I'm a 12.3k DC in ''cookie-cutter'' HP set with a normal Vorpal and rank 6s and the fastest I have cleared legit ToS is 30 minutes and that is because I had a 15k CW nuke and 16k GWF cruise missile to drop on things. These two are power gamers that farm ToS often and occasionally invite me because I can buff the GWF into the next millennium. With my regular group of ''lowly'' 11.5 - 13ks in rank 6s with the odd rank 7 we'll just about start a second ToS run within the hour and wiping is not uncommon with them. I've been in PUGs in the 10 - 13k range that have been stone-walled by Syndryth because maybe only one or two players actually have the DPS to deal with Syndryth, which isn't enough.
Not all of us are 14/15k+. I still haven't even killed the Drac in CN.
So yeah, by all means, make Syndryth even harder to kill.
PSA: You don't need to grind Spinward Rise for your Elemental artifact main hand if you have some AD lying around. You can craft it via the Tyranny of Dragon's campaign screen.
What I meant, people were exploiting not because it was cool or fast, most importantly because beating the content fair was hard. After 1 year and the same old dungeons, you can finally roflstomp like a level 60 roflstomps level 20 dungeons. It's called progress.
OK, I am agree with you but this that he show is not exploit but good management on buffs/debuffs and just show how much broken the game mechanic is.
Diminishing returns for debuffs would in no way effect the "10 wipes before the pirate king" parties.
Yeah it would, actually, because those parties that struggle with PK don't always have uniformly mediocre gear. If you are the overgeared TR in a party of 4 undergeared other players who get stymied by PK, or more realistically, by Syndryth or Pyraphenia, you're gonna wish you had those debuffs to their fullest benefit in order to help carry your undergeared team through the challenging content (challenging for them, anyway).
And the larger point, though, is that you seem to be suggesting that you want to cut the ladder out from behind you. Because life at the top of the mountain is so boring for you, you seem to want to make the struggle to REACH the top of the mountain HARDER. Everybody goes through that phase where, taking ToS as an example:
First phase: "Syndryth is so hard! I give up."
Second phase: "We barely managed to beat Syndryth after a few wipes."
Third phase: "Syndryth is a roflstomp cakewalk, lol."
And a lot of times, the only way you are able to get to the second phase is because you DO have an overgeared player or two on the team helping to carry you through. If you nerf those players, you hinder the ability for the entire rest of the team to get their T2 gear from the DD chest, the ones who really need the gear in order to progress so that they can eventually get to the top of the mountain where you are at.
And, to be quite frank, at some point I would like to get to the top of the mountain too and experience this level of boredom that you seem to do. You don't seem to want to let me do that.
But I am glad that you wrote your comments. Perhaps more of the overgeared players will read this and realize that the reason why dungeon runs *for them* go so quickly and so smoothly has more to do with the stacking of these debuffs, and is less about the inherent skill of these players. I was in a PUG group in PK just yesterday with my undergeared GWF, trying to gear it up, and the overgeared CW was raging at the entire rest of the team for "slowing him down" and "wasting his DD time". Well guess what, we don't have the gear and the enchants that make everything melt instantly, so stop yelling at us, stop assuming we are slow because we're bad players, and realize how the game mechanics actually work. Our PK run took 20-25 minutes and that was considered an utter travesty for this person, lol.
So yeah, by all means, make Syndryth even harder to kill.
You're missing his point, though. It's not "make boss X harder" it's "fix mechanics that can otherwise be hilariously multiplied".
With your 30min 15k CW/16k GWF nuke group: add in another CW and a buffbot GF and BAM you're down to 15mins because buffs stack multiplicatively. 3x +50% damage buffs should equal +150% damage, not +238% damage. 4 should be +200%, not +406%.
Damage increase essentially goes up geometrically, not arithmetically.
I mean, I'm still personally happy for things to remain as they are, coz the difficulty is about right for me, but if you can stack debuffs like that, it will make things easier.
You're missing his point, though. It's not "make boss X harder" it's "fix mechanics that can otherwise be hilariously multiplied".
With your 30min 15k CW/16k GWF nuke group: add in another CW and a buffbot GF and BAM you're down to 15mins because buffs stack multiplicatively. 3x +50% damage buffs should equal +150% damage, not +238% damage. 4 should be +200%, not +406%.
Damage increase essentially goes up geometrically, not arithmetically.
I mean, I'm still personally happy for things to remain as they are, coz the difficulty is about right for me, but if you can stack debuffs like that, it will make things easier.
The point, though, is that for a lot of PUGs, the *only way* that they can gear up is with the big assist from the 15k CW/16k GWF. Nerf these players and you hinder the ability of the 9k-11k players to get their DD chests too.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
edited February 2014
Im in the HP set, with plaguefire.. why not remove the last thing DCs are good for, without our multiplicative buffs, there is no reason to bring a DC into most dungeons. Im only at 12.3k gearscore, so no means perfected. But If I do my job well, I know Im helping out the best I can. Unless there is a massive redirection of how the game is designed, this is basically what a DC should be. Buffer/Debuffer first, mitigation second and healer third. Its hard enough to convince people that the extra DC IS worth it. Most people do not even know what a DC does, alot of times they think a DC is a healer, even when you run with people in the 12-13k range, I cant tell you how many HRs get within a second of death , becuase they cant move .5 meter to HG or AS circles, Im not going to waste my time slotting HW during the trash runs.. just move into the glowy things =P...
Also, chew on this, Cryptic has made it increasingly harder to gear up in this game..
1. Reduced the amount of blue potent marks.
2. Reduced the amount of C wards.
3. Items you can achieve during DD without the random roll wins are all Bind on Pickup, making them only salvable for 5-6k at most astral diamonds.
