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zebular
Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 15,270 Community Moderator
It's been mentioned that we have been moving a lot of posts from here to the Beta-Only forum. So, I'd like to open this little thread as a forum for users to ask a question to any Beta Testers that are willing to answer them!
I only have a few requests:
P.S. Alpha Testers, you're still under an NDA.
P.S.S. This is BETA still, so things are subject to change. Do not be surprised if by launch, something you were told here is different!
If your question/answer does not follow these 5 requests, it will be moved to the Lower Depths!
I only have a few requests:
- Please keep your questions about things a player may have experienced or what they think of a specific experience.
- Please refrain from going into lengthy debates or discussions. If you'd like to discuss a question or answer in greater detail, or ask about a broad opinion, please feel free to make a new thread on it specifically.
- Please keep your questions limited to ONE PER POST and specific questions only. Keep the broad questions to threads of their own (make one if you like!)
- Please wait until your question has been answered until asking another.
- Only BETA TESTERS answer the questions please and ONLY from your BETA experiences!
P.S. Alpha Testers, you're still under an NDA.
P.S.S. This is BETA still, so things are subject to change. Do not be surprised if by launch, something you were told here is different!
If your question/answer does not follow these 5 requests, it will be moved to the Lower Depths!
[ My Character Bios | Discord: Zebular#9524 | In Game: @zebular (PC) • @MtnDewFreak (XBOX) • @Terraseer (PS4) ]
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
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Skills are...disappointing. Except for Thievery and disarming traps, all they often do is get treasure stuff, and that stuff is often low value or crafting basic items for a non active crafting system. Sure I know there are SUPPOSED to be class-based skills that have a chance for a consumable item buff based in the class the skill is linked to, but not seeing these options. And yeah, you can get a religion timer mini buff at open world shrines or an extra chest with dungeoneering, but they are not used as defining but cookie cutter lock and key abilities.
Feats in Neverwinter are not like Feats in 4E or 3E. They are essentially stat modifiers, or "talent trees." For example, as a Guardian Fighter, my feats add to my shield damage, to my threat, and increase my action point gain (that is, my Daily power meter fills faster). Each feat has 5 levels, there are three feats at each tier, and additional feats unlock based on your Paragon Path. For those who have played CO, the feats here are clearly using the same system as that game.
When you say "skills," you probably mean powers. Your at-will, encounter, and daily powers will get periodic upgrades as you level. A few additional options will open up. For example, at level 20, I have four Daily power choices (but only use one, which is a self-heal). I have several Encounter power options, and change one based on teaming or soloing, but generally keep the other two. I have a few At-Will choices, and swap out the second one once in a while, but mostly just spam the first one all the time.
In Neverwinter (and 4E), "skills" are things like "Religion," "Arcana", and "Dungeoneering." In Neverwinter, you have one of these based on class, and it basically acts like a Gathering skill, allowing you to open chests/read scrolls keyed to that skill. You can also buy consumables which give you a skill long enough to gather from one node. Personally, I like the skills, but I would like to see a way to learn more of them.
Hope this helps.
Seven Against Thay: An RP-Focused Guild for all Races and Classes
When you complete a particular quest for Sergeant Knox -- I did it at level 16 -- he will reward you with a quest to get a Companion. The initial choices are: Man-at-Arms (Defender), Cleric (Healer), Wizard (Controller), and Wolf (Striker). You get this Companion for free, but strangely (Beta, everyone) you cannot buy any of the other choices once you pick one. So choose carefully.
The Companion Vendor will also sell two other companions to you. One is a Ghost and the other is a Hawk. These cost Astral Diamonds, but they are not level restricted; you could buy one as soon as you emerge from the tutorial.
Seven Against Thay: An RP-Focused Guild for all Races and Classes
There are dozens to select from and you get them around level 15 if memory serves. However you are only given a few options at an affordable rate at low levels so although there are dozens many, despite not being specifically for higher levels, may only be purchased at higher levels.
I hope this answers the question, if not ask again!
EDIT - I has been ninja's. Level 16 it is!
OK, so, Neverwinter uses CO's "Mods" system to augment your gear. This is basically how it works in Neverwinter:
You will find some gear with augment slots. You cannot add a slot to a piece of gear that does not have one. Not all gear has these slots.
