Feedback on variety of Neverwinter aspects

alphastream

Hi,

I was told this was the place to post feedback for the game.

First, thanks for a very fun game. I'm genuinely having fun. I did want to share where I see opportunity for improvement.

Character Creation / Gender Disparity
I enjoyed character creation. I like how it kept things pretty simple, gave options to go deeper, and was visually and creatively interesting.

My only issue here was gender disparity. I wanted to make a very strong female dwarven cleric. I wanted to look like the typical dwarf: like a wall of flesh. Massive broad shoulders, squat wide body, thick torso, barrel chest and waist, etc. This wasn't an option. My dwarf can look like a short overweight/plump woman, but can't look like a tough dwarf. When I look at the male NPCs in the various towns, they look awesome. Super-dwarfy, wide and strong, etc. Many of the dwarven PCs also look that way. I would really like to see the visuals of the game support both genders looking tough.

My second PC was a female half-orc. It wasn't as bad, but I still couldn't make her look as tough as I wanted her to be.

Switching PCs
Am I missing something? Is the only way to switch PCs to log out, log back in, and then select a different PC? I would like to easily switch PCs within the game itself.

Gateway on a Phone
Recently I find the icons to take me to the next page do not show up. Therefore, I can only choose tasks appearing on the first page. Also, very few tasks appear per page.

Auction House
When I call it up I have to select a menu dialog option, then click on a Find Similar icon, it then takes me to my last visited AH tab (not to actually find a similar option). That's all pretty far from what I want. The easiest fix would be to add a "Take me to the Auction House" menu option so I can go straight to AH and save myself the clicks.

Postal Courier
I would like to see Couriers in more locations. I hate traveling back to ProtEnclave every time someone sends me something or to get an auction result/payment. This is especially bad because ProtEnclave is usually super-slow for me, with lots of rubberbanding or lag (rest of the game is fine for me).

It would be great if it could get rid of spam. I really don't need daily offers of AD/etc.

Messages from the auction house don't mention for what auction I received payment. I would like to know the item and my parameters (opening amount, buyout) so I can tell how my things are selling and whether I should adjust my strategy.

On the Courier itself, I don't really know why it exists. I can get mail any time, but items need me to go to some NPC? Why can't I just access the mail and items wherever I am? I'm not sure what this does for the game. (I can get to the AH from anywhere, even in a dungeon, on a ship, etc.)

Bank
Same issue regarding just one location. I would like to have bank agents in most zones.

I would like to have shared bank storage across all of my PCs. It impacts my perceived value of the game to have to constantly mail myself stuff, go to the courier, put it in the bank... I want to play the game!

Leveling Up
I generally like how leveling is handled. My main problem is with XP being granted for things like invocation and most leadership activities. I prefer to gain XP from my actual adventuring and to not level up because I invoked every day or because I sent a guy out to protect a caravan. I'm okay with these granting XP on a rare basis, but it actually impacts me negatively by reducing my in-game time and allowing me to enjoy the levels. I find I can't play a skirmish, etc. all from leveling up too quickly.

Skirmishes and Dungeons and Leveling
Similarly, I find that I want to do a Skirmish or Dungeon once I've reached the point in a zone where it makes sense to do so. Access right now seems to be driven by level. I hit level x and the game assumes I'm at a certain point and now the skirmishes/dungeon for that level range are my only options. I get that (and like that) for the ease of forming parties, but I dislike that I usually level up fast enough that I need to do the skirmish/dungeon first thing when I reach a zone rather than towards the end/middle (when it makes more story sense). I guess my desire is to see the level band of each raised, such that it is more likely I'll earn the events at the right time.

Queue for Skirmishes/Dungeons
It would be nice if these showed how many people are currently in the queue and perhaps a way to ping the local area so you could let people know that just 1-2 more (etc.) would allow the event to go off. Right now we see either nothing and sit there forever, or we all yell constantly trying to figure out who is interested. I could even see value in a notification option to see when an area has "Skirmish forming, needs 1 more player" to help a group find that last person.

Item Art
Sometimes I'll hover over the art on a bit of gear/armor and think, "that looks awesome!" When I put it on, my PC isn't wearing that same armor. I would like to see the item art match what it looks like on me, and to in general look cooler and more interesting.