4. Increased the cost of lower fusings.
This has basically made 2-3 player base levels, most of us will probably never see one character totally geared out before we move on from this game, as they make it ever harder for new players such as myself to achieve it. There isnt another MMO, I havent been at least 90% geared after 3-4 months of playing, kind of a new experience for me, I see the total cost of getting a few R8 enchants, for players who have been here for a year, who exploited, who could rake in money before everything was bind on pickup, its a different story. Go roll a new class, without using your other toons to gear up. You will not find it easy.
Secondly, most experienced players only want to run with experienced players, who are geared so they can maximize the time they run through during DD hours, understandable, because that's how Cryptic set it up. Most other mmos, bringing in 1-2 new people during a run, showing them how to run it ect, doesn't hurt as much, because there is no such thing as DD hours, you can run anytime, if they want to limit content, they may put a daily lock on a run, but you can always bring new people in, so even if one person quits, its not a big deal.
As a member of the Legit_NW community, even when in a party I attack the foes 1v1, solo. If someone comes and help me then Iswitch to another foe.
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baylen76Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited February 2014
While an interesting read, the original post is too constructed and papery. It makes GF and DC look shiny and uber, while in reality these are the first classes to get cut out when dungeons are lucrative to farm. Fact. Implicitly asking to nerf their perks (they'll kill the game, doom!) means amplifying the real problems we have, like an immobile, unattractive GF class (at least PVE-wise).
I originally ran a 17k GF, with KC set. He's shelved now, these days I only kite the occasional FH adds to help out guildies. Ironic, isn't it? Think about the roles (new) players envision for themselves when rolling characters. The plate-wearing guardian fighter with his mighty sword, out to taunt baddies, protecting the party. The hero in shining armour, now reduced to chicken-running adds within a corner while the party takes care of the rest. Yeah, I'm totally convinced what we need now is more GF-set-nerfing in order to kill those, uh, three remaining GFs out there.
You have more a point about DCs, but DCs are factually limited by constantly having to replenish divinity and AP. Fast-killing CWs actually keep DC potential reined in, as stuff that dies too quickly means no/less divinity/AP for the cleric, as these are dependant on (connecting) casts. It's self-controlling, and thus not a problem. You can have one OR the other, but not both continually at the same time. And you know what? It's GOOD BALANCING that way. In a slow party, DC can compensate for the lack of damage with a higher buff-uptime to encounter ratio while in an overgeared party, DCs are factually running at half speed as the CWs already nuked it all down. It's a design job well done, and nothing to complain about. Good drama though, would read again.
Are there titles for "i told you so" 6 months ago?
Ok, diogenes, persephone, and a few others who are inteligent and civil posters and know the game in deep, all of us have been warning about the ease of the game once you KNOW the game, yeah, wasn'nt 15 minutes ToS 6 months ago, but i was used to do 20m LEGIT ones before module1, so, even if after 2 rounds of boons and the new artifacts, after the top guilds learned how to maximize stacking buff/debuffs all has become a rolfstomp (i did 2 days ago a FREAKING 2 min draco kill!!!!!) but has been this way always...
And always have been the total opposite for pugs and casual playerbase, people who find t2 dungs almost too hard, people who never cared for respecc to a better dps build (or simply does'nt want to) people who "just play this way" (after i decided to never join a guild again, a few months ago, i mostly pug and when i give people orders to improve pug's perfomance i've received that same answer a few times already) people who just hate "cookie cutter" builds, as if improving your toon wasnt one of the goals of any role freaking playing game, or if those same builds are only a guide, you are wellcome to add improvements if you find one.
But in the middle there are a whole lot of players who intend to improve, players who run in their guilds with their friends, who intend to improve their skill, who even if now they're in 5s,6s and lesser/normal enchants they farm and try to get to 8s,10s and greaters/perfects, and having the same knowledge of teamplay and the same "boreness" we are having now, and those are the ones beneffited the most by post like this one, constructive feedback to make the game better in the long run.
I've been saying for a long time this game needs a "non ressurrectable toons" mode, i dont even care about the rewards, can be the same, maybe just our name and title in red to identify between us, to showoff our epeens if you want to see it this way, in fact, i would love that mode to not even have a Zen store ressurrect, or if it exist, to be really expensive.
But... But... Maybe I like my 100k Aimed shots and Rain of Arrows Ticking for 20k running with two CW and one GWF guildies? As some other people have mentioned, we don't need to increase the difficulty of current content as that will be unfair to new players. Instead the next content update should come with some actual decently ramped up difficulty. I mean VT does have some difficulty, but honestly as a fresh 60 HR with a 10.2 GS I was able to plow through the Dread dailies and Dungeons.
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pers3phoneBanned Users, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited February 2014
Anyway.
This is an MMO.
It should go like this:
- new expansion hits, hard bosses, progression farm time. Great new rewards (NOT BLUES!!!).
- More difficulty settings: pug (easy), friends group (normal), guild on voice chat (hardcore).
- rewards range from: nice epics (easy), good epics (normal), great epics&legendaries (hardcore)
- expansion at an end of cycle, people geared up, can many times solo even raiding content from previous expansion. No problems here, working as intended. Current expansion HARDCORE content remains very challenging
In Neverwinter these things are just broken. There are no proper difficulty settings, 2 new expansions brought only 2 mew (pretty bad...) dungeons with (pretty bad...) loot. It's like they are mocking us.
After 2 expansions - we can still realistically just farm Castle Never.
So why in the world should I want a better challenge - if I get nothing in return?!?
Keep in mind - I was a hardcore raider from a culture where hard content was all that we did. This included at one point wiping at the same boss 20-30 times/evening for 2-3 weeks as part of progression.