You can slot enchantments into the slots. Enchantments are tiered, and you can combine 4 enchantments of the same tier into one of the higher level. There is a chance for failure when you do this, costing you 1 of the enchantments you tried to combine. To take an enchantment out of an item costs Astral Diamonds. You are supposed to be able to just destroy an old enchantment by slotting a new one into the same slot, but at this moment (Beta, everyone) it is bugged, and I cannot get a new enchantment into an old slot without destroying the old one at a cost in Astral Diamonds.
If you have not played CO, you should log on and run through some levels and learn the Mods system, because this one is identical to that, just reskinned to be fantasy.
Seven Against Thay: An RP-Focused Guild for all Races and Classes
This is a tough question to answer because it is so broad. That means you get what I happen to want to talk about.
Mechanically, Neverwinter differs from games like LotRO and WoW primarily in the fact that, instead of big action bars with twenty powers to choose from, you have a short hot bar with maybe ten things. This will bug a lot of people and not bother many others. Since it duplicated D&D 4E, I'm personally fine with it. The control scheme, with no mouse and a target marker instead, will take some getting used to. That makes the game most like TERA, except that it is enormously better. The women are not freakishly sexualized in Neverwinter, the monsters don't look like they walked out of Candyland or a Saturday morning cartoon, and there's been more polish in terms of sound.
Leaving the mechanics aside, what you are left with is the lore and setting of the game, and Neverwinter differs from other games mostly in the fact that is D&D and the Forgotten Realms. Orcs are Orcs, not Orks. Drow are Drow, not Dark Elves. In other words, when you are playing Neverwinter, you are drinking from the tap that most other fantasy MMOs are themselves copying from. The exception are games like LotRO and Age of Conan, which have their own amazing lore and books to draw from, so don't need to copy from D&D. And, although many people will tell you different, to me, it very much feels like D&D.
Where the game comes off poorly right now is in class and customization choice; I am not talking cosmetic options, which are pretty solid except for the fact that Cryptic still has crappy hair. (Let's face it, if you are going to compete with Guild Wars 2, we need hair that moves, not a plastic helmet which we call "hair.") But leaving that aside, cosmetic options are strong. But there are only a few classes, weapon choices are very narrow for each class, and every Guardian Fighter comes off feeling very much the same. Many of the things we have come to expect in fantasy MMOs -- a summoning/pet class, a melee healer, an archery build -- simply does not exist in Neverwinter yet. These things are all coming, of course. D&D is known for having a lot of classes, and the developers know people want more options. But right now, many players will be stuck playing the "closest fit" to what they want, instead of the real thing. That's unfortunate, but the game is still a great game. And if you can get over your disappointment over not getting the class you want, there is much fun to be had.
Hope this helps.
Seven Against Thay: An RP-Focused Guild for all Races and Classes
^^^ This makes me happy.
My Question: Based on what you have been able to experience in Beta, how is the world organized? Is Neverwinter itself more of a hub type city, with fast travel devices scattered about, but no real direct connection to open world zones, or is it more like an EQ2 city, where there are fast travel options, but it is also directly linked to the openworld zones? I love to explore, but games like GW and DDO always let me down, due to the fact that I always had to return to a central hub if I wanted to go someplace else.
That does help. Being someone who enjoys TT AD&D I don't want or need the pet classes. I know they have come to serve their own purpose and have even enjoyed some of them, loremaster in LOTRO.
Personally I'd love to see some more direct link suroundings (there are *some* which are't quest related but not nearly enough)
But all in all I do not think any person disliking the game for not being seamless open world is giving the game it's due credit.
I think you will probably be disappointed.
Neverwinter is made up of various zones, and there are additional zones outside the city. You cannot freely walk from one of these zones to the other. You leave Neverwinter by going to a "City Gate" and then, when you use the Gate, the world map pops up and you decide which zone you want to go to. You don't have to go back to Neverwinter to move from Zone B to Zone C, however.
I have found no other Quick Travel mechanics at all. If you are deep into the Tower District and you want to get back to Neverwinter, you get to run back to the nearest City Gate. I'm sure there will be consumables for this, and mounts help at level 20, but there are no teleporters deep inside zones, only at the outer edges.
