The player-base is basically 20-30% of what it used to be. Minus out the bots, and I'd say about 10-15% of what it used to be. You can keep your rose colored glasses on, but this game is dead. Sorry
It isn't dead, it just smells funny. However, when something better comes along, it might will become slightly more doomed.
Every MMO other than one has been a "failure", really, in terms of maintaining players past a few months in large numbers (the only exception is EVE Online, which a multiple niche game rather than a mainstream one). end.
To be fair, eve is one of the most successful mmos of all time. It's a bit beyond niche at this point. Subs are right around 400k and it's the only mmo ever, to steadily increase it's subscription numbers year after year. 10 years old and more successful than it's ever been.
The reason it's so successful is obviously due to the sadisticly nasty sandbox as well as a very transparent developer (as of late). Another strong point of the game is the value the balance devs give in the suggestions of players. Every major balance patch since "incarna" has spawned feedback threads about effected ships and content while also sticking it on their public test server for a month or so... The dev's know that the hardcore players are better at the game than they will ever and because of this let the community even vote in a selected number of players each year to be the communities representatives to CCP...
What cryptic and pwe need, is more transparency, and by transparency I don't mean some nerdy dude saying "but look at all the patch notes" in response to someone calling pwe and cryptic out over adding new zen content while there are still huge swathes of graphical errors that should be consuming artist time... I'm referring to the hour long "patch introduction" stream of course.
3. Lateral progression is also terrible and boring (We want gear progression!).
I fixed that for you.
OP, I'll agree with you, for sure. I certainly don't like the way Cryptic/PWE handles things, from customer service to updates. And even though they've been completely silent and unresponsive about updating their Foundry editor as well, that's really the only thing keeping me here. Without UGC, being able to both play and create it, I wouldn't be here still.
The player-base is basically 20-30% of what it used to be. Minus out the bots, and I'd say about 10-15% of what it used to be. You can keep your rose colored glasses on, but this game is dead. Sorry
3. Lateral progression is also terrible and boring (We want gear progression!).
I have played all the Neverwinter games and really wanted this game to succeed, and still do. Give the people what they want so you do not have another dead MMO on your hands. tyvm...
Although there are a good amount of things that they need to fix and add you have to understand the game recently came out. They're still adding stuff to the game you just have to give it time. Plus just because you dont like the pvp doesn't mean that it's bad and boring, thats just your opinion. The game is growing you just have to give it time to grow.
The guy most probably is alpha-tester.
I had a little quick chat in PE with one and they said that TESO is not that impressive and its flaws are significant.
But on topic,
like any other MMO (or game, for that matter) "Neverwinter" gets stale.
Some players stick around, some not.
This game is not failing yet but it needs diversity and more systems, paths, methods of entertainment available.
So if not everyone but most players have some goals to reach, something to strive for.
WoW has perfect carrot on a stick recipe. And it is: constantly changing flavours of the game but keeping the basic rules intact. So players eat the same steak over and over but with slightly altered dressing.
It will be interesting to see how the approach to testing plays out. Some games, like Firefall, took tester comments and dissatisfaction to heart, ripping out and rebuilding huge chunks of the game. Someone playing it today would find it quite different to some of the earlier incarnations.
On the other hand, we have Cryptic/PWE, who don't even take not of game breaking exploits reported in open beta, and fix though, despite the fact that they directly impact their bottom line.
Those are extremes, the bulk of cases will be somewhere in the middle, but that leaves much scope for improvement.
...no...there really IS no end game content UNLESS you consider doing the content OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER.
End game content doesn't mean "Hey...there's a new dungeons that opened up at 60 and I can do the old ones I've alraedy done again on 'epic'." He's referring to the fact that after completing them...there's nothing next. There isn't enough things to do once capping. I have 5 level 60's, one of each level because I got bored with there being little to nothing to do once hitting 60.
Doing the same thing over and over again...does not mean there is end game content. That's absurd.
2. PvP is usually terrible. Thankfully, in this game we have Gauntlgrym.
Have you played Gaunt? It's a complete disaster. The community by and large hates it and does so for good reason.
The premise of the way the game is monetized -vs- the carrot that keeps people here is bass ackwards.
For instance, it takes longer, in orders of magnitude, to earn a bag, than it does to earn an entire suit of purple max level gear, doing both in game. So when people get to endgame and have their entire suit of gear, farming bags (and other misc random optional items) is not going to keep people coming back between content updates.
Needs to be easier to get the bag (and other misc optional items) and tougher to get the gear. Progression gearing keeps people playing MMOs. Once they have it, they arent hanging around to farm bags and glittery unicorn mounts. They go on hiatus and play other games until another content update happens, or this becomes the game they toy with for a week or so between content updates in other games - which is all time they could have been spending in NW with the potential to be a paying user.