But we had PROPER, AMAZING REWARDS. Here we get slap in the face.
Without proper rewards, I'm not interested in making the content harder. Maybe only if they make a new CN with BoE loot very hard, so I can farm and sell to those that can't - that would be OK - but with new loot being BoP, this is not a realistic desire.
I strongly disagree here persephone, what MMOs where and what they are now dont need to be the same, in fact, i hated grinds with passion, i hated the involvement needed to be upper echelon in previous MMOs, because i usually play 4-5 games at once, i do 4 hours of Micro stakes in a popular poker site daily to pay my bills, i keep playing Magic online... i dont want to dedicate myself 4-6 hours in new MMOs to progress and get to the top, this game is doing that right, but those lame rewards (blues FFS) are a mistake, but i like the fact that playing 2 hours a day any player can go to 15k+ gs and perfects in 2 months, but we, hardcore players, need a bone, we supported the game for a year, spent some money on it, give us something worthwile, a freaking hard dungeon, a scale of difficulty or my desired "unressurectable mode"
But... But... Maybe I like my 100k Aimed shots and Rain of Arrows Ticking for 20k running with two CW and one GWF guildies? As some other people have mentioned, we don't need to increase the difficulty of current content as that will be unfair to new players. Instead the next content update should come with some actual decently ramped up difficulty. I mean VT does have some difficulty, but honestly as a fresh 60 HR with a 10.2 GS I was able to plow through the Dread dailies and Dungeons.
New level 60's are supposed to be able to "plow through" Sharandar and Dread Ring. They are level 60 mobs. Don't see how that is a criticism.
- new expansion hits, hard bosses, progression farm time. Great new rewards (NOT BLUES!!!).
- More difficulty settings: pug (easy), friends group (normal), guild on voice chat (hardcore).
- rewards range from: nice epics (easy), good epics (normal), great epics&legendaries (hardcore)
- expansion at an end of cycle, people geared up, can many times solo even raiding content from previous expansion. No problems here, working as intended. Current expansion HARDCORE content remains very challenging
In Neverwinter these things are just broken. There are no proper difficulty settings, 2 new expansions brought only 2 mew (pretty bad...) dungeons with (pretty bad...) loot. It's like they are mocking us.
After 2 expansions - we can still realistically just farm Castle Never.
So why in the world should I want a better challenge - if I get nothing in return?!?
Keep in mind - I was a hardcore raider from a culture where hard content was all that we did. This included at one point wiping at the same boss 20-30 times/evening for 2-3 weeks as part of progression.
But we had PROPER, AMAZING REWARDS. Here we get slap in the face.
Without proper rewards, I'm not interested in making the content harder. Maybe only if they make a new CN with BoE loot very hard, so I can farm and sell to those that can't - that would be OK - but with new loot being BoP, this is not a realistic desire.
I feel this also is a major issue, and I wish the development team would take notice to it.
When I beat end game content in any MMO I do it for certain reasons. I beat a dungeon/raid once for the accomplishment, then a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, .... for farming. I really find no reason to even bother with CN, MC, or VT without an organized guild group where someone is requesting to do it. The reward vs wiping just Isn't there. Why risk wasting an hour with a PUG who can't manage to finish the content for a very low chance of something useful dropping for me? I'd much rather just farm an easy T2 for sellable items.
My HR is now at around 15k GS, I have done around 40 T2 dungeons including one MC, one VT, and no CN runs. I have had a total of 2 T2 set pieces and an off-hand actually drop/DD chest for me. Yet I have all T2 items because of selling other drops to just purchase the pieces I want. Also, my MH is T2 PvP I bought with Grym Coins. So again, why bother risking VT, MC, and CN when I pretty much know what I want isn't going to drop?
I want to see new and challenging content with a guaranteed drop that comes down to Need rolls... not a 10% chance of anything useful dropping and a 2% of it being something I need...
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pers3phoneBanned Users, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I strongly disagree here persephone, what MMOs where and what they are now dont need to be the same, in fact, i hated grinds with passion, i hated the involvement needed to be upper echelon in previous MMOs, because i usually play 4-5 games at once, i do 4 hours of Micro stakes in a popular poker site daily to pay my bills, i keep playing Magic online... i dont want to dedicate myself 4-6 hours in new MMOs to progress and get to the top, this game is doing that right, but those lame rewards (blues FFS) are a mistake, but i like the fact that playing 2 hours a day any player can go to 15k+ gs and perfects in 2 months, but we, hardcore players, need a bone, we supported the game for a year, spent some money on it, give us something worthwile, a freaking hard dungeon, a scale of difficulty or my desired "unressurectable mode"
Hardcore Mode is more like ARPG style not MMO :P Dunno what to say. I personally wouldn't play that, in MMOs I focus on improving 1 char to BiS since I don't have time&resources for more.
Now, about the rest. In WoW (I will talk about how things were in Cataclysm, my last expansion), there was LFR, Normal, Heroic raiding difficulty. Normal was already quite hard. I went to Cata after a long hiatus that my guild took after burning out badly on Sunwell Plateau, as we worked like mad for server-first kills 9back then raiding was one difficulty.
The 3 difficulties I found were an amazing implementation. I worked heroic dungeons, then LFR raid, then I was able to pug Normal Dragon Soul (it was VERY challenging and offered VERY good rewards).
Then I went into Heroic Dragon Soul. Rewards were just slightly better - yet present.
Why did I explain all this? Because even if you were just pugging DS Normal mode, you already had pro gear and was pretty much an elite player. Only the very top players were able to invest time for Heroic mode.
