@percemer thanks for joining the discussion. I've been concerned that the developers and community team stopped posting a couple of weeks ago (other than to posts about individual bugs) so it's interesting to see someone from PWE commenting - I may be wrong but I think that's the first time I've ever seen that.
He's a moderator. Nothing more.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,150Arc User
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
You just spent the last 20 years to purchase the perfect house, in the perfect area for $200,000, you've made improvements and renovations to your home so you have your perfect dream house, it cost you $300,000 in total. You make enough each month to pay your utilities and for necessities.
Few months go by and suddenly its announced the prestigious school near you is shutting down at the end of the school year along with the beginnings to build an airport nearby. You then learn that minimum wage in that area will be going up 50% to match increased cost of living along with a small stimulus passed for the inconvenience the changes will have on everyone.
You feel your home is no longer your dream home because the area lost everything that drew you to it. You try selling the house for the original 200k, but there are no buyers for the area with the news of the upcoming changes. Cost of living increases by 50% due to the direct increase of minimum wage increases so anything you have saved lost 33% of it's value.
Enough with this analogy, what we have lost a lot of value, a lot of what we have can't be sold, a lot of what we have no longer is seen as good or useful. The market was flooded with AD, but prices on everything skyrocketed due to the influx of AD from all the bondings people had, the exp tomes, eldritch runes people still had sitting around ect.
People who have 10 legendary companions didn't simply go to needing only to upgrade those 10 to mythic, but needed all new companions, sometimes only found at green quality. Some people who have 10 mythic mounts needed to make more mythic mounts to get a useful stat stick. People who kept up a tank and dps build, or healer dps ect had to cut out a build and focus fully on one.
People weren't able to trade in their 15x dominance insignias, weren't able to trade in their now hindering prosperity insignias and so on.
You may not need everything to do stuff, but if you want your character to have the same value as it did before, good luck.
yeaaahhh but it's not just 'grind for years' though is it? Or even 'pay this amount and you're done' because they continually move the goal posts. You have to keep spending and/or grinding in perpetuity.
Spending enough $$ will max you out temporarily, a mod or 2 later and you have to spend the same amount all over again.
EXACTLY greywynd......Which boggles my brain, BUT, the up side is this really is (for me anyway) A F2P game as I have everything needed to run all content for the next year or so. I cannot ever see a need to spend a dime on this game....so I can now allocate my funds elsewhere. It's a win/win for me. Truly, I could not be happier with Cryptic... seriously, no joke.
I am curious is the differing experiences of elation and disappointment may be based on the class of characters people play. Certain class seem perhaps to benefit more from the recent changes while others have had to rethink the class choice. Most complaints seem to be coming from Melee DPS players. As things are now these classes need lots of room to maneuver and end up getting completely overwhelmed when playing solo content.
I seem to hear nothing but joy about the changes from Tanks and Healers....Rangers (Not sure bout the Wiz or warlock players)
The only and I repeat only good thing I have experienced concerning the changes is group play in dungeons. Prior to these updates, Player/God Chars would simply zip ahead and kill most everything in a straight line to the bosses. This tended to leave lower level and newer players somewhat stuck if they got left behind. The changes are forcing people to employ better team tactics.
However team tactics does not get you through what is supposed to be soloable content.
and seriously how much AD can one reasonably earn in a given day from gameplay compared to the cost of upgrading companions and mounts. It would be nice if upgrade tokens for both were perhaps much more available...perhaps through seals vendors or even regular gold vendors. You can still have a high price, just add additional means of acquiring them.
I can't speak for other classes as I've abandoned all but my fighter tank, but I had to give up my dps spec as its sitting at 50% all stats and 90% power and no companions it actually needs, so to rebuild it properly for end-game would cost 10s of millions.
As a fighter tank, its more of an issue where the devs kept taking away or not being open about tanks to begin with. Fighter's bladed rampart has become useless and has basically been given to pally tanks. Our dig-in has been nerfed (re-balanced) but would be fine if we didn't lose our daily along with the nerf.
They made it so our best daily that gave 30% damage reduction and capped awareness now gives 30% def (useless) and 30% awareness (again, almost completely useless), allowed barbs to keep their 90% crit avoid daily with 30% awareness on it, gave pally 30% damage reduction and 30% awareness.
They said companions weren't suppose to be the bulk of our stats, but we get about the same from companions as we get from boons, more if we're counting comp gear, runestones and the very easily abusable enhancement which gives more than pretty much anything else in the game if your party does things right.