It isn't dead, it just smells funny. However, when something better comes along, it might will become slightly more doomed.
Oh Kat, how I love your posts.
I agree that the bar has been lowered quite a bit by this game and willfully as well. It is as if no one connected to it had every played a MMO before and so did not know that their product wasn’t ready for players. Or for the more conspiracy minded, perhaps they just thought the players were too dumb to see that it was just a generic code shell.
The new recipe for an attractive game is any game that does things this one doesn’t do, and that’s a lot.
But perhaps time can turn things around; time and a huge amount of development hard work.
It a little humorous that free players have to grind their hearts out to get anything nice and if the game is to become a serious player in the MMO market, the devs are going to have to transcend the “moar money” leash and put in some serious hours on content that generates interest and showcases ingenious design.
So no matter how bad you think you have it freebs, the devs are right there with you on the other oar.
Have you played Gaunt? It's a complete disaster. The community by and large hates it and does so for good reason.
Yup, it's an hour of boring toss, followed by half an hour of frenzied dungeonrunning, to get as many coins as possible, to minimise how many more times that player will need to come back.
Hell, when I wanted a t2 PvP weapon for an alt, it was nicer to run dungeons, sell the drops and buy the (very decent) GG weapon.
Yea i dont understand what people say endgame content, content that never ends/continuous? like a moba game, WvWvW of guild wars 2?
personally i think neverwinter has a great gem called foundry, that they should be improving, not in rewards but in content. (maybe rewards, like injury kits or something else.)
Would really like to see a new pvp mode together with a new map, to make it fun again cuz domination is getting boring for all of us yes i just spoke for EVERYONE OMGOMGOMGOMG
1. There is a lot of end game content (PvP, PvE, Foundry, etc). My only complaint is that in PvE dungeons the boss mechanics are all very similar with add spawning.
2. What exactly is terrible about PvP? It seems pretty standard MMORPG PvP model to me... /shrug Maybe missing a ladder ranking system...
3. Gear progression is another word for power creep and will destroy Neverwinter.
1. There is a lot of end game content (PvP, PvE, Foundry, etc). My only complaint is that in PvE dungeons the boss mechanics are all very similar with add spawning.
2. What exactly is terrible about PvP? It seems pretty standard MMORPG PvP model to me... /shrug Maybe missing a ladder ranking system...
3. Gear progression is another word for power creep and will destroy Neverwinter.
WHen PVP is loaded with bots its less fun for any real players which doesnt keep them around.
Many MMOers say they dont want power creep, until they see the alternative, which is stagnation. Then they want power creep.
Power creep has never destroyed an MMO - stagnation has. If the new gear in the new update is better than the old gear in the previous update, people have a tangible reason to run the content. If it is not better, less people run it, for less period of time.
The most populated, largest money earning, and longest standing MMOs, have been progression gearing at endgame. The rest of the game doesnt need to be like that, and other players who could care less about endgame may hang around for the foundry, however, it would be a poor decision businesswise to choose between one or the other, when they can have both.
The games incentivizes quick farming over any type of other play. Long tedious dungeons at T2 that provide no sense of adventure other than zerg attacks, with high hit point mobs.
D&D is supposed to be a role-playing game! There is little to no roleplaying going on.
The game is Cookie Cutter. Players are cookie cutter, builds are cookie cutter, appearance is cookie cutter. A few builds are extrremely overpowered and unbalanced, especially in PvP. While others are not really viable at all. Nothing epitomizes this more than the CW feat: Unrestrained Chaos: This power triggers on a Daily Power. It gives a chance, a chance mind you that is not conveyed in the tool tip, so it could be a 1% chance 20% chance, it is unknown to grant a stack of arcane mastery or chill for 1/2/3/4/5 secs. Are you kidding me? Is there a more worthless feat in all of Neverwinter? After activating a marginal daily (which is very situational) I can get a small chance to give myself an arcane stack up to 5 seconds? This just goes to show you why this game has serious problems. With so little thought put into important character choices, you should have called the feat: "Worthless and ill-defined feat that makes you spend money to respec if you were fool enough to choose it". I honestly beleive that Cryptic has purposely put unviable and poorly defined information (powers/feats) so that the user is uninformed for the entire purpose of gaining money by incentivizing you to spend money on respecs.