So you feel this would be so very bad if some people were stuck in easy/lfr mode, some in Normal, and only 1% go to Heroic? I think this is how it should be. I was stuck myself for a while in Normal mode. It's good to have a very top end elite layer. It's good to have meaningful progression.
Because in NWO, progression doesn't mean anything. It's all just casual dungeoneering. And getting a bit boring
Interesting. So people who wipe 10 times at a specific boss think I want to make the game harder for them. Not really. I think I've mentioned enough my concerns (yes, they're here) to keep at least T2 content accessible and enjoyable for everyone.
Diogene0,
I think I see your reasoning behind your suggestion to make buffs capped or subjected to DR. And it might be a selfless act, which would only hit you and other 15k ++ GS players.
Another view, the other part of me that does not want to see your reasoning, is longing for the point where I finally might be able to make a ToS run with selected friends in 15 minutes.
Well, while it's been fun for a few weeks, it's now just boring.
In my position my goal is to achieve your fun level, your shrug with a shoulder to kill Fullminorax. BY implementing your suggestions I might never have that fun you already enjoyed from the game. That fun that bores you now. I am looking forward to have that kind of fun.
Lets say, you are on the top of the mountain and demand a higher one.
I, on the other hand, stand somewhere @ 75% height and glimpse the top, where I want to go. This where I say that your quest for "more difficult" meets my "I can see my goal, but this dio* guy wants to declare a new goal when I am 75% there".
I don't know what I do when or if I reach your skill level or item level. I might never reach it.
But I think that I should also have the possibility to get to the point where you are now, where the game is easy. You are there now, and want to raise THIS level, making it for me impossible to once reach that point.
Maybe it is time for you to move on?
Imaginary Friends are the best friends you can have!
The point, though, is that for a lot of PUGs, the *only way* that they can gear up is with the big assist from the 15k CW/16k GWF. Nerf these players and you hinder the ability of the 9k-11k players to get their DD chests too.
I feel I should address this, quickly.
Fixing stacking would not alter this. If you're a pug team being essentially carried, you are not bringing a 15k CW to carry you because of their debuff bonus, because a 10k CW can provide exactly the same debuff:it's feat/armour set based. You are bringing a 15K CW because they have a much higher damage output and (more importantly) have probably run the dungeon in question so many times they could probably do it in their sleep.
What the debuff stacking allows is for you to design teams (no pugs here kthxbai) to maximise damage output, using players that ALREADY have a grotesque damage output.
Essentially, the power curve for this game is a lot more....exponential than it probably should be, and much of that exponent comes from the way in which buffs and debuffs are applied. That's the thing with geometric vs arithmetic amplification: for small values, multiplicative approaches are similar to additive ones. And for negatives, they're actually worse than additive approaches (see foresight + benefit of foresight: testing strongly suggests it's multiplicative, so rather than 11% DR (5% + 6%) it's 10.7% (0.95*0.94)). Most stuff in this game is applied positively however, i.e. debuffs are not "reductions in monster defense", they're simply "increases in your own damage". And this allows exponent craziness to occur.
So a '5% reduction in monster defense' is actually simply multiplying your own damage by 1.05.
If this is applied once, your damage is simply 1.05x normal.
Stacked twice, this is now NOT 1.1x, it's 1.125x. Small difference, but small values here.
Stacked three times? 1.157625x instead of 1.15. Still small beer.
But now picture a bossfight where you have 5 stacks of one thing that does this, 5 stacks of another, 3 stacks of a further debuff, and 3 stacks on yet another debuff (this is not uncommon). Again, all "5% reduction in monster defense"
So 16x5, you'd think damage would be =1.8x, right? Instead it's closer to 2.2x.
And that's with a measly 5% debuff. This game regularly throws around 10% debuffs and more, all of which stack. Hence the 100,000+ damage per single hit and so on.
None of this applies to a pug group with a single high-gear dude, though. Because they won't have the damage output to take advantage of the buff stacking, and probably won't have the skill to build the stacks anyway. The high gear dude is basically just there to do lots of murderin'.
(still don't think they should change it, though. That's just me being purely selfish, of course, because I'm currently enjoying the content enormously. If I ever get so overgeared it all becomes boring, then...that's probably a good thing for my free-time budget)
I think stacking buffs & debuffs is okay, but they should not stack from same class, so no more 3x CW, DC, GWF groups. Anyway TR & GF needs some buff for pve, there is no reason to have them in group right now, GWF can do both roles better (single target dps & tanking). Not sure about HR because I don't play him, but he looks too little useless.
No, it wouldn't. But putting DR on the debuffs with a hard cap will.
And let's just be real honest about this. When we all first started doing T2 dungeons, we were *all* carried along to one degree or another by better players. I highly doubt that the first time your team completed any T2 dungeon was the very first time *for your whole team*.
So fine, fix the stacking. But don't inhibit the ability of higher geared/skilled players to help assist the lower geared/skilled players along through content *which is still challenging for the average player*.
No, it wouldn't. But putting DR on the debuffs with a hard cap will.
And let's just be real honest about this. When we all first started doing T2 dungeons, we were *all* carried along to one degree or another by better players. I highly doubt that the first time your team completed any T2 dungeon was the very first time *for your whole team*.
So fine, fix the stacking. But don't inhibit the ability of higher geared/skilled players to help assist the lower geared/skilled players along through content *which is still challenging for the average player*.
Well a debuff diminishing return wouldn't effect the ability to carry players, because the player you carry either don't have the gear, experience, or the build, to stack debuffs. If they do, they aren't being carried. It will depend on what formula the devs chose - if they ever implement such a feature. Some formulas can have little to no influence at low debuff levels but may slow down the damage increase madness at the other end. I'm not going to post maths stuff because many wouldn't get it, but, you know, it's easily doable.
