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RNG instead of skill and team coordination being the gate behind loot
rashylewizz
Member Posts: 4,265 Bounty Hunter
I've noticed this happen over everything Cryptic is making nowadays. Never before have I seen there to be little reason to be in a great cohesive guild or invest in this game.
Look at the heroic encounters. They require little brain cells. They do not reward coordinated teams. If you attacked the dragon for 1 point of damage and then afked the whole encounter, you probably would get the same reward as someone who had great success and contributed a lot of damage.
Look at the new dungeons and the artifact weapons/belts. The new dungeons are short, easy and a braindead experience. The biggest gate behind the good loot is the fact that you spend zen to get extra keys and the RNG of getting the right artifact weapon or being lucky enough to get the belt.
How about cryptic actually introduces content that requires teamwork, dungeons that are challenging that rewards investment and skill instead of making events wherein the biggest challenge from you getting the artifact is low RNG?
Look at the heroic encounters. They require little brain cells. They do not reward coordinated teams. If you attacked the dragon for 1 point of damage and then afked the whole encounter, you probably would get the same reward as someone who had great success and contributed a lot of damage.
Look at the new dungeons and the artifact weapons/belts. The new dungeons are short, easy and a braindead experience. The biggest gate behind the good loot is the fact that you spend zen to get extra keys and the RNG of getting the right artifact weapon or being lucky enough to get the belt.
How about cryptic actually introduces content that requires teamwork, dungeons that are challenging that rewards investment and skill instead of making events wherein the biggest challenge from you getting the artifact is low RNG?
Post edited by rashylewizz on
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yea but then ppl wouldnt buy as many keys
There was such a dungeon, it was "Castle never", Back then at release this dungeon requires skills, team work and coordination, and the rewards upon succeding was great, but then shortly after the dungeon became outdated.
Now all that remains are dungeons you have to do over and over again in hopes of getting something good.
I cant believe i spent 17.5 days doing campaign tasks to open a dungeon that only 15 minutes long, i got bored of that dungeon on my first run, so now what? am i just suppose to go around doing that same dungeon until i get the belt i want?
Im not quiting the game, but i sure as hell wont miss logging in day to day!
Making games is hard. It's easier to scoot by with simplicity. But if their combat planners put on their +1 tryhard pants and dream up some glorious ways to die from new frightening attacks...I would be overjoyed. It's too bad it's too late for the dragons, which should be the most fearsome enemy. But they are so easy to stomp and not worth anyone's time if they can't find an instance with 5 minutes till spawn.
For example, the dungeons are to easy. Why? Several reasons, but primarily because they apparently didn't want to have the holy trinity of dps/tank/healer. You don't need a tank or healer in any instance today (that I have seen). You don't even need strategy. Instances simply are a race to the loots with little to not chat (because chatting is even made harder than needed due to the controls, and its generally not needed).
Make a hard dungeon that takes more than DPS? You'd need healers and tanks. Tanks would be easy, but a dedicated tank healer? There really isn't one at this point and the interface - lets just say I'd shudder at trying to heal a tank with the current controls.
thats a pile of bs that only works in old style mmorpgs, in action mmorpgs you need skill, you dont tank damage, you evade it, go watch tera or vindictus boss fights, yes there might be tanks but it works much more different than tank facebashing his rotation and healer facebashing his healing spells.
the monsters are too slow and static, there is no action part
I agree, what has been done to dragons in this mod is a travesty.
I don't want to be offensive, but as I read, that they can't honor the debuff/buff value in heroic encounters I get angry. They are just to lazy! Their code already contain all necessary information, but they just spend time to decompile these information to pay of any DC/tank/whatever which can just buff/debuff and aren't doing the massive damage it would need to get any success(which even doesn't matter for this BS heroic <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> dragons).