This should be valid counter measures for every build/tactic strategy. e.g perma stealth TRs that can't be targeted, unstealthed, or held, or permently unstoppable characters make it no fun for many. 3 GFs with high level gear and enchants will totaly dominate a PvP match unless they go against an almost identical team. When they can do 5000 k non daily attacks and have huge HP and armor who else can do anything to stop it? When Glory is largely determined by kills, doesn't really help the support non-dps classes with low armor class now does it? High level enchants facing newbies with low gear or low $ end up being humilated is not fun which in turn will drive them away. Futility will always kill participation and involvement. Game balance has not even been closed to be achieved.
There is no compelling reason to do T1 content other than to obtain transitionary gear. After that it is dead wood. It seems like a majority of the dungeons are recycled content with the mobs hit points and numbers and abilities being inflated.
Total lack of meaningful communication from developers other than the "we are looking into it" or thanks for the suggestions. No acknowledgement of bugs, bug fixes, and a great deal of bugs for a released game.
There was some nice content and story lines during the 1-60, but this goes entirely too fast and the game actualy forces you to miss content, and re-playability is next to nill since there basicaly is one linear path for everyone.
The only thing that will save this game is the foundry, but there is very little money to be made for foundry missions.
Lastly, nothing is more frustrating or more damaging to the long term health of the game than the dungeon/pvp quitters than can take an hour or two of enjoyment and just destroy it because someone quits or becomes disconnected rendering the whole adventure impossible. Content that cannot tolerate 1 person leaving, or not having the perfect gear, or allow a learning curve is just poor game design. How fun is it to join a PVP match and after 3 minutes 2 people quit? How fun is it for the DC to quit at before even reaching the final boss? That 2 hour dungeon run which comprises the limited available time to a working parent has just been wasted and all they have to show for it is a bunch of green trash itmes that are not even worth the identify scroll costs.
All this does is encourage people not to make friends but to create exculsionary groups and punishes players that do not have experience or great skills and they will not get the opportunity to improve them because they will be excluded.
The games incentivizes quick farming over any type of other play. Long tedious dungeons at T2 that provide no sense of adventure other than zerg attacks, with high hit point mobs.
D&D is supposed to be a role-playing game! There is little to no roleplaying going on.
The game is Cookie Cutter. Players are cookie cutter, builds are cookie cutter, appearance is cookie cutter. A few builds are extrremely overpowered and unbalanced, especially in PvP. While others are not really viable at all. This should be valid counter measures for every build/tactic strategy. e.g perma stealth TRs that can't be targeted, unstealthed, or held, or permently unstoppable characters make it no fun for many. 3 GFs with high level gear and enchants will totaly dominate a PvP match unless they go against an almost identical team. When they can do 5000 k non daily attacks and have huge HP and armor who else can do anything to stop it? When Glory is largely determined by kills, doesn't really help the support non-dps classes with low armor class now does it? High level enchants facing newbies with low gear or low $ end up being humilated is not fun which in turn will drive them away. Futility will always kill participation and involvement. Game balance has not even been closed to be achieved.
There is no compelling reason to do T1 content other than to obtain transitionary gear. After that it is dead wood. It seems like a majority of the dungeons are recycled content with the mobs hit points and numbers and abilities being inflated.
Total lack of meaningful communication from developers other than the "we are looking into it" or thanks for the suggestions. No acknowledgement of bugs, bug fixes, and a great deal of bugs for a released game.
There was some nice content and story lines during the 1-60, but this goes entirely too fast and the game actualy forces you to miss content, and re-playability is next to nill since there basicaly is one linear path for everyone.
The only thing that will save this game is the foundry, but there is very little money to be made for foundry missions.
Lastly, nothing is more frustrating or more damaging to the long term health of the game than the dungeon/pvp quitters than can take an hour or two of enjoyment and just destroy it because someone quits or becomes disconnected rendering the whole adventure impossible. Content that cannot tolerate 1 person leaving, or not having the perfect gear, or allow a learning curve is just poor game design. How fun is it to join a PVP match and after 3 minutes 2 people quit? How fun is it for the DC to quit at before even reaching the final boss? That 2 hour dungeon run which comprises the limited available time to a working parent has just been wasted and all they have to show for it is a bunch of green trash itmes that are not even worth the identify scroll costs.
All this does is encourage people not to make friends but to create exculsionary groups and punishes players that do not have experience or great skills and they will not get the opportunity to improve them because they will be excluded.
This almost brought tears to my eyes. Well said.
Queen of Dragon Server
Goddess Uniique, lvl 60 DC.
PinkSugar, lvl 60 CW.
Baby Cakes, lvl 60 GWF.
*******, lvl 60 TR.
Premium Juicebox, lvl 60 CW.
Pink Exxxtacy, Ranger There is NO pvp in Neverwinter.