Economy
I'm not going to go into details, but the many forms of currency/tokens/sigils/etc. and the amount of work required to earn anything cool are all far from what I would like them to be. I should not play through more than half of my adventuring levels and find I can barely afford a normal horse, etc.

I also have issues with most of the found gear being better than the gear I can earn through the convoluted system. Some things are very clearly desirable (a cool mount) while others (theoretically awesome vendor equipment costing all sorts of AD/sigils/etc.) are inferior to what I find on goblins.

Lag in Protector's Enclave
I mentioned it above but want to call this out. It is very frustrating. Rest of the game runs fine.

Identify Scrolls
There is a lot of finicky equipment in the game, but most of it is okay. The Identify Scrolls are the one bit I would most like to see gone. These scrolls are a waste of inventory when I have them, waste my time using them, and yet I run out of them if I want to identify all the things I pick up. I derive no fun from these. And they cost AD. Ideally they would be gone. Next best thing would be to have one scroll (not three) and they aren't needed on an item below your level. This could actually be a nice solution that makes vendor items more desirable, and then identify scrolls could be rarer and cool.

Non-Stacking Equipment
I find that items of a single kind (scrolls, altars, a type of potion) don't stack when they come from different sources. Ones I get from invocation or a box don't stack with ones I find on monsters. That's really frustrating and exacerbates issues of having so much equipment duplication.

Equipment Duplication
It is generally annoying to me to have items that only function at certain levels. I like how the enchantments can be fused (though there are so many types!) and wish that there were ways the game reduced just how many equipment bits there are that are basically duplicative and take up inventory without adding benefit.

Picking Up Equipment
I am frustrated by having to click "F" every time I find a potion, scroll, or really anything. It should all get picked up when I move over it. At the very least, reserve the "F" for an item that I am not already carrying, or for wearable gear vs bag equipment.

Crafting/Professions
There is a lot that could really be interesting here, but in the end I feel like I'm a chump for spending any time on this. There are various issues.

Crafting items doesn't really do what I want it to do. Either I want a nice story progression (tasks have a more obvious linear progression that tells me the story of how my blacksmiths are steadily becoming awesome and helping me) or I want to have it goal oriented (I want really cool boots, so I start down an obvious chain of neat tasks to make that happen). Instead, I have this confusing mix of tasks that often dead-end, waste time/materials, obvious better ones than others, etc. And, for crafting in particular I feel that I need to constantly craft and re-craft things I don't really need just so I can level up and make one thing I do want. Again, I want one of the two approaches instead of this convoluted low-value high-busy-work system.

Leadership works better, if only because I generally don't waste so much time doing things I don't want to do. I can endlessly choose the same task based on how often I log in and collect the rewards and steadily improve. However, this is still a pretty boring non-fun chore. I want to see the story here and have goals, but it all seems like false promises... I'm making some AD but I still can't get anything cool (due to the economy) and I try to follow obvious chains (get this map to then later get this other task), but those are often trap choices.

Trap choices deserves its own mention. There are a lot of bad tasks that grant worse benefits, even within the same time period. Protecting Caravans is better than many high-level tasks. It adds to the lack of value this aspect brings to the game. I want it to be cool. I want it to feel like I'm accomplishing things.

Monster Spawns
Monster spawns are pretty frustrating. They tend to happen far too often, but then I might find much of a zone has been cleared by players passing through before me. The orc area was insane. Somehow there are millions of orcs being killed every day in Neverwinter. And it isn't more fun - especially when playing at non-peak times. I intensely dislike going through some area, pausing to admire scenery or check out some feature, and now I have to fight the same mob again. Keep going, complete quest, come back... and there they all are again. I recognize that in shared instances we need to have monsters come back, but perhaps this needs to better account for the experience being created.

In general, separate from the re-spawning, I find there are too many monsters. Combat is a bit too long (how many times do I need to swing at this orc to kill it????) and too frequent. For example, in most Foundry quests the amount of combat hurts the story. These dungeons are just filled to the brim with critters and I'm not happier for it. It creates a grind feel, even though I'm trying to be focused on goals and story and experience.

Kill X Quests
There are a number of quests where an NPC asks me to kill some number of a type of creature. These are really boring and redundant. I would prefer the game stick to story quests. We already have the bounty systems (not my favorite, but make the 'kill x quests' seem even less interesting).