Seven Against Thay: An RP-Focused Guild for all Races and Classes
I guess as long as there are some large areas to explore, I will be happy. I will continue to dream of a seamless version of FR, encompassing the whole of the known realms, with the unknown areas able to be discovered by the brave or foolhardy.
This actually is great news to me. As long as I don't have to ping pong back to NW everytime, I can deal with it.
Thanks for your post, as well as all the others here.
The section of the city of Neverwinter called the "Protector's Enclave" does serve as a central hub. However, it is not as constricting as that would seem to imply. The world is not an "Open World" like WoW or Ultima Online, for examples. It is more like Everquest in that there is a limit to the area in each persistent world zone. Traveling between most world zones will allow you to choose any persistent zones that you are able to go to. Some are restricted to level while some require quest-line advancement to open up for instant-travel.
For instance, when I go to a gate in Protector's Enclave, I am allowed to choose any persistent adventure zones I can go to, and quick travel to them. There are some instances, like leaving a zone, that will automatically take you to the zone that it is meant to convey a sense that you "have to" travel through this other place first. These are few and far in between though. I am also not sure if these are just bugs with map transfer or meant to be that way, but I get the feeling like it was meant to convey a sense that there is "no other way out."
There are number of persistent adventure zones in just Neverwinter City alone, as well as a good deal of small zones within zones (Moonstone Mask for example) and other zones outside the city (Helms Hold for example). The map has a lot of room to grow as well, so I am sure we just have a small glimpse of what is in store and that small glimpse is already a good deal!
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
There is just too much lore in every inch of land to make it seamless. If it is not seamless, you can always say "its there" but if you make it seamless and forget to include one heritage - your games becomes wrong.
---something a dev implied some time back when we asked.
Delighted to help. I know, whenever I was sitting on the outside as others played a game I wanted in on (Curse you, SWTOR!), every bit of news was welcome.
Seven Against Thay: An RP-Focused Guild for all Races and Classes
Feats: These are fairly broad but play out a lot more like your typical talent tree. For example a tank could focus on getting more hate, more mitigation, or more damage.
Not sure on an 'exact' number but you will get a free one at about level 15 and you can pick from four. They are like GW1 pets. A little healing. A little DPS. A little tanking.
Imagine if Diablo 3 and Dragon Age 2 had a love child online.
Enchanting works like gems/slots. YOu get an item that has an enchantable slot. You right click and add it in. You can combine runes of lesser quality into runes of higher quality with a chance of failure. You can buy more runes from vendors/AH, but you dont need special items to combine/add items. You can add an item to reduce your chances of failure when combine. You can pay gems to remove the rune. You can lose the item if you fail a combine.
The world is organized like a main hub with many subhubs that have quests. Example? The main city is a primary hub, but if you go to a graveyard there are mini-quest hubs there. This is similar to how WoW has it setup where you get led to new zones and new hubs for quests on the chain. Fast travel is at 'gates' so you cant insta-travel ala GW2. Any gate can send you to any zone, you don't have to travel through several zones if your destination is far away. In my opinion the exploration factor is low with little incentive to do it outside your hubs. However (!) the Foundry quests managed to kindle my 'Ooh, whats this over here' D&D spirit.
Hope this helps. I streamed my BWE experiences here and I'll be working on highlights w/ audio over the next few weeks:
http://www.twitch.tv/ragnar21583/
Are there positioning/flanking effects? For example, if you get behind or to the side of an enemy in ground combat in Star Trek Online, you get bonus damage to your attacks. Did something like that make its way into NWO?
Finally (for now), I know that Rogues get one or two "utility" abilities, like Disarm Traps for instance, but are there more non-combat, non-crafting, utility-ish abilities like, say, Detect Hidden or Tracking?
The gorilla formerly known as Kolikos
I'm going to guess at least 3, in this respect it might translate well to an N64 controller.
I've only been playing one class, the Trickster Rogue. From what I've seen in-game, the feats act more as 'passive bonuses' that polish your character build - skills are pretty much non-existent, (so far I've only seen them come into play while actually dungeoneering, and the rare occasion of them being in an NPC conversation).
To elaborate on the feats: I took a few, but at this low level I can't tell if I can mix and match different trees, which would be really nice.
Alpha testing is in-house testing of the game for the purpose of building a listed bugs database that can be addressed - alpha testing is never done by actual players, only developers. In the case of the Star Wars Galaxies New Game Enhancements, alpha testing was done by players.