Lastly, nothing is more frustrating or more damaging to the long term health of the game than the dungeon/pvp quitters than can take an hour or two of enjoyment and just destroy it because someone quits or becomes disconnected rendering the whole adventure impossible. Content that cannot tolerate 1 person leaving, or not having the perfect gear, or allow a learning curve is just poor game design. How fun is it to join a PVP match and after 3 minutes 2 people quit? How fun is it for the DC to quit at before even reaching the final boss? That 2 hour dungeon run which comprises the limited available time to a working parent has just been wasted and all they have to show for it is a bunch of green trash itmes that are not even worth the identify scroll costs.
I had a cleric apparently lose interest mid boss fight yesterday, leaving us to finish up sans healer (wasn't a hard fight, but hey). After about ten minutes of wondering why the healer was no longer in the instance and no-one was saying or doing anything, I asked if we'd had a ragequit at the first death or similar.
I was told "no, she's drunk. just wait here and she will be back".
Obviously delighted, I did leave the group, as waiting for a player too drunk to be able to remain in the instance wasn't in my gameplan.
1. Sorry, but you are a locust. I don't mean the insect, but gaming locust. What it means is like a swarm of locus, there are always people who charge through the game as fast as they possibly can, devouring it without really enjoying it. Then when they get through all the content and reach 'endgame', they complain that there aren't anything to do there. It happens in every single MMO ever made, including World of Warcraft. And guess what? It will never end, either. People never learn.
2. Again, the game has just been released. Give it some slack, will you? Or are you one of those people who get a kick out of complaining, and don't really care about the game you're complaining about? But hey, if people didn't enjoy complaining, we wouldn't have Facebook.
3. Again... The game has just been released. Module 1 will be out in a month, and they'll keep making new content on a regular basis. Be patient, please. Why not enjoy the Foundry, for instance? Or start a new character and take your time leveling up? If you say "but leveling up is boring", I think we've found the real issue here.
Remember kids: Bragging about having reached max level doesn't make you 'cool'. It doesn't make people look up to you in respect.
Oh great another sycophantic rage. The game wasnt just released it had a open beta for 2 months or soft launch then they chose to launch the game without fixing the known issues. We still are waiting for issues to get fixed from open beta.
Problem with the Foundry is they dont make money from this area of the game so them improving this anytime soon is not a chance in hell.
1. Sorry, but you are a locust. I don't mean the insect, but gaming locust. What it means is like a swarm of locus, there are always people who charge through the game as fast as they possibly can, devouring it without really enjoying it. Then when they get through all the content and reach 'endgame', they complain that there aren't anything to do there. It happens in every single MMO ever made, including World of Warcraft. And guess what? It will never end, either. People never learn.
2. Again, the game has just been released. Give it some slack, will you? Or are you one of those people who get a kick out of complaining, and don't really care about the game you're complaining about? But hey, if people didn't enjoy complaining, we wouldn't have Facebook.
3. Again... The game has just been released. Module 1 will be out in a month, and they'll keep making new content on a regular basis. Be patient, please. Why not enjoy the Foundry, for instance? Or start a new character and take your time leveling up? If you say "but leveling up is boring", I think we've found the real issue here.
Remember kids: Bragging about having reached max level doesn't make you 'cool'. It doesn't make people look up to you in respect.
Here is the problem. It is pretty well known at this point that a good chunk of the population gets bored with leveling really fast and that end game is where the game really starts. The way I see it the leveling process is there so you can learn how to play your class as a precursor to the endgame. Then when you start the endgame content you have a pretty good idea how to play your class well and can start the fun stuff.
There is no secret that endgame should be well finished before a game is released or you are going to have a lot of borde people who will leave and probably not come back.
For me the leveling process is abysmal, unless you are going to make it a process that takes months with enough content inbetween to keep someone busy at each group of levels you should just make it easy and quick in an effort to learn the class and move on to endgame.
What I would like to see in a game is there is a ton of content that takes a long time to level through. Like it takes a month at least to get 10 levels of pretty hardcore play. That way the gear you get as you progress means something and you will have it for a while. As it is now I was able to get my CW to max level with T2 gear in less than a week. Now there is nothing to do except grind the same content over and over. I am leveling a DC right now and it took much longer, the leveling process for a cleric is horrible. It took about 2 weeks of semi casual play to get to level 59 a week and a half of that was 45-59 ugh. The leveling process needs to be more uniform. They need to offer a lot of lateral progression with cosmetics like GW2.
I don't think bragging is what most people are doing, I personally would love a game that had a long leveling process. I am not sure how you would enjoy leveling in this game, it is far to linear. This game reminds me of DIII until you get to end game. So by making it so linear you almost require people to level fast to get through it.