They're still changing stats on stuff as combat rework has gone live, unknown what could change like boons or the nerf to lionheart set that just happened, or they could entirely change what a companion gives for stats that we just invested in (for exp, on preview they had companions that were set to dmg, then swapped to def or power, making them useless or less desirable, but many tried to buy their's before prices rose too high). Nothing was done properly and we're suppose to be fixing up our chars? For all I know I login tomorrow and my collars now give 0 combined rating because they felt like it, then I need to rework all my ratings again.
For endgame players, mid-game players and new players that are frustrated everything comes down to having rushed the product out and changing things after people have lost a lot of value in their stuff and re-invested again, just to know next day it can all be worthless and start from scratch.
People that are level 80 and casual won't have issues for the most part, aside from stuff that isn't yet balanced properly.
New players its a flip of a coin, some have started the leveling process in middle of the changes and are told to adapt on the fly, its like having your friend say "Hey, I've been playing this game and its really fun, want to try it? You can use my char" and then because you are clueless what is even going on are constantly dying, not knowing why. Did they place me in a high area? What do these encounters all do? How much can I be hit for? And these players will likely just give up and pick up something else that isn't going to mess with them or give them a bad first experience.
Edit: Healers are complaining, their divinity regen is directly tied to forte, as there are extremely limited sources of forte in the game as they increase IL they receive less divinity regen. Devs were asked on stream if divinity regen was always just going to be tied to forte, they said yes.
I don't care for DPS classes, I usually play healers and sometimes tanks. I can say that I'm pretty much done on this game until another major change makes it playable. I login to craft for professions progress and logout. Not VIP so nothing else to claim.
Mostly playing the Star Trek Online events (on the actually fun and functional Cryptic game) and a little bit of Dragon Quest XI.
Call me El, she/her only. Currently Professions-only until the next combat change fixes this mess.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,150Arc User
I gave up healing at Mod 16. Pretty much giving up tanking here. I don't have the motivation to do 2 different gear loadouts.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
There are a couple interesting points that are implicitly embedded in several comments here, and the mods really should consider passing them on as agenda items in the next decision-makers meeting.
First, some here have indicated that the best way to fix problems in the game are to not create them in the first place. While others have tried to diminish this point, they are misguided. This is one of the most important points in software development, even living software based on SaaS. Nothing is more important than strong design and equally strong and agile code. As a programmer myself, I have often envisioned the corners this game's developers have backed themselves into. This game is a software, and people here are it's customers, and at some point, it is more than reasonable for them to expect a quality product. Saying this game is F2P and should be cut some slack is a rearguard argument. Designers and programmer's worth their salt take pride in their work and do not accept persistent bugs and product shortcomings when moving something to market. Moving buggy and improperly tested software to market is how software product lines die.
Second, communication is critical, and when a company is empowered with feedback prior to an anticipated rocky product launch, the communication plan that accompanies it must be rock solid. Much of the negativity that is rampant here, in the game, on discord, and elsewhere could have been mitigated through regular and compassionate communication (otherwise known as a crisis response plan). A representative from the company hopping on this forum to leave a diary thread of things being discussed internally (and the occasional nostra culpa) on behalf of the devs could have been conversation changing. Instead, as another poster stated, the community team stopped posting a couple weeks ago. The middle of a community crisis is a terrible time for community leaders to put their head in the sand.
I had another long-time guild member depart yesterday. Imagine if I could have pointed him to a thoughtful thread that forecasted a better future? Maybe it would've made a difference, and maybe not - but at least the devs would have been providing me some tools to help stop some bleeding.
Instead, I wished him well on his next gaming experience and invited him to reconnect should he ever return.
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percemerMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 1,048Arc User
edited February 2021
Hello,
@armadeonx No problem! We read all feedback but we do not necessarily respond to all (it also depends on our available time, internal projects, etc). For my part, this is not the first time that I publish on this forum, but I mainly work with the French community.
I cannot say for sure if everything is working as planned - I guess no because there are still some bugs - but it is precisely the priority of community teams to identify and escalate all issues to the dev team. Some adjustments will be implemented soon, and we also have potentially identified an issue related to the aggro of critters.
@greywynd Nope, I am just a Miniature Giant Space Hamster who eats chocolate and explores the world trying to improve it. Sometimes I'm also CM for the French community, and sometimes CM for a French university.
In this case, we = Perfect World and Cryptic, represented by community teams.