Selecting Foundry Quests
I don't find it easy to check out foundry quests and find one that I like. I would like to see the screen reorganized so I can more easily find quests that take place in this map, know how much story is involved, and more easily look over all the available options.

Foundry Tips
I would like the option to name my own tip amount, beyond the ones given.

Making Foundry Quests
I would like it to be more obvious what I get for going through this process, because it seems like a lot of work and poorly documented at this stage. My hat is off to those that still make Foundry adventures! Thank you.


In closing, I'm having a good time. Thank you for considering my feedback.

imivo

Lots of interesting feedback!

A few comments:

- There is a /gotocharacterselect command that logs you out and returns you to the character selection screen. It was recently turned on for Neverwinter. Some information about this is located in this thread.

- The XP you receive from Leadership is relatively low and becomes, at mid to higher levels, largely irrelevant. The XP form Invoking scales with the character level. I like it, personally, because it's a good way to level up companions, but it can be rather substantial, so a toggle might not be a bad idea.

- ID scrolls are an AD sink, though that impact is mostly felt at 60. Before, you can get by if you identify only what is for your class, but at 60 when gold becomes more meaningful, you won't find enough scrolls. Not everyone agrees with this, but I feel that AD sinks are important for the game. I agree, though, that IDing dozens of items per playing session isn't a fun gameplay element. Perhaps an option to ID everything at once as long as the player has enough scrolls?

- I rarely have lag in the Enclave after tweaking my system so that the game uses my dedicated card, but when I do, switching the instance to a less populated one helps a lot. You can do this by clicking on the blue icon by the mini map.

alphastream

imivo wrote: »

- There is a /gotocharacterselect command that logs you out and returns you to the character selection screen. It was recently turned on for Neverwinter. Some information about this is located in this thread.

Fantastic, thanks!

imivo wrote: »

I feel that AD sinks are important for the game. I agree, though, that IDing dozens of items per playing session isn't a fun gameplay element. Perhaps an option to ID everything at once as long as the player has enough scrolls?

I certainly want reasons to spend AD. If this were a good system (perhaps, as you say, something that IDed everything I carry but is rarer) I would be fine to spend AD on it. I want more use out of my AD. But I don't want to be forced to spend AD on things that aren't cool/fun. Here's a system that interests me:

- All items below my level are automatically identified. Items not previously identified can become identified when I level (if I'm now higher level than the item). Items above my level require identification. There are no scrolls. Instead, when I choose to identify an item it gives me an AD cost based on item level and I can choose to pay that cost (the way removing an Enchantment gives me an AD cost based on enchantment level). (I'm okay with some tweaking here. Maybe it is items x levels below my level that don't require identification. Also, I don't know what determines when an item is currently automatically identified or not... is it item level?).

What I like about the above is that I free up inventory, I speed up the process (don't need to pick up scrolls, don't need to sort/stack them, don't need to buy them at merchants, etc.), I simplify the process (obvious what to do), and now Identifying is a cool thing allowing me to see some options.

imivo wrote: »

- I rarely have lag in the Enclave after tweaking my system so that the game uses my dedicated card, but when I do, switching the instance to a less populated one helps a lot. You can do this by clicking on the blue icon by the mini map.

I'll have to play with my video settings. I do often switch districts, but it of course then transports me to the north end and can be inconvenient to then travel back to where I was.

Thanks for the comments!

stevo705

i've just hit 60 and find that i'm still getting xp from quests surely it should be AD or else there's no need to do any questing after you hit 60 ?

alphastream

A new one to add:

Leveling Out of Content
I would like to be able to do a sufficiently high amount level of crafting/invocation/PvP/Foundry, and still be able to play through all quests and anything else the game offers. Right now I am starting to level out of skirmishes/dungeons and I understand I'll soon lose more content.

I'm not sure how best to solve this. Maybe I could select a rate at which to level - slow if I want to play through most content, fast otherwise? Or maybe I can freeze XP as was suggested here, so that I can choose when to pause and enjoy an area. This would work especially well if there were obviously advertised level limits. It could even warn me that my level is approaching a limit and let me choose whether to freeze the XP until I get to the next story area.