Compared to other ones, it is more instanced, but the combat is something the likes of which you have never seen in ANY MMO. I've been comparing the combat to console gaming combat; VERY engaging and fast-based. If you took Devil May Cry, or Dragon Age 2 combat and coupled it with the monster AI in Funcom's The Secret World; you would have Neverwinter. I've played a lot of medieval MMO's, and just MMO's in general and I can say the combat is the best part of the game, and every time you do it, you will enjoy yourself - which in my opinion is the most important part of any MMO gamer's appetite.
If I were to play any medieval MMO right now, it would be Neverwinter; and I put that above high-end raiding in WoW because I am anticipating eventually there will be players that are creating Foundry content that rivals, or is just better than a lot of the end-game content you will find in any current MMO. That being said, there is also some degree of finding things to do for yourself - instead of leading you by the nose to every part of the game, you have to do some discovering on your own.
I hope that answers your question!
I hate to say this man, but everything is instanced. There is no open-world or space in-between areas you go; including Neverwinter. There are fast-travel devices everywhere. This could change before final release, but I don't anticipate it will. If it's built this way, it's probably never going to change. Personally, I love open-world, and would prefer that in no other setting than D&D. But it's not in this game; I still definitely recommend trying it out. Already I've found quite a bit of extra treasure no one would have even thought to look for in dungeons just by exploring, so you might like that.
Essentially, it's a third-person shooter with first-person shooter controls. You have two main damage abilities on your left and right mouse keys, then you have abilities on Q, E, R, 1, 2, Shift and Tab. It's extremely fast-paced, and the controls compliment that 110%. The Trickster Rogue for example: Mouse left is your main attack, mouse right is your ranged attack (throwing knives). Stealth is Tab, your dodge key is Shift. The other keys are for Power usage. Targeting is constantly changing, you basically mouse-over a monster and hit your attack - a good comparison is Batman: Arkham Asylum combat mechanics. You can keep attacking as long as there are enemies close to you. Move with WASD as usual, but yeah - 3rd-person shooter with 1st-person shooter controls.
Flanking works 100%. Rogues gain their Sneak Attack ability at level 10, as well as Stealth. Sneak Attack acts as a damage bonus, but you MUST Stealth first. Might be different at higher levels though. Stealth doesn't last long, it's basically a combat ability. You hit it, move around to the enemy, then set-up your massive damage rotation from there. On bosses, it's fantastic, you can pull some BIG damage numbers. Single-enemies I try to only use it if I need to kill something outright - like if there's a mob on my healer, I can Stealth and hit one ability to completely kill that mob (using my Sneak Attack bonus).
Not really much outside of combat as far as utility goes. You detect traps as you see them, disarm, etc. Rogues have a few utility abilities in combat that are wildly useful if matched correctly. For example; you can drop a decoy that will attract mob aggro and fills your action bar when it is attacked. So while you are killing them, you are filling your action bar faster from using the decoy. I can't really answer your question completely because I am only level 15, and this is my experience so far.
There is an option to use a PC or XBOX360 controller in the options menu. Two hands is plenty man, once you learn the UI, you start to get REALLY good at it because it is quite simply really.
As of right now, it works as you say in your first paragraph there. When you actually get into the game, you can mouse-over your ability scores and see much more descriptive text than what you see in character creation. As a Trickster Rogue, I can tell you that STRENGTH does have some bearing on your damage output. You can see how much the increase is in-game. As far as which ability score is associated with which Power, I haven't checked that just yet.
Weather has also not made an appearance yet.
However those are two things which the Dev Team might hold off until final polishing takes place. I don't mark that high on a development stage personally though I definitely agree it should be in the game at some point!
horrorscope666, are you a Founder? I tried looking in your past posts but I don't see any record indicating you have posted in the Beta Forums. Could have missed it though.
This thread, however, is not for speculation or to debate with the Founders who are actively testing the game. You may post that you didn't find the combat as active as C9 but only if you are a Founder.
That being said I did notice a lot of C9 advertising throughout the posts you have made. We're not sticklers about not discussing other games and I won't remove posts just because you're comparing Neverwinter to other games but consider this the first and final warning, these are the Neverwinter Forums. Any further posts telling players to play C9 will be removed.