Yeah I really enjoy open world pvp too, but this is one thing that I think is from d&d table, the fact that all are "good guys" and have to work together to beat evil. Imagine people ganking other in blackdagger district for example, it will be too little to gankers (because all maps are instances), and to bad to pvers, and then all will quit. I miss open pvp too, but understand the reaosn it does not exist.
It seems like your friends are more for single player games, or nwn RP servers. One of the reasons my friends love this game is because all of them love diablo series too, and love action games.
You didn't even touch on the more serious cases that I ran into.
My uncles cleric didn't use implosion but it could solo anything the game developers threw at it. He would literally act as a one man party and solo group content. If he was feeling nice he would let people follow but tell them not to interfere because more often than not people would end up getting themselves and/or him killed.
But the biggest example, to me, of an overpowered class was the shadowdancer. Stealth, crit sneak attack for hundreds of damage, rinse and repeat. That class caused DM's to put true seeing on so many more monsters than they normally would have just to apply some form of challenge.
As a player it was great fun. As somebody trying to make an enjoyable game for everybody it was a nightmare because now the creator has to decide whether to balance the game for the non-op, non-min-maxed characters and allow the content to be trivial for somebody like the shadowdancer or to balance the game for the shadowdancer or other OP characters while potentially making the game too difficult for the other players.
That's what D&D rules are. In PnP or small co-ops that can fly to some extent but in an MMO that wouldn't last. Notice how DDO doesn't allow players to be shadowdancers? I couldn't imagine why they haven't added that class...
See when i was playing NWN2 online (3.5) the shadowdancer class was nasty, very OP i agree. But that was part of the flavor.. We had fun dealing with theses OP builds, and of course had some of our own. I used a Dwarven Defender/ Fighter/Rogue/Red Dragon Deciple. Nasty and could compete with the best rogue/shadowdancers. Point being the challenge was FUN. The imbalance created the challenge which enhanced the enjoyment. No issue whatsoever with OP builds, in fact its a D&D standard as much as role play is imo.
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fermiMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited October 2013
5th edition goes back to Vancian magick? Ugh. Thanks for saving me the trouble of looking into it. I'm amazed at the players who earnestly argue for a system where players can spend huge chunks of time being largely useless or egregiously weaker than other players.
Yeah I really enjoy open world pvp too, but this is one thing that I think is from d&d table, the fact that all are "good guys" and have to work together to beat evil. Imagine people ganking other in blackdagger district for example, it will be too little to gankers (because all maps are instances), and to bad to pvers, and then all will quit. I miss open pvp too, but understand the reaosn it does not exist.
It seems like your friends are more for single player games, or nwn RP servers. One of the reasons my friends love this game is because all of them love diablo series too, and love action games.
Totally understand that man, myself.. this is the first action mmo ive ever played for longer then a week. The depth of player control and character diversity drives me a mine. Action shoot um ups i find it difficult to keep my interest as being a long time D&D player i feel the need to be immersed in the content and able to influence the adventure through RP. i get it though..:)
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arontimesMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited October 2013
The reason why there's no open PvP is that it is just not that popular. Eve Online is an anomaly and definitely not the norm, and it doesn't have the player base of mainstream MMOGs such as WoW (though WoW has both open and closed PvP servers) . Try to think of MMOGs as real life neighborhoods. Would you like to live in a neighborhood where you can get robbed/shot/stabbed at any time, where you can't trust anyone but your closest friends, and even then they might still shank you? Or would you prefer to live in a nicer neighborhood where you don't have to lock your doors at night and law enforcement arrives in less than five minutes to deal with trouble?
Want to know how an open PvP world feels like to those who don't like it? Watch the movie, The Purge.
P. S.
I spend most of my NWO game time nowadays doing PvP because it is far less frustrating than tier 2 dungeons. Yes, I'd rather face a full team of tenebrous enchantment users than play through a long and frustrating tier 2 dungeon for a small chance of getting something I can use. Basically, you can't accuse me of not knowing a thing about PvP.
5th edition goes back to Vancian magick? Ugh. Thanks for saving me the trouble of looking into it. I'm amazed at the players who earnestly argue for a system where players can spend huge chunks of time being largely useless or egregiously weaker than other players.
Im amazed at the obsession with class balancing. So many players are obsessed with comparing there builds to other players. My favorite toon ever was a specialist Diviner.... Stunk in combat, didnt have many dmg spells, but the flavor, using divining spells i could help the party way beyond anything combat oriented. Or a rogue whom has all the keys and can open all the doors, awesome skill sets that offer adventure options that would normally not exist for the group... I think many players have never experienced this type of character diversity so have no point of reference other then strait pvp combat. Action is but a tiny part of a D&D experience.. and that experience is lost with 4e mmo D&D.
