As for ways to make AD, the ability to farm has gone down drastically. The remaining methods to earn the most AD come from not actually playing the game. It's good that you can exchange ad for zen, but when the wall is just so high unless you pay, then it's an extremely valid criticism and as good as a pay wall. Frankly the rp rate from the store is just horrendous anyway.
Lets put it this way. I would say 99% that have a full set of legendaries don't deserve it. That includes me who managed to earn AD from broken things like the gond event having the exchange inflated, though I guess I kind of lost all of that. Obviously not everyone could do that or there'd be no profit to be made and it requires an investment in the first place.
As for the rest of your post, I am not sure why you posted it like an argument but we pretty much agree on the rest, I just said mine in less words.
ebonyshadowMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited January 2015
Companions: Whether they 'suck' or not is a subjective thing, it depends what you expect out of them. If I wanted a bigish boost from then I would run an augment. But the current PvE content certainly doesn't need me to run one. I agree they could do with an overhaul, make the tank pets able to actually tank a bit and the heal based ones a little more effecctive (At the moment they basically do nothing useful during a fight, they mostly manage to top you up inbetween fights though). I use them more because I like them than for any usefulness.
Class balance: As a PvE player for the most part I am interested in how well each class does its role in a party against PvE content, not wether the classes e-peen matches up with that of another class. In fact nerfs for 'PvP balance' are a royal PIA. This game doesn't have the main PvP style that I regularly played (Battlegrounds) so I barely touch it on here.
dailys: I agree there are a few too many and worse, they play too great a part in progression.... but what else can they use that we wouldn't simply blast through in a day or two?
Artifact gear: Is certainly NOT stuck behind a pay wall. Yes it takes quite a while but it is supposed to. If you crave instant gratification then you have a problem but otherwise you don't. I certainly don't (Sure it is a bit on the slow side even for my tastes BUT it doesn't force me to use real life money, just be a bit more patient than I would like)
RNG: Oh I am sure that darn thing is sentient and hates me...... I've a toon who's researched level 4 alch over 20 times and only got a single research note so far (Leaving it till sometime I can spend a day on that toon and just hammer at it till I get through!)
Rewards: Yep I think they do need to take a serious look are overhauling this, more old content would still be usable if it was worth going in there, ok you have the farmbot issue, fine make it account bound if you must, but let there be a reason to go back after the first time (Curiosity can be enough for the single time, but there needs to be a reason to return)
Socialisation: At 13k GS I can't solo epic dungeons so friends/guild IS needed at my level... however see the point regarding treasure, no point with most of them, no reason to enter (I don't like PUGs so currently I don't bother at all and have only enticed 2 friends so far to give NW a try, need another two at a minimum before we can set up a guild, more if we want to do regular runs)
Dungeons: despite not liking PUGs I have done a few, with over-geared folk sprinting though without breaking stride. Stop to explore a little and you are left WaaaaY behind. However I didn't expect much different with the older content.
The world: is just fine.... No trailing through 20 mins of basically unused landscape to get to the content I want to do. It isn't an open world game, that is clear from VERY early on, not as if it is a surprise!
Foundry: nice idea, a bit too limited for my tastes but nice for those who use it. I occasionally do the foundry daily otherwise it is not something I bother with.
PvP: I'll leave to those who like PvP, just try not to <removed> over PvE in the eternal search for PvP balance. Give me a nudge if they bring in decent battlegrounds otherwise I'm in the "I only PvP occassionally for the AD" bunch!
"To sum up all what's wrong" is that i feel "playing" the forum will improve my game experience more than actually doing anything in the game itself atm.
When i only need to come to the forums to find out what is new and exciting, this means things are on the right track.
Nah, just because you can get an Artifact doesn't mean you're "ready" to upgrade it. As for the rest of your post, I am not sure why you posted it like an argument but we pretty much agree on the rest, I just said mine in less words.
Tbh I read you arguing against it being a wall and wanted to clarify that it was still a wall, just that the ability to do it free is more of a technicality for the most part. I read your last sentence, was like oh... and felt like my post was still worth saying.
The main problems as I see it can be summarized as below:
1) Exploits/Bots/RMT/Abuse (where are the checks and bans?)
2) The "Upgrade" Gate
3) Timers and Cooldown (Hoards/Dailies/Campaign/Refinement)
4) Bad Queues (Premade vs Pug/GS mismatch/Tiamat/Castlenever)
5) Foundry hype and letdown
6) Drop rate (BI glove/mainhand)
7) Class balance ( DPS is king : Great Success / defensive capability huge gap and diminishing return )
The main problems as I see it can be summarized as below:
1) Exploits/Bots/RMT/Abuse (where are the checks and bans?)
2) The "Upgrade" Gate
3) Timers and Cooldown (Hoards/Dailies/Campaign/Refinement)
4) Bad Queues (Premade vs Pug/GS mismatch/Tiamat/Castlenever)
5) Foundry hype and letdown
6) Drop rate (BI glove/mainhand)
7) Class balance ( DPS is king : Great Success / defensive capability huge gap and diminishing return )
CN is the best content they've made. How is it a problem?