I enjoy the MMO aspect of the game. However, I enjoy the Foundry campaigns as much as I did with the original single player Neverwinter Nights.
I'm not even close to end game and am not concerned about the game's demise. I've sunk at least $200 in Zen.. and I suspect many others have as well. For all the doom & gloom folks.. you're welcome.. we'll keep your game going for the time being.
Also faction or guild wars would be great. I'd play this game forever if that happens. I don't understand why they don't do it. It's not going to hurt the game , it'll just add a flavor. There are lot's of npc factions in the story but none for players. We are just some good guys trying to save the Neverwinter...
Personally I think the part I bolded and underlined is part of why they don't do any big PvP things, there's no opposed player faction, aside from in GG. We are all supposedly good guys working to the same goal so too much focus on that would basically turn the game into heroes trying to save Neverwinter by..stabbing other heroes who are trying to save Neverwinter..
speaking of which I haven't got a toon to 60 yet, what exactly is the idea behind the factions for GG anyhow? Something about the rights to who gets the dwarven city or something?
This game is not failing... in fact it's giving PWI a lot of money. You can in fact you can see it in the price of PWI's stocks. From 05/30/2013 the stock was $15.05 per share and today it's $20.42 per share. If you think this game is failing then the stock would show. But of course this is just an indicator of one quarter we'll see if the game is doing well in the succeeding quarter financial reports.
I will talk about a few things here. I was initially in love with Neverwinter. I was so in love.. I gladly ended my wow account because of this game. I loved the action combat. But In the back of my mind I knew I had to be concerned about end game. And the total lack of end game.
Neverwinter has no true raiding experience.
PVp dominance or pve dominance is based on Pay to win.
As long as players have the cash to spend they take their character and gear them out totally.
The problem with pay to win is that it removes skill from the game. And very quickly only those who want to spend money on the game all the time will dominate. This leads to shallow gameplay.
Gauntlgrym is and was a huge disappointment.
Its a huge disappointment because it was hyped to suggest some true endgame content and instead its just extra filler content.
And with pay to win in affect if one side has a group of players who have bought all their gear they will win.
BOSs AI is non-existent in this game.
Tera is the first action combat game that really has a sense of being a true open world mmo.
The ai of the mobs is actually really cool. Bosses actively will dodge attacks. Giving fights great strategy.
There are tons of classes to choose from giving more options for players.
IT is free to play.. and The pay options do not make it pay to win. Instead they believe in Equalized pvp.
EVeryone gets a full set of equal pvp gear. Meaning battles are determined by skill of the players.
So if your level 30.. and you que up.. you get into a bg and instantly your 60 with a full set of epic quality pvp gear.
you dont' have all your skills .. but health wise .. you do match up with everyone.
the PRofession system in Neverwinter is horrible.
IT requires a player spend alot of money to be able to max out their professions.
In tera you do not have that. You can acquire all the mats needed for Professions by the player farming on their own.
So a player is not forced into spending cash. Tera has a nice balance.
And thats what Neverwinter desperately needs.
NEverwinter needs to be balanced. Balanced Classes, More classes, Equalized Pvp. ,Equalized professions. Sophisticated Boss AI.
Have an open world system. Seriously that sense of grand adventure is missing from Neverwinter. This is what makes open world mmos so much fun. Considering this is based on D&D Lore.. and considering one of the greatest things about D&D is that sense of adventure for Neverwinter to not have that is really disappointing.
To add an expansion and not add classes.. that are sorely needed.. To not add True Raiding or sense of grand adventure and then to add more PAY TO Win packs.. really is going to harm this game.
Even if one had all the money in the world.. If all you did was pay for everything.. why even play? You have to feel inclined to want to earn new gear.
Neverwinter needs a tremendous amount of work.
Old School gamer, reviewer of mmos and slayer of dragons.
Comments
It isn't dead, it just smells funny. However, when something better comes along, it might will become slightly more doomed.
Even though TESO is utter <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, it's going to take a huge chunk out of the remaining players here, which ain't much.
To be fair, eve is one of the most successful mmos of all time. It's a bit beyond niche at this point. Subs are right around 400k and it's the only mmo ever, to steadily increase it's subscription numbers year after year. 10 years old and more successful than it's ever been.
The reason it's so successful is obviously due to the sadisticly nasty sandbox as well as a very transparent developer (as of late). Another strong point of the game is the value the balance devs give in the suggestions of players. Every major balance patch since "incarna" has spawned feedback threads about effected ships and content while also sticking it on their public test server for a month or so... The dev's know that the hardcore players are better at the game than they will ever and because of this let the community even vote in a selected number of players each year to be the communities representatives to CCP...