Pointsman: I dunno, I pretty much pugged exclusively until I found the _Legit channel.
And yes, sure: the pug groups often failed, but this was also incredibly educational. I still wouldn't say I'm a great player, but all that frustration certainly made me a BETTER one, much more aware of the limits of my (and other) classes.
There's a certainly degree of validity in saying that carrying people is detrimental. Teaching, yes, but you can do that at any gearscore. If I take a freshly-dinged 60 into a T2 now, I'll have a much better chance of finishing it than I would've way back when, just because now I know that dungeon. "The important things to do with this boss are X Y and Z" and so on.
I think stacking buffs & debuffs is okay, but they should not stack from same class, so no more 3x CW, DC, GWF groups. Anyway TR & GF needs some buff for pve, there is no reason to have them in group right now, GWF can do both roles better (single target dps & tanking). Not sure about HR because I don't play him, but he looks too little useless.
GF has the 2 best buffs of the game KC set and into the fray... and tactician can even BUFF into the fray... resulting in MASSIVE party dps increase and speed of the run, still, if into the fray uptime was boosted to 90-100% instead of the buffs they're testing in preview... not a single party would run without GF.
All I can say is, I can still remember how frustrating it was to attempt Temple of the Spider the first time and to wipe within 30 seconds of entering the final boss chamber due to the blademasters, and to ultimately abandon the run because we couldn't figure it out. I am grateful to those who did come along later, with better skill and gear, and help to show me how the fight was supposed to be done, and now that my CW is in a position to help others with these fights (although certainly not at diogenes' level), I would like to retain the ability to help others gear up, as well as to have assistance with new characters that I am trying to gear up, like the assistance that was provided for my CW. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the top 1% of the top 1% for whom all content is easy, I have a lot more sympathy for everyone else in the vast middle for whom T2 dungeons are still a challenge and a struggle.
I'm genuinely baffled by these posts claiming the game is too easy. Many of the reasons are already mentioned here, but worth repeating. Look at what happened after Mod 2; boons, artifacts, cheap r5s, etc. Your toons should be incredibly more powerful than they were, and if your team is well geared you should be able to blow through previous contents.
We shouldn't ask to make existing content harder. There are still fresh 60s, new players coming into the game who don't have all rank 9-10s, boons, top gears, and the experience to necessary complete the dungeons. New players are the lifeblood to any game. Making existing content harder is suicide from a business standpoint. Instead, we should ask for new, harder content. Content made for people who are capable of doing what you do, blow through Tos in 12 min.
But we are not asking for the game to become harder, the post ask for tweaking how debuff stacking works, and well, the possibility of a difficulty ladder/scale, i do want the new players to enjoy the game (albeit i always found it too easy) but i want to keep enjoying the game now and in the future.
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onecoolscatcatMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 575Arc User
edited February 2014
I'm happy with debuffs as they are. Frankly, dungeons wouldn't be possible without them. Enemies are too numerous and have too many hitpoints. Debuffs are an integral part of successfully playing your class. Thanks for highlighting debuff importance.
GF has the 2 best buffs of the game KC set and into the fray... and tactician can even BUFF into the fray... resulting in MASSIVE party dps increase and speed of the run, still, if into the fray uptime was boosted to 90-100% instead of the buffs they're testing in preview... not a single party would run without GF.
Hmmm . What znudenej said , is a parallel , but relevant discussion .
I confess I 'm not much aware about the rogue single damage . But I do not think do gwf or cw have best single damage. What you have is a fantastic aoe + specific peculiarities . In other words , individually , the classes are not competitors .
The problems are multiple of the same class . If you compose the group with multiple cw or gwf you do not become more vulnerable individual , but their qualities multiply ... aoe damage of 5 cw / gwf definitely surpasses the single damage of rogue + its own peculiarities .
If you make the same power of multiple characters of the same class does not vanish ( cc / debuff / dot ) you must bring the partys balance without reducing qualitatively anyone.
This is a point
Overcome this obstacle , creating parallel versions for each dungeon is another . Change the mechanics of the game itself seems Russian roulette with programming . I am against for various reasons .
GF has the 2 best buffs of the game KC set and into the fray... and tactician can even BUFF into the fray... resulting in MASSIVE party dps increase and speed of the run, still, if into the fray uptime was boosted to 90-100% instead of the buffs they're testing in preview... not a single party would run without GF.
KC set bonus is great and can provide alot power for party. AP gain & speed from from into the fray can be too usefull, but still you can tank with GWF who have student of the sword and get 3rd CW.
Hmmm . What znudenej said , is a parallel , but relevant discussion .
I confess I 'm not much aware about the rogue single damage . But I do not think do gwf or cw have best single damage. What you have is a fantastic aoe + specific peculiarities . In other words , individually , the classes are not competitors .
The problems are multiple of the same class . If you compose the group with multiple cw or gwf you do not become more vulnerable individual , but their qualities multiply ... aoe damage of 5 cw / gwf definitely surpasses the single damage of rogue + its own peculiarities .
If you make the same power of multiple characters of the same class does not vanish ( cc / debuff / dot ) you must bring the partys balance without reducing qualitatively anyone.
This is a point
Overcome this obstacle , creating parallel versions for each dungeon is another . Change the mechanics of the game itself seems Russian roulette with programming . I am against for various reasons .
Destroyer GWF literally took TRs job as melee single target damage dealer because TRs debuff is too far in scoundrel tree and sadly only executioner is really dps viable spec. Thanks god (devs) at least for overrun critical.
So destroyer GWF do +- same dps as TR, but can provide debuff for party, aoe dmg and is more tanky.