@percemer fair enough, I was expressing my feelings about the recent changes and starting ranting a bit. Of course there is no "obligation" to rank everything up to max, just like there is no obligation to play the game at all. However, if you expect players to take the game "seriously" (as much as a sports fan takes their favorite team seriously for example), then getting things to max is part of the game. There was a certain amount of despair felt at the realization of how much further away the goal post had been moved, and at how close I was to the previous goal post. I think it's fine for the goal post to move as the game progresses and new content is released, that's "part of the game", but it's my opinion that these recent changes have moved the goal post too far, and too fast. I think that's a fair assessment.
I agree with Percemer, these is no need to get everything to max, unless you plan being one of the HDPS in the game. TIC, ToMM and Zariel are really the only places where HDPS is good to have, and in all honesty, who the heck even runs Zariel ?? It gives basically the same loot as LoMM, but does give a chance to get useless weapons. Seriously. No Joke.
This is a little misleading. Even if all you plan to run is old content, while your item level doesn't matter, your stats do, and as such there is a need to upgrade companions so you can get your stats past 50%, it's one of the only ways to do so. In capped content a player who has upgraded their companions to mythic (at least the ones which provide their stats), will almost always do better than those who don't (skill and class balance aside).
I do a lot of so called "pug" runs of random dungeons and trials, (I really do enjoy running content with people I don't know, and sometimes carrying them through if I can), and at least half the time it's a fail/abandon because the team simply doesn't have the dps, or survivability, or heals to complete the content. This could be due to needing to properly tune the content, but it very well may be because they haven't upgraded their companions and the dungeons were tuned expecting a certain stat pool available to the players (meaning companion and mount upgrades). Keep in mind that your companion bonuses provide a 1:1 ratio of combined rating and item level, therefor there is no penalty to ranking those up as far as base ratings are concerned, and those upgrades are realized in "scaled" content.
Comments
Few months go by and suddenly its announced the prestigious school near you is shutting down at the end of the school year along with the beginnings to build an airport nearby. You then learn that minimum wage in that area will be going up 50% to match increased cost of living along with a small stimulus passed for the inconvenience the changes will have on everyone.
You feel your home is no longer your dream home because the area lost everything that drew you to it. You try selling the house for the original 200k, but there are no buyers for the area with the news of the upcoming changes. Cost of living increases by 50% due to the direct increase of minimum wage increases so anything you have saved lost 33% of it's value.
Enough with this analogy, what we have lost a lot of value, a lot of what we have can't be sold, a lot of what we have no longer is seen as good or useful. The market was flooded with AD, but prices on everything skyrocketed due to the influx of AD from all the bondings people had, the exp tomes, eldritch runes people still had sitting around ect.
People who have 10 legendary companions didn't simply go to needing only to upgrade those 10 to mythic, but needed all new companions, sometimes only found at green quality. Some people who have 10 mythic mounts needed to make more mythic mounts to get a useful stat stick. People who kept up a tank and dps build, or healer dps ect had to cut out a build and focus fully on one.
People weren't able to trade in their 15x dominance insignias, weren't able to trade in their now hindering prosperity insignias and so on.
You may not need everything to do stuff, but if you want your character to have the same value as it did before, good luck.
I seem to hear nothing but joy about the changes from Tanks and Healers....Rangers (Not sure bout the Wiz or warlock players)
The only and I repeat only good thing I have experienced concerning the changes is group play in dungeons. Prior to these updates, Player/God Chars would simply zip ahead and kill most everything in a straight line to the bosses. This tended to leave lower level and newer players somewhat stuck if they got left behind. The changes are forcing people to employ better team tactics.
However team tactics does not get you through what is supposed to be soloable content.
and seriously how much AD can one reasonably earn in a given day from gameplay compared to the cost of upgrading companions and mounts. It would be nice if upgrade tokens for both were perhaps much more available...perhaps through seals vendors or even regular gold vendors. You can still have a high price, just add additional means of acquiring them.
As a fighter tank, its more of an issue where the devs kept taking away or not being open about tanks to begin with. Fighter's bladed rampart has become useless and has basically been given to pally tanks. Our dig-in has been nerfed (re-balanced) but would be fine if we didn't lose our daily along with the nerf.
They made it so our best daily that gave 30% damage reduction and capped awareness now gives 30% def (useless) and 30% awareness (again, almost completely useless), allowed barbs to keep their 90% crit avoid daily with 30% awareness on it, gave pally 30% damage reduction and 30% awareness.
They said companions weren't suppose to be the bulk of our stats, but we get about the same from companions as we get from boons, more if we're counting comp gear, runestones and the very easily abusable enhancement which gives more than pretty much anything else in the game if your party does things right.
