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Spirit of D&D
revmal
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One of the initial statements made by the devs when they were creating Neverwinter, is that their would be no raids because D&D was and is a game played by a few people and not huge groups. A good thought, but misses a key point in D&D, that not every group is the same size, that sometimes a group has an extra player or two and sometimes you are short a few. Almost every module written for D&D had a number of suggested players (3-6 being the average). In the spirit of D&D what they should be doing going forward is making content that scales to party size and offers challenges that can be overcome with a non-standard group. Also the role system needs to be changed, not all clerics want to heal, and not all GF want to tank, but right now in order to play those classes I have no choice in a group (unless it is really tolerant guildies, lol). Give us a choice of roles in dungeon finder and allow a little more dps love for all classes, or build a few hybrid classes that will give us more freedom in dungeons, because right now being a DC or GF is all but pointless, people no longer seem to need them in dungeons and soloing the campaigns is tedious at best, since it takes so long to kill anything (I sometimes get a mob that respawns on my DC while still fighting the original mob I attacked).
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To be a real TANK GF (at level 60) needs a HUGE 30k+hp damage very long Ranged weapon. Heavy Crossbow comes to mind (300 ft. range [5 min. recharge]). Also to be a TANK the need about 85% deflect representing their armor.
For DCs, especially those who attract mobs they need a "Banish Minions/Turn Undead [read Mobs]' spell with a DPS of 15-30k hp damag. damage.
When in doubt - Buff don't Nerf. The objective is to make it easier as players level. The print version for Neverwinter was for levels 1-10, heroic, not epic.
That said, this seems more of a discussion on party size and character roles. In the games I was in - and especially the games I ran - the perfect group size was usually between 4 and 8. Less than 4 and you don't have the same dynamic possibilities, more than 8 and there's too much waiting around while the other players have their chance to do something. Six players was pretty much optimal for me, and was the size of the group I always aimed for when designing adventures to be run at conventions.
Well, honestly, this game doesn't have a slightest feel of Dungeons and Dragons, except for Forgotten Realms lore, although even that has changed significantly. 30.000 hit points - what?
Any game which pushes grouping at a set number generally ends up with me being quite irritated as I hate having four friends and needing to get a pug or having six friends and having to leave somebody behind...
However...first and formost...raids. No.
Raids are done by a small vocal group. Seriously. Most people do not like raids. I'm one of them. Forty people running around like chickens with their heads cut off making so much noise I can barely think is not my idea of fun any day of the week. It is my personal hell. I'd rather be in rainbow land with pink unicorns farting rainbows than in raids.
4-8 players is great in my books but any more than that is just headaches and elitism which creates a wall of haves and have nots due to people with varied playstyles not enjoying that content. The only thing worse than being unable to continue in a game because you reach a raid wall is being unable to continue in a game due to a pay wall.
On top of that I have an enthusiest grade computer. It's not the best thing on the planet but it is in the top 5-10% of the Neverwinter playerbase without a doubt and yet when things get hectic the limitations of the game show through. Raids quite clearly are (thankfully) not even a possibility. If I get bogged down graphics-wise with only three wizards in the party there is no way I would be able to function with 10-20 wizards in a small area.
Yes this works in Gauntelgrym and Icewind Dale but both of these areas are wide open particularly where battles tend to occur. If you have never noticed the demand on graphics gets exponentially higher the more power effects are confined in a small area. If you doubt this then feel free to go to Spellplague Caverns and fight mobs with multiple Control Wizards in the small cave doorways and see how fast the framerate drops. I would love to see parties of eight or so but not only would it completely upset the balance of the game it would likely tax the capabilities of both the engine and the player computers to the extreme.
Not only is the typical WoW style raid something truly most people do not enjoy...
It is beyond likely that the game and/or player's computers can not handle the stress the graphics and effects of large parties entail.
Party size: That most PvE can be done solo is good, considering it's an MMO and most people have life to take care that does not work on a set schedule. PnP works because you can set a date time for regular meetings, like every other Wednesday at 1900, but even then sometimes people have to beg off. For regular dungeons you can run with anywhere from 1 to 5 as long as you go through the door. For epics the option should be there to go with 3,4,5, or 6 people. To fix it at 5, or require certain classes is very limiting. 8 is about the maximum that would work for a group. The larger HEs in IWD show the problems with going beyond that number.
What's the point of the guilds if you don't give them any kind of objective to aim for and work forwards as a group?
I think that NW could benefit from raid-like content. An advancement zone not meant to be -daily- grinded but explored and completed over the course of weeks where all your gear improvement and your min/max-ing work could be put to the test. It doesn't need to be a 40 man raid. It doesn't even need to be a dungeon.
And on that note I refused to join guilds in basically any game due to my experience in raid style guilds. It took a lot of convincing to join a guild in Neverwinter because I had never had a good experience in guilds due to the raid 'make the game a job' mentality. And I meet people basically every day who say the same thing...
Raids may be the stereotypical thing to do...
But it's not what most players want.
In general, I don't expect MMOs to be quite so hands on. This isn't my group's world, but the developers', and we are one of innumerable small players.
On the subject of raids - while I am not a fan of the huge raids that require a lot of organization, I would like to see some queueable 10-man PvE instances - maybe something like a much harder CTA for level 60's only...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
With all due respect, I'd like to point out this post is completely personal opinion and not the reality.
Please bring proof for:
- raiders being a small vocal group
- raids being not enjoyable to the majority of players
Also:
- raids can be 10 players, not necessarily 40
- raids require coordination, if you "run around like chickens with their heads cut off" I, as a raid leader, will kick you and replace you with a better player
Elitism can be good and creates a climate where talented individuals can show what they have to offer. Right now there is just PvP, the PvE part is so easy and badly done, it's not even worth mentioning.
