e. things you can't simply ignore).
Having said that, button mashing is fine whilst levelling and even when working through most campaigns. So if you boil it down, there are probably only a finite number of things that you can actually be seen to fail on if you have no idea what you're doing.
I think you are discounting the systems already in place without considering them fully. There is already a "rewards" system in place for recruiting new players that can easily be used for what you are talking about. If you are not satisfied with that then there are guilds and alliances.
Guilds IMO are the best place to train and mentor new players. Several guilds in this game have external websites and entire training programs and libraries for new players. This is by far much better than anything they can get from an individual because they have an entire guild of players to help, many times with players of their own level to play with. Many guilds have officers or "trainers" on during peak hours for both EU and US time zones who are often more than willing to "mentor" for free without rewards. An added bonus is that when they are ready for endgame it is also often easier to find groups for dungeons because they are in a guild and have developed a group of like minded friends already.
The new player / member process for my guild even has a document that is sent to every new member that contains detailed information and references to help them get started in the game and provides direction all the way to level 80 and beyond. They can request specific dungeon training on our forums and can find groups easily because of the guild and alliance chat.
I have personally "mentored" or trained more than 50 players during my time playing Neverwinter. (probably more than that, I never counted.) To be quite honest I relied heavily on the great work @thefabricant, @micky1p00, @rainer#8575 and many other community and guild members spent hours creating for free and often without thanks.
My point is that there are many willing and able players who are already in well organized "mentoring" roles solely from their own choice. These guilds are out there all the new player has to do is look.
The problem is not that there are not players that are willing to mentor it is that as discussed in the Accessibility CPD the new players are not allowed to communicate when they first start playing and they are unaware of the help that is out there because that information is not given to them, as also discussed in the Accessibility CDP and this CDP by @rainer#8575 when he replied to your post.
My main question for you is why you think there needs to be a reward for mentoring? Exactly what kind of reward are you aiming for? Surely you don't want more rAD, RP or XP. IMO it should in no way be the "Most rewarding" in the sense of actual physical rewards.
If your guild does not have such a program or if anyone else that reads this post is interested in setting up a program like I am describing just ask, there are quite a few of us in this thread that are willing and capable of helping.
Beyond what I have discussed here though I really do not see a need for yet another "mentoring" program just for rewards sake. The reward is the friendship and progression of the ones you help. The greatest reward is seeing someone you mentored teaching someone else. Why would you need anything more than that?
So lets say now, you have 10,000 people who all want to mentor because this system is now the most efficient way to progress. Of that 10,000 people, I would hazard a guess and say maybe 200-300 of them would make a good teacher and I am being optimistic here (approximately 2-3% of the US population are teachers and of that, I would bet some of them are not good teachers). There is also probably not much overlap between people who teach and people who care about efficiency, because people who teach in real life, aren't getting much for it so the statistic is probably not exactly valid for this population, but we will go with it for now. That means there are 9700-9800 people who should not be teaching at all, which means that the majority of people who are being taught, have a bad teacher.
You now have 9700-9800 teacher-pupil pairs who are very likely frustrated and aren't exactly happy with where they are in the game. You are essentially proposing a system that has a 98% fail rate, just because it will marginally increase the number of successes. That does not sound like a good system to me. There was an podcast featuring the developers of Path of Exile and on it they talked about trying to retain new players. One of the things they said is that it didn't matter what they or the devs of Warframe tried, how many new tutorials they added and different methods they attempted, they could not raise the percentage of new players who stayed in the game after starting it. The conclusion they came to was that new players were not quitting due to insufficient hand holding or poor tutorials, they were quitting because they disliked some other aspect of the game and that the chances are, if someone likes the game enough starting out, they will end up looking up anything they need help with.
Whilst I cannot prove this to be the same with regards to Neverwinter, I would suspect there is some similarities here. If someone likes the game enough starting out, they will probably look up the stuff that they don't understand. Investing into better tutorials won't help there, investing into better content however, to get them hooked to the stage where they do want to look things up, might.
Whilst I don't think it will do anything, I don't think theres any harm in having a mentoring system, provided it feels optional and not forced. What you are proposing is a system that forces far more people to mentor than the number of people who should be mentoring, which is not the purpose of such a system. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush, don't upset the existing player base for hypothetical new players, player which we do not know if they are going to stay or not.
Podcast (For anyone that cares).
Didn't want to go down this route, but...
I created and still run a small guild specifically aimed at new players (not low level toons on experienced players...) offering them that help.
I get a fairly regular, though somewhat reduced these days, number of new people asking to join (I don't recruit in open world unless I meet someone in a leveling queue and get talking to them first.)
This costs me far more than I make out of it (which in terms of tangible benefits is literally nothing), since most of them leave to join a level 20 Guild around the time they get to level 70-80. Some even contact me and apologise that they feel the need to do so, but the disparity in stats is much easier to close with those Boons.