They're still changing stats on stuff as combat rework has gone live, unknown what could change like boons or the nerf to lionheart set that just happened, or they could entirely change what a companion gives for stats that we just invested in (for exp, on preview they had companions that were set to dmg, then swapped to def or power, making them useless or less desirable, but many tried to buy their's before prices rose too high). Nothing was done properly and we're suppose to be fixing up our chars? For all I know I login tomorrow and my collars now give 0 combined rating because they felt like it, then I need to rework all my ratings again.
For endgame players, mid-game players and new players that are frustrated everything comes down to having rushed the product out and changing things after people have lost a lot of value in their stuff and re-invested again, just to know next day it can all be worthless and start from scratch.
People that are level 80 and casual won't have issues for the most part, aside from stuff that isn't yet balanced properly.
New players its a flip of a coin, some have started the leveling process in middle of the changes and are told to adapt on the fly, its like having your friend say "Hey, I've been playing this game and its really fun, want to try it? You can use my char" and then because you are clueless what is even going on are constantly dying, not knowing why. Did they place me in a high area? What do these encounters all do? How much can I be hit for? And these players will likely just give up and pick up something else that isn't going to mess with them or give them a bad first experience.
Edit: Healers are complaining, their divinity regen is directly tied to forte, as there are extremely limited sources of forte in the game as they increase IL they receive less divinity regen. Devs were asked on stream if divinity regen was always just going to be tied to forte, they said yes.
Mostly playing the Star Trek Online events (on the actually fun and functional Cryptic game) and a little bit of Dragon Quest XI.
First, some here have indicated that the best way to fix problems in the game are to not create them in the first place. While others have tried to diminish this point, they are misguided. This is one of the most important points in software development, even living software based on SaaS. Nothing is more important than strong design and equally strong and agile code. As a programmer myself, I have often envisioned the corners this game's developers have backed themselves into. This game is a software, and people here are it's customers, and at some point, it is more than reasonable for them to expect a quality product. Saying this game is F2P and should be cut some slack is a rearguard argument. Designers and programmer's worth their salt take pride in their work and do not accept persistent bugs and product shortcomings when moving something to market. Moving buggy and improperly tested software to market is how software product lines die.
Second, communication is critical, and when a company is empowered with feedback prior to an anticipated rocky product launch, the communication plan that accompanies it must be rock solid. Much of the negativity that is rampant here, in the game, on discord, and elsewhere could have been mitigated through regular and compassionate communication (otherwise known as a crisis response plan). A representative from the company hopping on this forum to leave a diary thread of things being discussed internally (and the occasional nostra culpa) on behalf of the devs could have been conversation changing. Instead, as another poster stated, the community team stopped posting a couple weeks ago. The middle of a community crisis is a terrible time for community leaders to put their head in the sand.
I had another long-time guild member depart yesterday. Imagine if I could have pointed him to a thoughtful thread that forecasted a better future? Maybe it would've made a difference, and maybe not - but at least the devs would have been providing me some tools to help stop some bleeding.
Instead, I wished him well on his next gaming experience and invited him to reconnect should he ever return.
@armadeonx No problem! We read all feedback but we do not necessarily respond to all (it also depends on our available time, internal projects, etc). For my part, this is not the first time that I publish on this forum, but I mainly work with the French community.
I cannot say for sure if everything is working as planned - I guess no because there are still some bugs - but it is precisely the priority of community teams to identify and escalate all issues to the dev team. Some adjustments will be implemented soon, and we also have potentially identified an issue related to the aggro of critters.
@greywynd Nope, I am just a Miniature Giant Space Hamster who eats chocolate and explores the world trying to improve it. Sometimes I'm also CM for the French community, and sometimes CM for a French university.
In this case, we = Perfect World and Cryptic, represented by community teams.
Have a good weekend and have fun
Regards,
EU Community Manager @ Gearbox Publishing
----------
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I do a lot of so called "pug" runs of random dungeons and trials, (I really do enjoy running content with people I don't know, and sometimes carrying them through if I can), and at least half the time it's a fail/abandon because the team simply doesn't have the dps, or survivability, or heals to complete the content. This could be due to needing to properly tune the content, but it very well may be because they haven't upgraded their companions and the dungeons were tuned expecting a certain stat pool available to the players (meaning companion and mount upgrades). Keep in mind that your companion bonuses provide a 1:1 ratio of combined rating and item level, therefor there is no penalty to ranking those up as far as base ratings are concerned, and those upgrades are realized in "scaled" content.