Neverwinter future improvement

xartan1

Hi all,

I'm one of those players who started Neverwinter in 2013 and it's my favorite game of all time. I have played a lot and have extensive experience and knowledge. Lately, the player base has been getting smaller, and I would like to give you my honest opinions about it. Here I'll talk about PVE, and you're all welcome to go read my post on PVP in that section of this forum eventually.

I cannot wait to see the new leveling systems. It's a great idea to work on new players' experience, and I would love to see more beginners. But I would also like to point out something problematic for anyone who reaches the maximum level: having 20 different modules to farm... Once new players realize that, some of them will uninstall. That's a shame because Neverwinter is a beautiful game and it's a lot of fun! It would be nice to have the choice to finish only 5 campaigns of that 20. It would be up to the player preference to focus on the campaigns they like for a maximum of 5 to have all boons. Of course, whenever a new module would be released and to unlock a new dungeon, you must do the new campaign first and this shouldn't be changed. Also, having completed more then 5 campaigns should give a reward but it should not be a boon but rough astral diamonds. Giving more rough astral diamonds to new players will encourage them to do the storyline without forcing them to do so. It should be a choice to do campaigns, dungeons, PVP, or whatever the players prefer.
In order to help new players catch up, some item drop rates should be increased. Since enchantments can now reach rank 15, I think it's time to see rank 6-7 as drops. In the past, the drops were increased from r2-3 to r4-5. Now, it's time to increase them once more. Refinement should be easier to get. The same thing for insignia powder, companions, and mount upgrade tokens. The limit for rough astral diamonds, each day, should be 150k or even 200k. Just 100k feels like you're never going to reach your goals from a new player's perspective.

Of course I'm an endgamer and I like to have things to do once I'm geared to the max. I believe that instead of increasing item level this quickly it would be more fun to have incentives to play multiple classes and/or to PVP. PVP is definitely an end-game activity. Back in the days of 2013, I was able to play GWF/GF/CW/DC at the same time. Why is it now impossible to do so? Why is it so hard to keep just one class up-to-date?! I strongly believe that changing this will improve the game. Please give players incentives to play more then one class, and please give PVP some rewards.
The endgame community is much smaller compared to the casual one. Most of the players have average gear. Making new content has to be aimed for the largest part of the community in order to make it a success. I know endgamers are loud and active on forums; often they are very critical as well. But never forget that most players are casual and maybe they see things differently. I loved the Cradle of the Death God, but hated Zariel and the Tower of the Mad Mage. I have hope for the next trials to be made in a way that you can bring a friend and not be forced to play with only the best players online. New trials or dungeons should never be this demanding when it comes to gear (like Zariel or Tower of the Mad Mage when they released). A good balance between mechanics and gear is important. The Vault of Stars and the Lair of the Mad Mage were perfectly balanced.

Thx all!
Xartan tha Great

armadeonx

Players can already skip most of the campaigns, it's only ones with dungeon unlocks that need to be done (assuming players want to access all dungeons). As far as I can recall, that means less than half are actually needed.

In the old days, they were kinda compulsory due to the effectiveness of boons but now boons have been nerfed into almost pointlessness they are decidedly optional and can be left as 'something to do' later in the game.

I play all 8 of the current classes and 'main' 4 of them, with my 4th (rogue) in the low 40's and still working on improving his gear.

The choke point for gearing up is not the amount of campaigns as the dailies & weeklies are pretty short and can be done concurrently - it's the cost & amount of companion tokens now that the new system has been deliberately oriented to make the majority of important stats/ TIL / HP / Base Damage come from them. This was a 'financial move' from Cryptic and means they won't be changing it anytime soon.

The only thing I would change in the campaigns would be the cooldown timer on the big HEs in the likes of Chult & Ravenloft as it's quite common to find yourself standing around for an hour waiting for them to pop just to complete your weekly tasks.