I equip most with a cheap augment, a blue mount and a set of bondings, plus whatever they need in terms of kits, potions and so on.
What I do find, doing this with some regularity is that most don't want to be "mentored" and just want available advice on stuff as and when they need it. I offer an open door/email policy and occasionally get quizzed on how the AH works, best practice in Crafting, etc, and sometimes what order to do the levelling campaigns. I rarely get asked about builds, or paragons or boons because as has been mentioned before... all that stuff's readily available online. I have been asked from time to time for help completing quests, The Beholder guarding the artifact quest (can't remember it's name), and "Ghost Stories" being the most common. But beyond that, as I did, most prefer to find out on their own and just want a fall back in case they get stuck.
A couple of years ago I had a very eager Guild Officer who took the position very seriously and was "always there" to help the new players. I got a message from one of them regarding my eager officer asking me, "Please...get him to back the @%^$ off..." and I KNOW that that is a pretty unusual situation, but I think just asking new players, "If you need any help do you want to drop me a line and I'll do what I can" is plenty.
I, and the people who've helped me over the years, don't do any of this for reward in the same way that I don't hold a door open for the person behind me in the hope they'll tip me, because when you reward that stuff it stops being simple courtesy and instead becomes an opportunity to be a means to an end, which is open to exploitation or manipulation by people who don't give a toss about the other player they may end up putting off the game for life.
I understand that the game's future depends on new players regularly joining and ENJOYING their experience enough to keep playing.
And if I had to look at it from a "what do I get out of this" point of view, well... any little bit that I can do when I'm playing to help that player base stay active is only serving my own long term self interest.
If you want to throw me a sparkly for that... fine, but make it a really cheap one. Then we'll see how many "Mentors" decide helping other people is worth it.
A "new player" experience my subconscious had obviously been trying to keep suppressed.
I had the joyous experience of one player who took my offer of "Yeah, if you need any help just give me a shout, and I'll do what I can" to mean, "I am here at your beck and call, from now until the end of time..."
He/she shall remain nameless, but sweet Mary Jane... If there were rewards for helping new players that bugger would have netted me about 50 Coal wards worth of stuff.
"Can you get me a month of VIP so I can see whether I like it..."
"I need a legendary Mount!"
"When can you get me some rank 12 Bondings?"
"I need a Lightning weapon enchant... at least Rank 9"
"I'm running Sharandar and need some help"
"I've been trying to finish this quest for 5 hours and needed help, where were you?"
I'm not proud of the fact that I took the bold and noble option of avoiding the game for a week in the hope they HAMSTER off and found someone else to drive insane... thankfully, they did.
Top 3 reasoning:
1. Character progression. The most fun I've ever had from this game was levelling. The content is solid, you get guided through progressive areas as harder content is only unlocked once you clear easier content (although there is scope to skip to harder levels later on), importantly to me; you get to see you character improve (end-game is all about "my sword is bigger than yours". Levelling is about your actual character improving which to me is more meaningful). Filling the XP progress bar has meaning (more so pre-mod16 as every level got you something new; a new power/ability/etc). Generally, you feel you are working towards something and are being rewarded along the way (I do mourn the loss of the old character paragon paths as well, but accept they weren't perfect).
End game people start to feel lost as there are so many campaigns and there is no guidance to which to tackle first. However, the truth is that from when Vistani gear first entered the game and later undermountain gear, also since boons were nerfed, the majority of campaigns can be skipped entirely. When I first hit level 60+ (some years ago) there was some kind of order to work through campaigns getting progressively harder; Sharandar, Dread ring, Tyranny of dragons, Icewindale, etc. Importantly, working through a campaign got you improved gear ready to tackle the next campaign. i.e. there was a feeling of progression (and yes, you had the option to tackle things in a different order if you were good enough or so wished). *sigh* I miss those days.
Since mod 16, all that has been reset. Now, you get to level 70, go to undermountain to get to 80. Run ME's/FE's/WE/s to get better gear. Jobs done (Ok, PC players now have the "painted orange stronghold" Mod (18)).
I would love to see progression brought back and all campaigns become relevant again (just a pipe dream). Maybe since Mod 16 that will be a thing again moving forwards, although it would be a shame to see so much content (older campaigns) go to waste.
1.a. I will throw inter-class balance in here too, although I think that is a well known common dream of players and devs alike.
2. Scaling. Related to point 1 really. I agree scaling was just poorly executed in NW. I could see what they were trying to achieve, but it just wasn't well thought through and has never sat well with players. The whole driver for the majority of players is to improve you character and yet scaling takes that way when in any content other than max level. This implementation just confounds me (and many others) completely?!
Whilst I hate to drop another game name. I recently played Destiny 2 (and Destiny out of interest). One thing that struck me coming from NW is that whilst you get better gear and your character improves. Go back into lower level content and, yes, you do feel stronger, but you don't simply wipe the floor with everything and you will die if you aren't paying attention. It feels like character improvement is a narrower band making the overall combat system more 'balanced' across levels or at least under the control of the devs.