Comments
Not all of us are 14/15k+. I still haven't even killed the Drac in CN.
So yeah, by all means, make Syndryth even harder to kill.
OK, I am agree with you but this that he show is not exploit but good management on buffs/debuffs and just show how much broken the game mechanic is.
Yeah it would, actually, because those parties that struggle with PK don't always have uniformly mediocre gear. If you are the overgeared TR in a party of 4 undergeared other players who get stymied by PK, or more realistically, by Syndryth or Pyraphenia, you're gonna wish you had those debuffs to their fullest benefit in order to help carry your undergeared team through the challenging content (challenging for them, anyway).
And the larger point, though, is that you seem to be suggesting that you want to cut the ladder out from behind you. Because life at the top of the mountain is so boring for you, you seem to want to make the struggle to REACH the top of the mountain HARDER. Everybody goes through that phase where, taking ToS as an example:
First phase: "Syndryth is so hard! I give up."
Second phase: "We barely managed to beat Syndryth after a few wipes."
Third phase: "Syndryth is a roflstomp cakewalk, lol."
And a lot of times, the only way you are able to get to the second phase is because you DO have an overgeared player or two on the team helping to carry you through. If you nerf those players, you hinder the ability for the entire rest of the team to get their T2 gear from the DD chest, the ones who really need the gear in order to progress so that they can eventually get to the top of the mountain where you are at.
And, to be quite frank, at some point I would like to get to the top of the mountain too and experience this level of boredom that you seem to do. You don't seem to want to let me do that.
But I am glad that you wrote your comments. Perhaps more of the overgeared players will read this and realize that the reason why dungeon runs *for them* go so quickly and so smoothly has more to do with the stacking of these debuffs, and is less about the inherent skill of these players. I was in a PUG group in PK just yesterday with my undergeared GWF, trying to gear it up, and the overgeared CW was raging at the entire rest of the team for "slowing him down" and "wasting his DD time". Well guess what, we don't have the gear and the enchants that make everything melt instantly, so stop yelling at us, stop assuming we are slow because we're bad players, and realize how the game mechanics actually work. Our PK run took 20-25 minutes and that was considered an utter travesty for this person, lol.
You're missing his point, though. It's not "make boss X harder" it's "fix mechanics that can otherwise be hilariously multiplied".
With your 30min 15k CW/16k GWF nuke group: add in another CW and a buffbot GF and BAM you're down to 15mins because buffs stack multiplicatively. 3x +50% damage buffs should equal +150% damage, not +238% damage. 4 should be +200%, not +406%.
Damage increase essentially goes up geometrically, not arithmetically.
I mean, I'm still personally happy for things to remain as they are, coz the difficulty is about right for me, but if you can stack debuffs like that, it will make things easier.
The point, though, is that for a lot of PUGs, the *only way* that they can gear up is with the big assist from the 15k CW/16k GWF. Nerf these players and you hinder the ability of the 9k-11k players to get their DD chests too.
Also, chew on this, Cryptic has made it increasingly harder to gear up in this game..
1. Reduced the amount of blue potent marks.
2. Reduced the amount of C wards.
3. Items you can achieve during DD without the random roll wins are all Bind on Pickup, making them only salvable for 5-6k at most astral diamonds.
4. Increased the cost of lower fusings.
This has basically made 2-3 player base levels, most of us will probably never see one character totally geared out before we move on from this game, as they make it ever harder for new players such as myself to achieve it. There isnt another MMO, I havent been at least 90% geared after 3-4 months of playing, kind of a new experience for me, I see the total cost of getting a few R8 enchants, for players who have been here for a year, who exploited, who could rake in money before everything was bind on pickup, its a different story. Go roll a new class, without using your other toons to gear up. You will not find it easy.
Secondly, most experienced players only want to run with experienced players, who are geared so they can maximize the time they run through during DD hours, understandable, because that's how Cryptic set it up. Most other mmos, bringing in 1-2 new people during a run, showing them how to run it ect, doesn't hurt as much, because there is no such thing as DD hours, you can run anytime, if they want to limit content, they may put a daily lock on a run, but you can always bring new people in, so even if one person quits, its not a big deal.
I originally ran a 17k GF, with KC set. He's shelved now, these days I only kite the occasional FH adds to help out guildies. Ironic, isn't it? Think about the roles (new) players envision for themselves when rolling characters. The plate-wearing guardian fighter with his mighty sword, out to taunt baddies, protecting the party. The hero in shining armour, now reduced to chicken-running adds within a corner while the party takes care of the rest. Yeah, I'm totally convinced what we need now is more GF-set-nerfing in order to kill those, uh, three remaining GFs out there.
You have more a point about DCs, but DCs are factually limited by constantly having to replenish divinity and AP. Fast-killing CWs actually keep DC potential reined in, as stuff that dies too quickly means no/less divinity/AP for the cleric, as these are dependant on (connecting) casts. It's self-controlling, and thus not a problem. You can have one OR the other, but not both continually at the same time. And you know what? It's GOOD BALANCING that way. In a slow party, DC can compensate for the lack of damage with a higher buff-uptime to encounter ratio while in an overgeared party, DCs are factually running at half speed as the CWs already nuked it all down. It's a design job well done, and nothing to complain about. Good drama though, would read again.
Are there titles for "i told you so" 6 months ago?
Ok, diogenes, persephone, and a few others who are inteligent and civil posters and know the game in deep, all of us have been warning about the ease of the game once you KNOW the game, yeah, wasn'nt 15 minutes ToS 6 months ago, but i was used to do 20m LEGIT ones before module1, so, even if after 2 rounds of boons and the new artifacts, after the top guilds learned how to maximize stacking buff/debuffs all has become a rolfstomp (i did 2 days ago a FREAKING 2 min draco kill!!!!!) but has been this way always...