And for me over the top: I listen to the icehammer dwarf, that explain that the icespire dragon is so strong as he is dumb. What I encountered in him? He is the most harmless one of all the dragons I ever meet! His breath? A giant joke! Without the boons, the ToD module would I just kick and say BS development...
Skill? Spare me. Zerg mechanics pure and simple; it's simply that in this new "action MMO" of yours it's just a DPS Zerg instead of a playercount zerg.
Heroic Encounters are actually used in another MMO, just under a different name. It's the exact same thing. Loot is also distributed the same way in brackets similar to medals. Sooo... it's a concept used in another MMO and apparently welcomed here.
On topic: Yes, I think there needs to be some kind of change, and I've posted my thoughts elsewhere as I'm sure many have elsewhere.
I have many alts, I am a class and race rainbow.
The ice tomb is a good feature. It usually suffers from affecting a melee player who usually is broken free quickly from 10 people AOEing the dragon. If it was a random effect that targeted casters on the fringe, or had a bigger area to hit more players, that would have been better imo.
But when it does get you, and you eat a breath attack after, it's a splendid feature and *gasp* combo-y. More of this please.
The new dungeons have a low low chance of dropping artifact belts.
Seriously. RNG is the biggest gate behind getting the belts.
Here is the video I am talking about: <<Removed>>
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Tired of running dungeons with exploiters and cheaters? Join the legit channel by visiting http://goo.gl/1zfnTS to apply!
Performing ritual pony sacrifices to Tiamat to earn favor with the RNG Gods since 2014.
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if they didnt design content for ppl who are required to wear helmets not to hurt themselves then a dragon would easily wipe out half the ppl in no time. why other games can make bosses that can easily wipe out zergs and at the same time be beatable by a single player IF his skill lvl is high enough and he is willing to spend 30~40 min on it
You do have a point, and I remember that people had to actually plan a little to beat some fights. Do you remember having to knock mobs out of the heal in ToS? It at least required some timing and co-ordination. Heck, Valindra too, can now only be failed by the most inattentive and useless groups.
Yes, it was fun, but there's a tradeoff. If a game is designed to appeal to hyper-casual players, you will end up in groups with people who simply don't have the attention span to not stand in really obvious red or click on caskets. If you want to straddle the divide, you need to have a wide range of progressively more difficult content- something that this game lacks. Without this, you have to get off the fence, and choose to go one way or the other.
While that is true, it does not offset the original point of the OP. Even if the dungeon were challenging, there would still be a massive RNG gate.
This is very true. I do acknowledge that this game is heavily influenced by RNG, but this game is less RNG dependant than some MMOs I've seen/played.
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Tired of running dungeons with exploiters and cheaters? Join the legit channel by visiting http://goo.gl/1zfnTS to apply!
Performing ritual pony sacrifices to Tiamat to earn favor with the RNG Gods since 2014.
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It would be nice if they could factor in buff/debuff, but my guess why they do not do this is because its too hard for them to implement. One would think they could take the defense lowered/attack raised/critical chance increased etc, and for each hit where your buff/debuff applies the points are divided up.
Some people find the dragons challenging - I see at least a few people die most times (except for the times where 30-40 players are on a dragon at once - that part needs to be fixed - less people per instance).
I am a casual player with a 13k GS, so I do get challenged from time to time in dungeons and encounters. It will take me many months to move my GS up - it goes very slowly.
Bottom line: It is easy to place blame, complain, and assume incompetence of developers, but they have to think "big picture" to keep as many player types as possible happy, while reading posts here that insult them. My rule of thumb in life is to never write/say things that I would not be able to say directly to someone's face. If you can severely insult someone's competence without ever having done their job, then I guess that says something about you personally.
Those of you who give solutions should be commended - that is the way to enact real change. Just complaining and condemning the game designers does nothing to fix things and makes the threads less pleasant to view.
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
The main issue is that RNG is the biggest factor by far in determining whether you get the artifact belt from either the heroic encounters, the skirmishes or the dungeons.