Who knows what exactly the make-up of players here is? Certainly not I, but you don't know, either.
We could compare our personal thoughts and experiences all day and make it seem like we are playing totally different games.
But there is this.
And unless someone can present evidence to the contrary, I would wager that this player base is not that different from that player base, and may include a lot of the same people.
And they are apparently not alone.
Spirit is going to depend upon whom you ask.
I told a friend a few years back that I wouldn't expect any D&D campaign that I play to match the fun of what I have played.
If I were to start a D&D game today, no matter the ruleset, it isn't just competing with other games, it's competing with friends long past. It's competing with hearing a favorite old song on the radio for the first time. It's competing with my younger days, if not exactly my childhood, and that is a heck of a lot to compete with.
So if you go into this game thinking that it's going to be as good as those days spent sitting around with friends for all day games and laughing and having fun with things that may not have had anything to do with the actual game, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment, I think.
The "Spirit" of D&D is the ghost of memories, and those can be awfully strong things to overcome.
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As far as this goes....
That is when you are supposed to play a great weapon fighter.
The system is built around them taking a possible advancement path of a 4E class and turning it into a whole class, more or less.
4E PHB? The fighter had two suggested paths. The first was as a sword-and-board fighter that would tank, the other was as a 2-handed weapon fighter that was intended to deal damage.
That being said classes are too slow in coming. Here we are over a year after launch and we have had one class added to the game. Warlock is on the way, and druid after that, but how long is that? 7 months? And then maybe 7 months later another?
Someone wants to play a paladin. Someone wants to play a bard. Someone wants to play a warlord. People have been asking for a cleric more interested in his mace than in healing since before launch.
Some classes, or class paths, may not be entirely necessary depending upon how they translate the classes that they do introduce, and some are going to be a lower priority, but how many years is someone supposed to wait in order to play the class that they really wanted to play, and to play it the way that they want to?
/not signed on the rest of it .. if you don't want to 'tank' don't play a guy who carries a shield and wears heavy armour.
New classes can and should be added, but not because they'll be able to get into dungeons or have a specific role or anything like that. No, they should be added because they are part of D&D.
There's another D&D MMO out there, and they have 13 different classes straight out of D&D, each with different ways to set them up. Sure, some are played more than others, but the point isn't how useful or not useful one is, the point is that they're part of D&D, and some people will play them because they enjoy the concept of the class. It can be done, should be done, has been done.
Personally, I'd much rather play a paladin, bard, monk, barbarian, or pretty much anything else over an infernally-powered spellcaster. That's my preference because of my gaming history and gaming style. I wouldn't care that my main role as a bard would be buff/debuff/crowd control, and not putting out DPS, because that's what bards *do*. I wouldn't worry about whether or not I can "get into dungeons", because I have friends to do them with, and don't have to worry about some minmaxer kicking me because I don't have one of the two or three classes they want.
So I guess what I'm saying here is put the classes in. Some people will like them and play them, some people won't. With enough variety, it does not negatively impact anyone if certain classes are less played than others. The point is to have them there, because when it boils down to it, this is D&D, and those classes are a part of that game.
At launch that MMO only had 9 classes and many of them only had minor differences, both in term of development effort to create them and gameplay. Many feats, enhancements and spells were shared.
Having played both, I would have to say having fully fleshed out classes with unique abilities, several paths and various gear options compares favorably to a plethora of marginally useful multi-class options.
Personally, with so very many different MMOs out there, I'd rather have a game that focuses more on the D&D aspect and less on being optimized for roles and such than yet another generic fantasy MMO.
As to classes sharing spells or feats... read the D&D rulebooks. Going all the way back to the beginning, certain abilities/spells/etc were shared by more than one class. If this is a D&D game, then a bit of overlap here and there in the classes should not be an issue. If it isn't, why bother?
I don't like that at all, then were's the feeling of progression?, actually I hate the fact that CTA and Foundry (I think it scales too) scales the content to your lvl.
Outside the legit group. And maybe guildies. And possibly real-life friends. And people that just want to play the game and have fun but aren't a part of the legit group.
You're saying that they shouldn't make new classes because why? Someone won't want them in a dungeon? Or worse, that maybe they will take the place of some currently favored class in the dungeon hierarchy?
Oh, the humanity. Someone that decided to play a class because the "cool kids" liked it might have those same "cool kids" decide ona different FotM.
They could make a paladin that is only suitable as a tank. Is it a problem that two classes can tank?
Doesn't seem to be a problem in a whole lot of other games with multiple tank classes, or healers, or DPSers. Why would it be a problem here?
Because some people are only concerned with whatever other people have decided is the "best" party composition for a particular dungeon?
Some people just want to play without worrying about some theoretical "best" party. Some people play with friends. And if your guild is telling you what class you have to play, then maybe you should consider that the problem isn't with some class, it's with the guild itself.
And don't pretend to know how some class will work. All we know about the druid is that it's supposed to be the next class.
You say it's hard to translate some PnP class into the game, but then act like you know the one and only way that they will be implemented.
In the end, as long as the class works, as long as it does what it is supposed to in some way that reflects the nature of the class itself, then mission accomplished.
If Class X, Y, and Z are the three classes that some people want to use to run dungeons then they can have them.
The rest of the people might play the class that they want to play, and the more, the merrier. Both in classes and people that don't care about "optimal" and exploits.
Typical of the internet I the opposite and like the scaling content, particularly foundaries. Sense of progression for me at least comes in the form of stat, skill or gear upgrades for my character.