And always have been the total opposite for pugs and casual playerbase, people who find t2 dungs almost too hard, people who never cared for respecc to a better dps build (or simply does'nt want to) people who "just play this way" (after i decided to never join a guild again, a few months ago, i mostly pug and when i give people orders to improve pug's perfomance i've received that same answer a few times already) people who just hate "cookie cutter" builds, as if improving your toon wasnt one of the goals of any role freaking playing game, or if those same builds are only a guide, you are wellcome to add improvements if you find one.
But in the middle there are a whole lot of players who intend to improve, players who run in their guilds with their friends, who intend to improve their skill, who even if now they're in 5s,6s and lesser/normal enchants they farm and try to get to 8s,10s and greaters/perfects, and having the same knowledge of teamplay and the same "boreness" we are having now, and those are the ones beneffited the most by post like this one, constructive feedback to make the game better in the long run.
I've been saying for a long time this game needs a "non ressurrectable toons" mode, i dont even care about the rewards, can be the same, maybe just our name and title in red to identify between us, to showoff our epeens if you want to see it this way, in fact, i would love that mode to not even have a Zen store ressurrect, or if it exist, to be really expensive.
This is an MMO.
It should go like this:
- new expansion hits, hard bosses, progression farm time. Great new rewards (NOT BLUES!!!).
- More difficulty settings: pug (easy), friends group (normal), guild on voice chat (hardcore).
- rewards range from: nice epics (easy), good epics (normal), great epics&legendaries (hardcore)
- expansion at an end of cycle, people geared up, can many times solo even raiding content from previous expansion. No problems here, working as intended. Current expansion HARDCORE content remains very challenging
In Neverwinter these things are just broken. There are no proper difficulty settings, 2 new expansions brought only 2 mew (pretty bad...) dungeons with (pretty bad...) loot. It's like they are mocking us.
After 2 expansions - we can still realistically just farm Castle Never.
So why in the world should I want a better challenge - if I get nothing in return?!?
Keep in mind - I was a hardcore raider from a culture where hard content was all that we did. This included at one point wiping at the same boss 20-30 times/evening for 2-3 weeks as part of progression.
But we had PROPER, AMAZING REWARDS. Here we get slap in the face.
Without proper rewards, I'm not interested in making the content harder. Maybe only if they make a new CN with BoE loot very hard, so I can farm and sell to those that can't - that would be OK - but with new loot being BoP, this is not a realistic desire.
New level 60's are supposed to be able to "plow through" Sharandar and Dread Ring. They are level 60 mobs. Don't see how that is a criticism.
I feel this also is a major issue, and I wish the development team would take notice to it.
When I beat end game content in any MMO I do it for certain reasons. I beat a dungeon/raid once for the accomplishment, then a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, .... for farming. I really find no reason to even bother with CN, MC, or VT without an organized guild group where someone is requesting to do it. The reward vs wiping just Isn't there. Why risk wasting an hour with a PUG who can't manage to finish the content for a very low chance of something useful dropping for me? I'd much rather just farm an easy T2 for sellable items.
My HR is now at around 15k GS, I have done around 40 T2 dungeons including one MC, one VT, and no CN runs. I have had a total of 2 T2 set pieces and an off-hand actually drop/DD chest for me. Yet I have all T2 items because of selling other drops to just purchase the pieces I want. Also, my MH is T2 PvP I bought with Grym Coins. So again, why bother risking VT, MC, and CN when I pretty much know what I want isn't going to drop?
I want to see new and challenging content with a guaranteed drop that comes down to Need rolls... not a 10% chance of anything useful dropping and a 2% of it being something I need...
Hardcore Mode is more like ARPG style not MMO :P Dunno what to say. I personally wouldn't play that, in MMOs I focus on improving 1 char to BiS since I don't have time&resources for more.
Now, about the rest. In WoW (I will talk about how things were in Cataclysm, my last expansion), there was LFR, Normal, Heroic raiding difficulty. Normal was already quite hard. I went to Cata after a long hiatus that my guild took after burning out badly on Sunwell Plateau, as we worked like mad for server-first kills 9back then raiding was one difficulty.
The 3 difficulties I found were an amazing implementation. I worked heroic dungeons, then LFR raid, then I was able to pug Normal Dragon Soul (it was VERY challenging and offered VERY good rewards).
Then I went into Heroic Dragon Soul. Rewards were just slightly better - yet present.
Why did I explain all this? Because even if you were just pugging DS Normal mode, you already had pro gear and was pretty much an elite player. Only the very top players were able to invest time for Heroic mode.
So you feel this would be so very bad if some people were stuck in easy/lfr mode, some in Normal, and only 1% go to Heroic? I think this is how it should be. I was stuck myself for a while in Normal mode. It's good to have a very top end elite layer. It's good to have meaningful progression.
Because in NWO, progression doesn't mean anything. It's all just casual dungeoneering. And getting a bit boring
I think I see your reasoning behind your suggestion to make buffs capped or subjected to DR. And it might be a selfless act, which would only hit you and other 15k ++ GS players.
Another view, the other part of me that does not want to see your reasoning, is longing for the point where I finally might be able to make a ToS run with selected friends in 15 minutes.
In my position my goal is to achieve your fun level, your shrug with a shoulder to kill Fullminorax. BY implementing your suggestions I might never have that fun you already enjoyed from the game. That fun that bores you now. I am looking forward to have that kind of fun.
Lets say, you are on the top of the mountain and demand a higher one.
I, on the other hand, stand somewhere @ 75% height and glimpse the top, where I want to go. This where I say that your quest for "more difficult" meets my "I can see my goal, but this dio* guy wants to declare a new goal when I am 75% there".
