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An Open Letter to Cryptic
omegaaxis2
Member Posts: 3 Arc User
Hello there, I've been playing for the past few months and have had a fairly good time doing so. I've found a friendly guild, by no means elite, but vastly entertaining. I've messed around with the foundry and am still learning its quirks. I'd like to see the game last as long as possible, however there are several areas which need work. Many of these have been mentioned countless times on the forums before, but I feel they deserve mentioning again.
End game content:
Enable epic versions of the skirmishes. Given how foundries scale up by default, I can't imagine this being a difficult upgrade. On top of that, have the end chest give some amount of AD all the time, with the skirmish bonus doubling that amount. This alone could double the things to do at end game stage.
Have the chest at the end of dungeons unlock regardless of whether the DD event is active, with the catch that only when the event is active will items found within the chest be transferable. Currently there is little reason to play a dungeon outside of the event, at least this will give a chance for an upgrade without overly degrading the purpose of the cycling bonus.
Fix the portions of dungeons where you can die and appear at later respawn points (looking at you Karrundax). This is clearly an exploit. I'd go farther and state a respawn point should only be activated when the entire party reaches it and is out of combat, easily done by making the activation a switch or 'using' the campfire itself.
Foundry
The foundry is where this game has the most potential, only to be neutered fairly early. I know there are plenty of die-hards here who will claim its for the stories and such, but lets face simple facts. If there is poor rewards no one will use them. I would recommend completely overhauling how the foundry's calculate rewards. Designate some formula for challenge, incorporate number of monsters killed, difficulty of monsters, time taken, number of player deaths, etc. The harder the foundry combined with better player performance, then better rewards.
To further motivate authors to release to cryptic, increase the overall loot for approved quests. Say non-approved can cap at a blue item, whereas approved can reach purple. This would long-term result in more variety for daily foundries, happier players, and free content for cryptic.
Introduce a challenge rating to placed monsters, and allow authors to customize actual attributes of their monsters. Things like weapon and skill choice can go a long way to relieving the tedium of the same tired encounters over and over. I would envision a system where the author could select a basic monster type, ranged/melee/caster, and then select 2-3 abilities for it use from those trees. Stronger abilities grant a higher challenge rating.
Allow authors to create bosses, with stronger abilities, more health, and simple minion spawning. This would help foundries have a clear conclusion, rather than what could just appear to be some random trash mob that finished the quest.
While using this challenge rating mechanic loot can be changed dynamically. Should a monster reach some internal level of CR, allow it to randomly drop higher quality gear.
When it all comes down to it... try to emulate neverwinter nights' aurora toolset. Granted that balance is required, and restrictions would be needed. Cheese foundries will be created regardless of any changes...
I'm sure there are more blurbs I could add, and I'm also sure there will be the usual debate about these ideas, but such is the internet.
Best regards,
OA
End game content:
Enable epic versions of the skirmishes. Given how foundries scale up by default, I can't imagine this being a difficult upgrade. On top of that, have the end chest give some amount of AD all the time, with the skirmish bonus doubling that amount. This alone could double the things to do at end game stage.
Have the chest at the end of dungeons unlock regardless of whether the DD event is active, with the catch that only when the event is active will items found within the chest be transferable. Currently there is little reason to play a dungeon outside of the event, at least this will give a chance for an upgrade without overly degrading the purpose of the cycling bonus.
Fix the portions of dungeons where you can die and appear at later respawn points (looking at you Karrundax). This is clearly an exploit. I'd go farther and state a respawn point should only be activated when the entire party reaches it and is out of combat, easily done by making the activation a switch or 'using' the campfire itself.
Foundry
The foundry is where this game has the most potential, only to be neutered fairly early. I know there are plenty of die-hards here who will claim its for the stories and such, but lets face simple facts. If there is poor rewards no one will use them. I would recommend completely overhauling how the foundry's calculate rewards. Designate some formula for challenge, incorporate number of monsters killed, difficulty of monsters, time taken, number of player deaths, etc. The harder the foundry combined with better player performance, then better rewards.
To further motivate authors to release to cryptic, increase the overall loot for approved quests. Say non-approved can cap at a blue item, whereas approved can reach purple. This would long-term result in more variety for daily foundries, happier players, and free content for cryptic.
Introduce a challenge rating to placed monsters, and allow authors to customize actual attributes of their monsters. Things like weapon and skill choice can go a long way to relieving the tedium of the same tired encounters over and over. I would envision a system where the author could select a basic monster type, ranged/melee/caster, and then select 2-3 abilities for it use from those trees. Stronger abilities grant a higher challenge rating.
Allow authors to create bosses, with stronger abilities, more health, and simple minion spawning. This would help foundries have a clear conclusion, rather than what could just appear to be some random trash mob that finished the quest.
While using this challenge rating mechanic loot can be changed dynamically. Should a monster reach some internal level of CR, allow it to randomly drop higher quality gear.
When it all comes down to it... try to emulate neverwinter nights' aurora toolset. Granted that balance is required, and restrictions would be needed. Cheese foundries will be created regardless of any changes...
I'm sure there are more blurbs I could add, and I'm also sure there will be the usual debate about these ideas, but such is the internet.
Best regards,
OA
Post edited by omegaaxis2 on
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Comments
I wholeheartedly agree with you on these two points. The players adding bosses really would make the foundry quests a ton better, and it had never occurred to me to base rewards on performance but I think it's brilliant.
Totally agree with this said this before many times. Let us make the dam content they sure cant we already seen that over and over.
If we could make end level bosses and have all the tools they have in the foundry this game would rocket to success leaving it up to cryptic has been horrible so far.
Better get ready. Open letter about to be closed because they don't want it to get lost in the queue. Give it three weeks and they will get to reading it.
Joking aside, I agree. I wish all skirmishes were open, and rewarded some amount of ad at the end. Boredom has set in for me. Tonight, I logged on, goofed, then logged back off. No group pickup for DD, guild is dwindling. Sad.
I think the guild I'm in has dwindled from close to a hundred down to three, though I see many being added daily and then I see them drop off. I just like to PvP eventhough I only play an undergeared/average cleric.
We have nearly 200, and get 25 on sometimes. Of course, when DD ends, that drops to 10. I think there are three of us that started in the guild, still playing regularly. Another one or two will show up here and there. Other than that, it's all new recruits or some that got recruited a few weeks ago. It's disheartening, to say the least.
I think cryptic knows that their hands are tied with regards to the Foundry's customization and freedom, and once a large portion of the cheating and exploiting community decides to leave the game, we'll start to see more of those freedoms. I mean, look at the game right now. Restrictions everywhere, yet people still maliciously abuse the system wherever they can. If Cryptic doesn't abandon the game, I think good things still might come to those who struggle with the current system and wait it out.