The proof of whether or not a ruleset was popular is not in the number sold so much as how long it lasts, especially since many of the books and such have, in the past, been shrinkwrapped "for the protection of the books". If you can't see it, you don't know what's in it. Curiosity shopping is an art for TSR.
If you want to ask about what was "most popular", 1st edition lasted longer than 2nd which lasted longer than 3rd which lasted longer than 4th, and now TSR is desperately trying to come up with a system that gets them back on top to at least where 2nd was. 3rd, in my opinion, was just plain a mistake and a mistake that cost them lots of players like me who never looked back.
Neverwinter is their chance to get more players back into the old PnP, not the other way around. So Neverwinter works fine, mechanically, the way it is currently running, and to even try to change the ruleset would not only be a HUGE patch, it would be a huge mistake. Most video games that do such dramatic changes tend to lose audience, not gain. Huge gamble.
D&D is not a rule set. It is a Role Playing Game with DM interaction and unbalanced character diversity.... This stuff isnt offered in the neverwinter mmo D&D game... and of course this is the argument. When will this game stop falsely advertising its self as a Dungeons and Dragons Role Playing Game??
It advertises itself as an "action RPG/MMO". Which is different from a turn-based CRPG, which is different from a tactical CRPG, which is different from a tabletop RPG.
By most of the stricter definitions of "RPG" that tabletop people tend to use, 99.9% of digital RPGs, haven't been. It's just one of those things you need to deal with - a digital RPG isn't the same thing as tabletop. And both "action" and "MMO" further distance it. You can't have the same expectations, it's just not possible/practical.
----
(re: balance - personally, I wouldn't know anything about balance issues in NWN.... I played that game purely single player. Seeing "pvp" and "NWN" in the same sentence constantly throws me off balance, because I constantly forget that those games were even MP. But, anyway..... in multiplayer games, especially competitive & "massive" ones, some form of balance is needed. Otherwise, you end up in the situation where entire classes end up in the dustbin. And that's just no fun for the players who enjoy those classes - noone enjoys being a Melee DPS class during the MMO patch when all people want in parties is Ranged DPS... being essentially "left out" of an entire chapter of a game just sucks. And that's no way to keep customers. Which is kind of important to the people running the games. It's a bit different in the case of games like NWN, where the devs got their money up front when people bought it, and then whatever each little group of DM & players did was up to them - persistant online games with continuous revenue streams can't operate the same way.)
Pop culture defines this game. Take any sociology class and you will learn that whats popular usually has no lasting value. No lasting qualities. While certainly not always the case i think it directly relates to this game. D&D should never be compromised for such a reason.. jmo.
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arontimesMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited October 2013
Um... Diviner is actually pretty powerful in Core D&D 3.5, not because of raw power, but because of its versatility, i.e. you only have to select one prohibited school instead of two like the other specialists. On the flip side, Evokers are generally underpowered because their damage dice scale slower than monster HP unlike in earlier editions. In 2e, a 10d6 Fireball was deadly because everything stopped gaining or only gained 1 HP past level 10. However, in 3e, HP keeps increasing past level 10, so Fireball becomes a minor irritation whereas it had been a huge threat before.
4e, on the other hand, scaled back both HP and damage, or the former to a greater extent than the latter. It was also designed so that a PC could kill an equal level monster in four hits. As for D&D Next, one of its design goals is to make Evocation useful once more. Monster HP is much lower than in 3e, while damage dice is comparable to 3.5 psionic powers.
Dude, it's a series of games & stories (that has encompassed everything from cheesy arcade brawlers, to collectable cardgames, to miniatures games, to RPGs & CRPGs. Oh, and a lot of hack fantasy novels. And a couple terrible movies. And a Saturday morning cartoon.) Not some sacred object.
Dude, it's a series of games & stories (that has encompassed everything from cheesy arcade brawlers, to collectable cardgames, to miniatures games, to RPGs & CRPGs. Oh, and a lot of hack fantasy novels. And a couple terrible movies. And a Saturday morning cartoon.) Not some sacred object.
I recall being a bit worried that the game would have some sort of unholy mixture of D&D and Cryptic's own mechanics that they started with CO and continued with STO.
Well it does.
And it's great!
And now, frankly, I don't care. Whatever the hell it is, the combat system is IMHO one of the most fun to play and use of any MMO I've ever played. That the build system doesn't feel very D&D is, to me, not the major problem I thought it might have been.
The D&D "feel" in the game comes from the lore, the art design, the grouped dungeons and (most importantly) the Foundry (I've already played several superb, imaginative Foundry quests that I'm pretty sure must have been done by ex-DMs, with "proper" lore, good story and atmosphere, and they're great), and it's just fine.