3. Professions. Personally, I never got into professions. However, it was quite a big part of the game for some and received a big update in mod 15, but has since just fallen by the wayside. That seems a shame.
Additional:
I read a post somewhere that mentioned having training modes for end-game dungeons where new players could practice the mechanics without ruining a dungeon run of other players. I like that idea.
One of the early posts here mentioned having an alternative means to guarantee getting gear if RNG doesn't favour you. I do like that idea. It might take longer to get (e.g. on campaign completion or through additional quests) or you might get a relic version that needs upgrading (provided there isn't an insane amount of grind to upgrade it), but it would help those who really fall foul of RNG. That could also work for lock boxes (also mentioned elsewhere) in that if you have opened, say, 1000 lock boxes and haven't already got a legendary mount, you automatically get one. That just seems fair for paying customers.
Finally:
It feels like over the last few years, Cryptic have (had to?) focus so heavily on meeting their commitments of releasing new content 2 or 3 times a year that there was never time to go back and sort out what was already there. Whilst there might be contractual reasons for that, it still feels like such a short sighted and wasteful approach (how much content has been removed from the game or is currently irrelevant). I'm sure if they had just cut back on the number of new content mods per year by just one and instead set aside a few months of each year to get the NW house into order, things would be in a better position now and there would be less of a headache all around trying to bring it back into order at this time.
NW is still a good game with lots of potential. Fingers crossed for this new injection of direction.
Coming from an SH20 guild (and SH20 for a very long time) and enough mentoring capability in every single NW topic you can find, from capes and transmutes, lore, to nitty gritty of the stats. With having 35+ age adults with patience to spare.
From casuals who don't run dungeons at all, and do not like them, to in-guild (+some extra) ToMM group
With a very clear upfront hands off approach, ask for help or a run and people will join. Though from time to time we kidnap and drag people to higher dungeons if they don't join just to get that 'fear' out of the way. + Active alliance mainly at the "fresh end-game" level, constant MEs, LoMM, RTQ, REDQ.
Yet, there is new player attrition. To the point that I just wrote upfront that people should except every help but no free items and gear (though still I'll give stuff when I see a player sticks for a while).
The issue is, IMO, in two gear gaps.
The game creates an extremely fast level up and gear up process, with catch up gear, and easy to get companion gear and so on, that a player reaches this "almost LoMM" gear level extremely fast and then it all slows down to a crawl. The next step is to slowly grind AD and boons.
Which is not a problem on its own, grind is expected in an MMO and more so in a F2P one, but the problem is in the expectations. The game set a standard for an extremely fast progress and then kicks new players in the face with a brick wall.
"gearing up" stage between content unlocks would be acceptable if the expectation was set in advance correctly. Instead, it is a mess.
No pretty or reworked event can cover this, nor any mentorship initiative.
This reaches a point when I feel responsible for new player retention, and a failure when they quit. I don't want this on me.
----
To the various Mentoring ideas.
1. Did anyone notice that with a paring system no one assures equal number of people. What happens when there are 100 people for every new player in a time window?
2. I was and still am very vocal about MMO is based on player interactions, social grouping and is not a solo game, but this doesn't mean that players need to be forced into social interaction. It should come on their terms. If a shy or introvert person starts a game, and finds out that their best way is to find a mentor about which they have no control, and no choice (in terms of too early in the game, hard to judge), unlike guilds, they will be discouraged. Or worse, pressured into something they don't want, and will try avoiding it, avoiding loging into the game eventually.
3. Recognition and rewards are great, but people who are "Mentoring" for recognition or reward shouldn't do it to begin with. And those that want to help, already do it without rewards. So where does this leaves us?
Lets give recognition and rewards in hindsight, for people who mentored for free. My mailbox is open, thanks. jk
4. Built in system must have some minimal quality. Guilds have reputation, and yet people stuck in drama centrals. How an officially endorsed built in system assures that their mentors are not complete hamsters? It takes me just minutes to read PE Zone to get nonsense overflow with all the "help" people provide there. If I would have listened to all that advice, I would be broke, with useless char, and disappointed in the game.
5. How this work exactly? If I'm giving advice and per the post I'm considered a mentor, I get rewards for a correct answer? How it is quantified. We can't dis-chain the implementation so much from the idea. It needs some practicality.
5b. How the proposed system solves the proposed issues. I'll admit I could have missed it among the posts, but I don't understand how it does. Will me running with less geared people give me mentor points that give me better RNG? Should we strip and run in turns? Or should I find some new player who is attached to me, and for how long? Where I get them?
We are all here because we want to see a better game (I hope) so, IMO, disagreement is a tool that helps refine ideas and reach something better. This is the spirit in which any criticism is given.