You want a solution? Well the first months of the game were an example of what made the game appealing. I'm talking about the times when a 11K GS player was a god among mortals. Dungeons were a challenge, the loot wasn't excessively hard to get but you needed the advertised 45 mins to get what you wanted. Skilled player had their rewards, suckers (I'm not into political correctness sorry) could buy zen then ADs to get the piece of gear from the content they couldn't finish to experience the said content, and I guess both sides were happy.
Now we get BiS gear crammed into the lockbox rewards while it's indeed in the loot tables of dull, boring and unchallenging content for the show. If you want it from the dull dungeon, become a basement dweller or GTFO. Some people might get a lucky drop but the most efficient way to get it if you're playing smart is a crapton of refining mules you feed with leadership and junk purple loot you get from playing the same content you've experienced at least 200 times because that's the only way to get unbound gear, and then you buy that legendary BiS piece of equipment from lockbox users.
So actually the mechanics are completely reversed: the cash cows get the best equipment and skilled players have to buy it from them using underwhelming strategies. That's how character progression works. It's not rewarding people actually playing the game like it used to, it's just rewarding people who just happen to open lockboxes. In the meantime, no one needs to buy Astral Diamonds to get the missing gear part anymore and we get a broken zen/ad market, so that becoming a better player and spending some time making a fine build to overcome (now nonexistant) challenges isn't rewarded in any way (and it's almost impossible to get the zen market shinies good and efficient farmers used to be able to afford). Somehow i'm not convinced it's a sustainable situation because playing the game isn't rewarded at all in the process.
No, it's very hard indeed. This is why it's often better to have enough properly "tiered" content that people can find their own level. It's an approach that worked well in other MMOs, to go from "easy" to "we're all going to die!". Of course, that does require some planning, and content.
The other additional approach which adds savour is procedurally-generated dungeons that get harder the deeper you go. I love those so much, whatever level I my characters are playing at.
This game was more fun when there were things that stood a chance of defeating you. There needs to be an approach where that soft of thing is available to people, while preserving all the casual-friendly approaches already used.
I agree with a lot of your points. I don't see any reason to be in a PVE guild anymore. I don't see any reason to hit the dragon for more than 1 point of damage and then AFK myself to go make a snack or watch tv. I don't see any reason to farm the skirmishes for the artifact belt because I will probably just buy it in the auction house due to the ridiculously low RNG droprate.
I don't see any reason to continue doing the campaign and just buy the eventual campaign pack on the zenstore to get the boons. Why would I bother with the dungeon if everything is based on lottery RNG and not skill/commitment/effort?
Which you wouldn't be able to do if no one was out doing the content. The only reason you can sit on your couch and wait for someone to put something up on the AH is because someone's actually out there doing it. Also have to ask yourself where are you going to get the AD to buy that otherwise very expensive belt of the AH if you're not doing content, getting drops and earning AD.
Well actually such things already exist. Since talking about other MMOs is forbidden I can't name it so that you can check it out, but there's one game that got it right. All of the content is designed around a hode mode: the longer you stay in the instance the harder the waves of mobs are. You get rewards every 5 minutes or so and if you stay long enough you may get some really awesome stuff with some more or less guaranteed drops if you stay really long enough, because you just did far better than the average dude. There's also weekly leaderboards so that people could show off for staying as long as they could. There are different kind of horde modes, some only require you to stay alive, some require you to defend an object with a given amount of health, some require you to run around and click stuff giving you some extra time, and so on.
Every good pve-centric MMO has its own hode mode. Maybe it's time for neverwinter to get one. Anyone else wants to get slapped in the face by lvl 100 npcs? :rolleyes:
I would go as far as saying the content has to be fairly manageable because otherwise people would be working their asses off for little to no reward, which is even more frustrating than easing through for little to no reward.
The best way to master this game is doing content that you already have effectively outgeared. That's how it is designed to be played.