Don't care about the ruleset as long as the keep it up with current Forgotten Realms lore. To me its more about the stories of the Forgotten Realms setting than DnD itself.
Halgarth's Legacy-NWS-DSTGFZHFR
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figgeMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I would like to see this game get an update to the D&D next RPG rules set.
First, it won't. It's not following any current D&D rules besides a few terms and basic concepts, so there are no rules to update.
4th edition rules was the least favorite rules set to begin with. The next rules set bring back alot of the older rules for spell casters. I have been playtesting the new rules and it is better way better then 4th edition.
Second, shut up. 4E was superior to everything that came before it. D&D Next is a money-grabbing scheme that serves no purpose except to let Mike Mearls make embarrasing statements about Warlords and to sell more books.
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fermiMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited October 2013
The thing with playing a role is that it's up to you. Always. I've had tabletop sessions where a player could be induced to roll dice and little more than that. And I've had MMO sessions where we stopped in the middle of a dungeon to examine a stray piece of game art and discuss as characters what its implications might be in the context of Valindra and the drow invasion. If RP is something you're looking for, you can find it anywhere. It's up to you.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
edited October 2013
4E is the Dungeons and Dragons that instead of caring about versimilitude, it cares about narrative. Instead of saying "Well, all dragons are X and all guys with swords are Y" they said "We want the game to be able to recreate this scene" where that scene was, say, five guys piling on a dragon and the dragon holding its own (instead of, say, the Dragon using its considerable amount of sorcerer spellcasting levels in order to self-buff itself or spam instant death spells or something).
But NWO isn't 4E, it's just set in the Forgotten Realms that was used for 4E. The real question is, what is NWO going to do when the realms gets "rebooted?" Whatever your thoughts on 4E, there was a huge backlash against the "post-apocalytpic realms" thing with the spellplague, an that's actually core to NWO's storyline. But there's some tales that there's going to be substantial changes to the realms future in that sense. So NWO may very well become a "legacy" story-it no longer will have any place in continuity.
Not that it was ever official to begin with.
Down with Neverember-long live King Nashe-oh wait, he's dead already, CARRY ON.
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lurksnomoreMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 6Arc User
But NWO isn't 4E, it's just set in the Forgotten Realms that was used for 4E. The real question is, what is NWO going to do when the realms gets "rebooted?" Whatever your thoughts on 4E, there was a huge backlash against the "post-apocalytpic realms" thing with the spellplague, an that's actually core to NWO's storyline. But there's some tales that there's going to be substantial changes to the realms future in that sense. So NWO may very well become a "legacy" story-it no longer will have any place in continuity.
I got my mitts on the 4e FR books (Campaign Setting and Player's Guide) last week, and was honestly surprised how little apocalyptic damage there was to the best-loved parts of the Realms. Dalelands, Cormyr, Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep, Silverymoon and its surroundings... they've changed a little, but are still instantly recognizable. As far as I can tell, the only places that got totally destroyed were places like Halruaa or Luiren; Mulhorand got wiped but replaced by the more interesting returned Imaskari empire, Thay went totally evil under Szass Tam's necromantic thumb, and the Shades who came back in 3e set up a new Netheril. As a fan of FR since the 1e grey box... I was surprisingly okay with the results. Some parts, like the divine soap opera leading to the deaths of Tyr, Helm and Mystra, were stupid, but overall it was a lot better than I had expected, and likely a lot better for new players and DMs who can't tell Sharandar from Shanatar.
Comments
It seems like your friends are more for single player games, or nwn RP servers. One of the reasons my friends love this game is because all of them love diablo series too, and love action games.
See when i was playing NWN2 online (3.5) the shadowdancer class was nasty, very OP i agree. But that was part of the flavor.. We had fun dealing with theses OP builds, and of course had some of our own. I used a Dwarven Defender/ Fighter/Rogue/Red Dragon Deciple. Nasty and could compete with the best rogue/shadowdancers. Point being the challenge was FUN. The imbalance created the challenge which enhanced the enjoyment. No issue whatsoever with OP builds, in fact its a D&D standard as much as role play is imo.
Totally understand that man, myself.. this is the first action mmo ive ever played for longer then a week. The depth of player control and character diversity drives me a mine. Action shoot um ups i find it difficult to keep my interest as being a long time D&D player i feel the need to be immersed in the content and able to influence the adventure through RP. i get it though..:)
Want to know how an open PvP world feels like to those who don't like it? Watch the movie, The Purge.
P. S.
I spend most of my NWO game time nowadays doing PvP because it is far less frustrating than tier 2 dungeons. Yes, I'd rather face a full team of tenebrous enchantment users than play through a long and frustrating tier 2 dungeon for a small chance of getting something I can use. Basically, you can't accuse me of not knowing a thing about PvP.