What cryptic and pwe need, is more transparency, and by transparency I don't mean some nerdy dude saying "but look at all the patch notes" in response to someone calling pwe and cryptic out over adding new zen content while there are still huge swathes of graphical errors that should be consuming artist time... I'm referring to the hour long "patch introduction" stream of course.
Well said. It's hard to add to that, really.
I fixed that for you.
OP, I'll agree with you, for sure. I certainly don't like the way Cryptic/PWE handles things, from customer service to updates. And even though they've been completely silent and unresponsive about updating their Foundry editor as well, that's really the only thing keeping me here. Without UGC, being able to both play and create it, I wouldn't be here still.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
I see more people on than a couple months ago
So many traps and bridges...MUWHAHAHAHA!
Multiple Personas, only 'One' me
"Why should one devolve themselves to try and entertain those of a lesser mindset around them?"
Wow, working time travel!
The guy most probably is alpha-tester.
I had a little quick chat in PE with one and they said that TESO is not that impressive and its flaws are significant.
But on topic,
like any other MMO (or game, for that matter) "Neverwinter" gets stale.
Some players stick around, some not.
This game is not failing yet but it needs diversity and more systems, paths, methods of entertainment available.
So if not everyone but most players have some goals to reach, something to strive for.
WoW has perfect carrot on a stick recipe. And it is: constantly changing flavours of the game but keeping the basic rules intact. So players eat the same steak over and over but with slightly altered dressing.
"...and?"
It will be interesting to see how the approach to testing plays out. Some games, like Firefall, took tester comments and dissatisfaction to heart, ripping out and rebuilding huge chunks of the game. Someone playing it today would find it quite different to some of the earlier incarnations.
On the other hand, we have Cryptic/PWE, who don't even take not of game breaking exploits reported in open beta, and fix though, despite the fact that they directly impact their bottom line.
Those are extremes, the bulk of cases will be somewhere in the middle, but that leaves much scope for improvement.
End game content doesn't mean "Hey...there's a new dungeons that opened up at 60 and I can do the old ones I've alraedy done again on 'epic'." He's referring to the fact that after completing them...there's nothing next. There isn't enough things to do once capping. I have 5 level 60's, one of each level because I got bored with there being little to nothing to do once hitting 60.
Doing the same thing over and over again...does not mean there is end game content. That's absurd.
Have you played Gaunt? It's a complete disaster. The community by and large hates it and does so for good reason.
For instance, it takes longer, in orders of magnitude, to earn a bag, than it does to earn an entire suit of purple max level gear, doing both in game. So when people get to endgame and have their entire suit of gear, farming bags (and other misc random optional items) is not going to keep people coming back between content updates.
Needs to be easier to get the bag (and other misc optional items) and tougher to get the gear. Progression gearing keeps people playing MMOs. Once they have it, they arent hanging around to farm bags and glittery unicorn mounts. They go on hiatus and play other games until another content update happens, or this becomes the game they toy with for a week or so between content updates in other games - which is all time they could have been spending in NW with the potential to be a paying user.
Oh Kat, how I love your posts.
I agree that the bar has been lowered quite a bit by this game and willfully as well. It is as if no one connected to it had every played a MMO before and so did not know that their product wasn’t ready for players. Or for the more conspiracy minded, perhaps they just thought the players were too dumb to see that it was just a generic code shell.
The new recipe for an attractive game is any game that does things this one doesn’t do, and that’s a lot.
But perhaps time can turn things around; time and a huge amount of development hard work.
It a little humorous that free players have to grind their hearts out to get anything nice and if the game is to become a serious player in the MMO market, the devs are going to have to transcend the “moar money” leash and put in some serious hours on content that generates interest and showcases ingenious design.
So no matter how bad you think you have it freebs, the devs are right there with you on the other oar.
Yup, it's an hour of boring toss, followed by half an hour of frenzied dungeonrunning, to get as many coins as possible, to minimise how many more times that player will need to come back.
Hell, when I wanted a t2 PvP weapon for an alt, it was nicer to run dungeons, sell the drops and buy the (very decent) GG weapon.
That is actually pretty much the definition of endgame in most MMOs.......
personally i think neverwinter has a great gem called foundry, that they should be improving, not in rewards but in content. (maybe rewards, like injury kits or something else.)
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
2. What exactly is terrible about PvP? It seems pretty standard MMORPG PvP model to me... /shrug Maybe missing a ladder ranking system...
3. Gear progression is another word for power creep and will destroy Neverwinter.
WHen PVP is loaded with bots its less fun for any real players which doesnt keep them around.