I don't know what I do when or if I reach your skill level or item level. I might never reach it.
But I think that I should also have the possibility to get to the point where you are now, where the game is easy. You are there now, and want to raise THIS level, making it for me impossible to once reach that point.
Maybe it is time for you to move on?
I feel I should address this, quickly.
Fixing stacking would not alter this. If you're a pug team being essentially carried, you are not bringing a 15k CW to carry you because of their debuff bonus, because a 10k CW can provide exactly the same debuff:it's feat/armour set based. You are bringing a 15K CW because they have a much higher damage output and (more importantly) have probably run the dungeon in question so many times they could probably do it in their sleep.
What the debuff stacking allows is for you to design teams (no pugs here kthxbai) to maximise damage output, using players that ALREADY have a grotesque damage output.
Essentially, the power curve for this game is a lot more....exponential than it probably should be, and much of that exponent comes from the way in which buffs and debuffs are applied. That's the thing with geometric vs arithmetic amplification: for small values, multiplicative approaches are similar to additive ones. And for negatives, they're actually worse than additive approaches (see foresight + benefit of foresight: testing strongly suggests it's multiplicative, so rather than 11% DR (5% + 6%) it's 10.7% (0.95*0.94)). Most stuff in this game is applied positively however, i.e. debuffs are not "reductions in monster defense", they're simply "increases in your own damage". And this allows exponent craziness to occur.
So a '5% reduction in monster defense' is actually simply multiplying your own damage by 1.05.
If this is applied once, your damage is simply 1.05x normal.
Stacked twice, this is now NOT 1.1x, it's 1.125x. Small difference, but small values here.
Stacked three times? 1.157625x instead of 1.15. Still small beer.
But now picture a bossfight where you have 5 stacks of one thing that does this, 5 stacks of another, 3 stacks of a further debuff, and 3 stacks on yet another debuff (this is not uncommon). Again, all "5% reduction in monster defense"
So 16x5, you'd think damage would be =1.8x, right? Instead it's closer to 2.2x.
And that's with a measly 5% debuff. This game regularly throws around 10% debuffs and more, all of which stack. Hence the 100,000+ damage per single hit and so on.
None of this applies to a pug group with a single high-gear dude, though. Because they won't have the damage output to take advantage of the buff stacking, and probably won't have the skill to build the stacks anyway. The high gear dude is basically just there to do lots of murderin'.
No, it wouldn't. But putting DR on the debuffs with a hard cap will.
And let's just be real honest about this. When we all first started doing T2 dungeons, we were *all* carried along to one degree or another by better players. I highly doubt that the first time your team completed any T2 dungeon was the very first time *for your whole team*.
So fine, fix the stacking. But don't inhibit the ability of higher geared/skilled players to help assist the lower geared/skilled players along through content *which is still challenging for the average player*.
Well a debuff diminishing return wouldn't effect the ability to carry players, because the player you carry either don't have the gear, experience, or the build, to stack debuffs. If they do, they aren't being carried. It will depend on what formula the devs chose - if they ever implement such a feature. Some formulas can have little to no influence at low debuff levels but may slow down the damage increase madness at the other end. I'm not going to post maths stuff because many wouldn't get it, but, you know, it's easily doable.
And yes, sure: the pug groups often failed, but this was also incredibly educational. I still wouldn't say I'm a great player, but all that frustration certainly made me a BETTER one, much more aware of the limits of my (and other) classes.
There's a certainly degree of validity in saying that carrying people is detrimental. Teaching, yes, but you can do that at any gearscore. If I take a freshly-dinged 60 into a T2 now, I'll have a much better chance of finishing it than I would've way back when, just because now I know that dungeon. "The important things to do with this boss are X Y and Z" and so on.
GF has the 2 best buffs of the game KC set and into the fray... and tactician can even BUFF into the fray... resulting in MASSIVE party dps increase and speed of the run, still, if into the fray uptime was boosted to 90-100% instead of the buffs they're testing in preview... not a single party would run without GF.
We shouldn't ask to make existing content harder. There are still fresh 60s, new players coming into the game who don't have all rank 9-10s, boons, top gears, and the experience to necessary complete the dungeons. New players are the lifeblood to any game. Making existing content harder is suicide from a business standpoint. Instead, we should ask for new, harder content. Content made for people who are capable of doing what you do, blow through Tos in 12 min.
Hmmm . What znudenej said , is a parallel , but relevant discussion .
I confess I 'm not much aware about the rogue single damage . But I do not think do gwf or cw have best single damage. What you have is a fantastic aoe + specific peculiarities . In other words , individually , the classes are not competitors .
The problems are multiple of the same class . If you compose the group with multiple cw or gwf you do not become more vulnerable individual , but their qualities multiply ... aoe damage of 5 cw / gwf definitely surpasses the single damage of rogue + its own peculiarities .
If you make the same power of multiple characters of the same class does not vanish ( cc / debuff / dot ) you must bring the partys balance without reducing qualitatively anyone.
This is a point
Overcome this obstacle , creating parallel versions for each dungeon is another . Change the mechanics of the game itself seems Russian roulette with programming . I am against for various reasons .
KC set bonus is great and can provide alot power for party. AP gain & speed from from into the fray can be too usefull, but still you can tank with GWF who have student of the sword and get 3rd CW.
Destroyer GWF literally took TRs job as melee single target damage dealer because TRs debuff is too far in scoundrel tree and sadly only executioner is really dps viable spec. Thanks god (devs) at least for overrun critical.
So destroyer GWF do +- same dps as TR, but can provide debuff for party, aoe dmg and is more tanky.