Taking a break from Neverwinter indefinitely...
Im amazed at the obsession with class balancing. So many players are obsessed with comparing there builds to other players. My favorite toon ever was a specialist Diviner.... Stunk in combat, didnt have many dmg spells, but the flavor, using divining spells i could help the party way beyond anything combat oriented. Or a rogue whom has all the keys and can open all the doors, awesome skill sets that offer adventure options that would normally not exist for the group... I think many players have never experienced this type of character diversity so have no point of reference other then strait pvp combat. Action is but a tiny part of a D&D experience.. and that experience is lost with 4e mmo D&D.
If you want to ask about what was "most popular", 1st edition lasted longer than 2nd which lasted longer than 3rd which lasted longer than 4th, and now TSR is desperately trying to come up with a system that gets them back on top to at least where 2nd was. 3rd, in my opinion, was just plain a mistake and a mistake that cost them lots of players like me who never looked back.
Neverwinter is their chance to get more players back into the old PnP, not the other way around. So Neverwinter works fine, mechanically, the way it is currently running, and to even try to change the ruleset would not only be a HUGE patch, it would be a huge mistake. Most video games that do such dramatic changes tend to lose audience, not gain. Huge gamble.
It advertises itself as an "action RPG/MMO". Which is different from a turn-based CRPG, which is different from a tactical CRPG, which is different from a tabletop RPG.
By most of the stricter definitions of "RPG" that tabletop people tend to use, 99.9% of digital RPGs, haven't been. It's just one of those things you need to deal with - a digital RPG isn't the same thing as tabletop. And both "action" and "MMO" further distance it. You can't have the same expectations, it's just not possible/practical.
----
(re: balance - personally, I wouldn't know anything about balance issues in NWN.... I played that game purely single player. Seeing "pvp" and "NWN" in the same sentence constantly throws me off balance, because I constantly forget that those games were even MP. But, anyway..... in multiplayer games, especially competitive & "massive" ones, some form of balance is needed. Otherwise, you end up in the situation where entire classes end up in the dustbin. And that's just no fun for the players who enjoy those classes - noone enjoys being a Melee DPS class during the MMO patch when all people want in parties is Ranged DPS... being essentially "left out" of an entire chapter of a game just sucks. And that's no way to keep customers. Which is kind of important to the people running the games. It's a bit different in the case of games like NWN, where the devs got their money up front when people bought it, and then whatever each little group of DM & players did was up to them - persistant online games with continuous revenue streams can't operate the same way.)
4e, on the other hand, scaled back both HP and damage, or the former to a greater extent than the latter. It was also designed so that a PC could kill an equal level monster in four hits. As for D&D Next, one of its design goals is to make Evocation useful once more. Monster HP is much lower than in 3e, while damage dice is comparable to 3.5 psionic powers.
Well, that's all for now...
Taking a break from Neverwinter indefinitely...
Dude, it's a series of games & stories (that has encompassed everything from cheesy arcade brawlers, to collectable cardgames, to miniatures games, to RPGs & CRPGs. Oh, and a lot of hack fantasy novels. And a couple terrible movies. And a Saturday morning cartoon.) Not some sacred object.
Oh but it is.. Its the game of all games..
Well it does.
And it's great!
And now, frankly, I don't care. Whatever the hell it is, the combat system is IMHO one of the most fun to play and use of any MMO I've ever played. That the build system doesn't feel very D&D is, to me, not the major problem I thought it might have been.
The D&D "feel" in the game comes from the lore, the art design, the grouped dungeons and (most importantly) the Foundry (I've already played several superb, imaginative Foundry quests that I'm pretty sure must have been done by ex-DMs, with "proper" lore, good story and atmosphere, and they're great), and it's just fine.
First, it won't. It's not following any current D&D rules besides a few terms and basic concepts, so there are no rules to update.
Second, shut up. 4E was superior to everything that came before it. D&D Next is a money-grabbing scheme that serves no purpose except to let Mike Mearls make embarrasing statements about Warlords and to sell more books.
But NWO isn't 4E, it's just set in the Forgotten Realms that was used for 4E. The real question is, what is NWO going to do when the realms gets "rebooted?" Whatever your thoughts on 4E, there was a huge backlash against the "post-apocalytpic realms" thing with the spellplague, an that's actually core to NWO's storyline. But there's some tales that there's going to be substantial changes to the realms future in that sense. So NWO may very well become a "legacy" story-it no longer will have any place in continuity.
Not that it was ever official to begin with.
Down with Neverember-long live King Nashe-oh wait, he's dead already, CARRY ON.