Many MMOers say they dont want power creep, until they see the alternative, which is stagnation. Then they want power creep.
Power creep has never destroyed an MMO - stagnation has. If the new gear in the new update is better than the old gear in the previous update, people have a tangible reason to run the content. If it is not better, less people run it, for less period of time.
The most populated, largest money earning, and longest standing MMOs, have been progression gearing at endgame. The rest of the game doesnt need to be like that, and other players who could care less about endgame may hang around for the foundry, however, it would be a poor decision businesswise to choose between one or the other, when they can have both.
The games incentivizes quick farming over any type of other play. Long tedious dungeons at T2 that provide no sense of adventure other than zerg attacks, with high hit point mobs.
D&D is supposed to be a role-playing game! There is little to no roleplaying going on.
The game is Cookie Cutter. Players are cookie cutter, builds are cookie cutter, appearance is cookie cutter. A few builds are extrremely overpowered and unbalanced, especially in PvP. While others are not really viable at all. Nothing epitomizes this more than the CW feat: Unrestrained Chaos: This power triggers on a Daily Power. It gives a chance, a chance mind you that is not conveyed in the tool tip, so it could be a 1% chance 20% chance, it is unknown to grant a stack of arcane mastery or chill for 1/2/3/4/5 secs. Are you kidding me? Is there a more worthless feat in all of Neverwinter? After activating a marginal daily (which is very situational) I can get a small chance to give myself an arcane stack up to 5 seconds? This just goes to show you why this game has serious problems. With so little thought put into important character choices, you should have called the feat: "Worthless and ill-defined feat that makes you spend money to respec if you were fool enough to choose it". I honestly beleive that Cryptic has purposely put unviable and poorly defined information (powers/feats) so that the user is uninformed for the entire purpose of gaining money by incentivizing you to spend money on respecs.
This should be valid counter measures for every build/tactic strategy. e.g perma stealth TRs that can't be targeted, unstealthed, or held, or permently unstoppable characters make it no fun for many. 3 GFs with high level gear and enchants will totaly dominate a PvP match unless they go against an almost identical team. When they can do 5000 k non daily attacks and have huge HP and armor who else can do anything to stop it? When Glory is largely determined by kills, doesn't really help the support non-dps classes with low armor class now does it? High level enchants facing newbies with low gear or low $ end up being humilated is not fun which in turn will drive them away. Futility will always kill participation and involvement. Game balance has not even been closed to be achieved.
There is no compelling reason to do T1 content other than to obtain transitionary gear. After that it is dead wood. It seems like a majority of the dungeons are recycled content with the mobs hit points and numbers and abilities being inflated.
Total lack of meaningful communication from developers other than the "we are looking into it" or thanks for the suggestions. No acknowledgement of bugs, bug fixes, and a great deal of bugs for a released game.
There was some nice content and story lines during the 1-60, but this goes entirely too fast and the game actualy forces you to miss content, and re-playability is next to nill since there basicaly is one linear path for everyone.
The only thing that will save this game is the foundry, but there is very little money to be made for foundry missions.
Lastly, nothing is more frustrating or more damaging to the long term health of the game than the dungeon/pvp quitters than can take an hour or two of enjoyment and just destroy it because someone quits or becomes disconnected rendering the whole adventure impossible. Content that cannot tolerate 1 person leaving, or not having the perfect gear, or allow a learning curve is just poor game design. How fun is it to join a PVP match and after 3 minutes 2 people quit? How fun is it for the DC to quit at before even reaching the final boss? That 2 hour dungeon run which comprises the limited available time to a working parent has just been wasted and all they have to show for it is a bunch of green trash itmes that are not even worth the identify scroll costs.
All this does is encourage people not to make friends but to create exculsionary groups and punishes players that do not have experience or great skills and they will not get the opportunity to improve them because they will be excluded.
This almost brought tears to my eyes. Well said.
PinkSugar, lvl 60 CW.
Baby Cakes, lvl 60 GWF.
*******, lvl 60 TR.
Premium Juicebox, lvl 60 CW.
Pink Exxxtacy, Ranger
There is NO pvp in Neverwinter.
I had a cleric apparently lose interest mid boss fight yesterday, leaving us to finish up sans healer (wasn't a hard fight, but hey). After about ten minutes of wondering why the healer was no longer in the instance and no-one was saying or doing anything, I asked if we'd had a ragequit at the first death or similar.
I was told "no, she's drunk. just wait here and she will be back".
Obviously delighted, I did leave the group, as waiting for a player too drunk to be able to remain in the instance wasn't in my gameplan.
Oh great another sycophantic rage. The game wasnt just released it had a open beta for 2 months or soft launch then they chose to launch the game without fixing the known issues. We still are waiting for issues to get fixed from open beta.
Problem with the Foundry is they dont make money from this area of the game so them improving this anytime soon is not a chance in hell.
Here is the problem. It is pretty well known at this point that a good chunk of the population gets bored with leveling really fast and that end game is where the game really starts. The way I see it the leveling process is there so you can learn how to play your class as a precursor to the endgame. Then when you start the endgame content you have a pretty good idea how to play your class well and can start the fun stuff.
There is no secret that endgame should be well finished before a game is released or you are going to have a lot of borde people who will leave and probably not come back.
For me the leveling process is abysmal, unless you are going to make it a process that takes months with enough content inbetween to keep someone busy at each group of levels you should just make it easy and quick in an effort to learn the class and move on to endgame.
What I would like to see in a game is there is a ton of content that takes a long time to level through. Like it takes a month at least to get 10 levels of pretty hardcore play. That way the gear you get as you progress means something and you will have it for a while. As it is now I was able to get my CW to max level with T2 gear in less than a week. Now there is nothing to do except grind the same content over and over. I am leveling a DC right now and it took much longer, the leveling process for a cleric is horrible. It took about 2 weeks of semi casual play to get to level 59 a week and a half of that was 45-59 ugh. The leveling process needs to be more uniform. They need to offer a lot of lateral progression with cosmetics like GW2.
I don't think bragging is what most people are doing, I personally would love a game that had a long leveling process. I am not sure how you would enjoy leveling in this game, it is far to linear. This game reminds me of DIII until you get to end game. So by making it so linear you almost require people to level fast to get through it.
This is just my opinion.
I enjoy the MMO aspect of the game. However, I enjoy the Foundry campaigns as much as I did with the original single player Neverwinter Nights.
I'm not even close to end game and am not concerned about the game's demise. I've sunk at least $200 in Zen.. and I suspect many others have as well. For all the doom & gloom folks.. you're welcome.. we'll keep your game going for the time being.
Personally I think the part I bolded and underlined is part of why they don't do any big PvP things, there's no opposed player faction, aside from in GG. We are all supposedly good guys working to the same goal so too much focus on that would basically turn the game into heroes trying to save Neverwinter by..stabbing other heroes who are trying to save Neverwinter..
speaking of which I haven't got a toon to 60 yet, what exactly is the idea behind the factions for GG anyhow? Something about the rights to who gets the dwarven city or something?
http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Perfect_World_(PWRD)/WikiChart
Neverwinter has no true raiding experience.
PVp dominance or pve dominance is based on Pay to win.
As long as players have the cash to spend they take their character and gear them out totally.
The problem with pay to win is that it removes skill from the game. And very quickly only those who want to spend money on the game all the time will dominate. This leads to shallow gameplay.
Gauntlgrym is and was a huge disappointment.
Its a huge disappointment because it was hyped to suggest some true endgame content and instead its just extra filler content.
And with pay to win in affect if one side has a group of players who have bought all their gear they will win.
BOSs AI is non-existent in this game.
Tera is the first action combat game that really has a sense of being a true open world mmo.
The ai of the mobs is actually really cool. Bosses actively will dodge attacks. Giving fights great strategy.
There are tons of classes to choose from giving more options for players.
IT is free to play.. and The pay options do not make it pay to win. Instead they believe in Equalized pvp.
EVeryone gets a full set of equal pvp gear. Meaning battles are determined by skill of the players.
So if your level 30.. and you que up.. you get into a bg and instantly your 60 with a full set of epic quality pvp gear.
you dont' have all your skills .. but health wise .. you do match up with everyone.
the PRofession system in Neverwinter is horrible.
IT requires a player spend alot of money to be able to max out their professions.
In tera you do not have that. You can acquire all the mats needed for Professions by the player farming on their own.
So a player is not forced into spending cash. Tera has a nice balance.
And thats what Neverwinter desperately needs.
NEverwinter needs to be balanced. Balanced Classes, More classes, Equalized Pvp. ,Equalized professions. Sophisticated Boss AI.
Have an open world system. Seriously that sense of grand adventure is missing from Neverwinter. This is what makes open world mmos so much fun. Considering this is based on D&D Lore.. and considering one of the greatest things about D&D is that sense of adventure for Neverwinter to not have that is really disappointing.
To add an expansion and not add classes.. that are sorely needed.. To not add True Raiding or sense of grand adventure and then to add more PAY TO Win packs.. really is going to harm this game.
Even if one had all the money in the world.. If all you did was pay for everything.. why even play? You have to feel inclined to want to earn new gear.
Neverwinter needs a tremendous amount of work.