So a couple of months ago I went away for a week and didn't invoke. Now I have 28 toons lined up for the coffers to claim the same day. Until I got the bug where it gives you a large party popper when you click too fast on the coffer of wondrous augmentation. fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Thank god I don't have a severe form of OCD. This goes under the last of bugs that have gone unfixed since the dawn of time. Thankfully compared to other things it's a little more trivial.
CN is the best content they've made. How is it a problem?
If you queue, you get people who probably don't know what they're doing and don't have purples. He was talking about the queue rather than the actually content. A valid concern, lfg yields better results.
So a couple of months ago I went away for a week and didn't invoke. Now I have 28 toons lined up for the coffers to claim the same day. Until I got the bug where it gives you a large party popper when you click too fast on the coffer of wondrous augmentation. fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Thank god I don't have a severe form of OCD. This goes under the last of bugs that have gone unfixed since the dawn of time. Thankfully compared to other things it's a little more trivial.
If you queue, you get people who probably don't know what they're doing and don't have purples. He was talking about the queue rather than the actually content. A valid concern, lfg yields better results.
I queued once. It was bad, but as a max cw that was my intention to actually get a challenge. Also also tried soloing it once but didn't realise people would keep coming in. I got people ignoring that I wanted to solo it and they decided to go ahead on their own with low gs trying to rambo it until they got bored and left. I did manage to do it properly another time minus getting wrecked at draco though. I want a sylph :c
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imaginaerum1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 378Arc User
edited January 2015
Companions suck...
They're useful if you have good ones, especially at lower levels. I have one that I get on every character that has a chance of interrupting my opponent. Very useful if I don't have an augment yet. They're only useless once you get beyond a certain power level... or in PvP.
Artifact gear creates huge imbalance...
Artifact gear is available to anyone. What you're really complaining about is that some people can pay to have it now, and people who don't pay have to wait a long time to get it. This issue will never go away in a microtransaction based game. It also, in general, is a PvP issue, because you don't need max gear to PvE, but PvP wants max gear and wants it now.
Class balance is worse then ever...
Only an issue with PvP.
Dailies are boring...
Don't play them. They're optional. That said, I'd love some more real content. Simple fix: Give Foundry an actual reward system. Unlimited content.
RNG is beyond ridiculous...
Their RNG has always been screwy. I don't see them fixing this any time soon.
Rewards have no value...
Only if you insist on having maxgear, which is primarily a PvP issue.
Socialisation is zero...
That's not a problem with the game, it's a problem with the player base. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from joining together with others and running content as a group.
Dungeons are too easy.
This is what happens due to gear inflation. Dungeons that used to be a challenge don't change, but a "good" gear score changes in a year from 12k to 18k+. If you've got high-end gear, of course the old dungeons are easy.
The world is too small, no exploration.
The world is infinite, if you play Foundry quests. Which you might if there was a reward system for it.
Foundry, what is this by the way? Ah, it was a fun feature long ago...
It's the only thing in this game that makes it unique and special. Everything else makes it just another fantasy game. They should have been making Foundry a primary feature, instead of ignoring it for the past year plus.
PvP ...
... is not the focus of this game. It is and has always been a PvE focused game, as it should be, being based on D&D. PvP was tacked on as an afterthought because someone pointed out that it's a moneymaker, and it is quite apparent it was tacked on. The issue for me isn't lack of PvP content, it's lack of real (non-dailygrind) new PvE content. If they would upgrade Foundry to include 1) a viable reward system and 2) the ability to flag a map as PvP, it would make both the PvP and PvE crowds happy. Why they haven't is a mystery. Happy players stay longer, which gives more chance to spend money on the game.
Only if you insist on having maxgear, which is primarily a PvP issue.
Incorrect. As someone who cares more for PvE, I had incentive to farm CN as many times as I wanted. Now I don't want to because there's no incentive. It killed PvE for me. I play the wonderful world of leadership and the AH if I think something is worthy of investment.
That's not a problem with the game, it's a problem with the player base. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from joining together with others and running content as a group.
It is when there's no real reason to play with friends and guildies. When mod 5 denies you the ability to even do it if you wanted to, yes it is a problem with the game.
Small notes: Companions suck. You're talking about passive bonuses (which have also been in decline in originality) which isn't the point they were designed for. Class imbalance not being important to PvE? Tell that to the GFs and TRs and even GWFs that played when they weren't wanted. Avoid dailies? Tell me what else there's to do since beta (except tiamat).
Incorrect. As someone who cares more for PvE, I had incentive to farm CN as many times as I wanted. Now I don't want to because there's no incentive. It killed PvE for me. I play the wonderful world of leadership and the AH if I think something is worthy of investment.
It is when there's no real reason to play with friends and guildies. When mod 5 denies you the ability to even do it if you wanted to, yes it is a problem with the game.
Small notes: Companions suck. You're talking about passive bonuses (which have also been in decline in originality) which isn't the point they were designed for. Class imbalance not being important to PvE? Tell that to the GFs and TRs and even GWFs that played when they weren't wanted. Avoid dailies? Tell me what else there's to do since beta (except tiamat).
Well it used to be that you could run dungeons instead of dailies, then the evil goddess Tiamat rose up and unleashed a pve apocalypse.
I'm pleased someone mentioned the crafting professions in addition to the other issues because this is one of my disappointments with the game. With the rng being my most disliked feature.
- Jewelcrafting - It's nice that we have a crafting profession where you can actually create usuable gear for the higher geared player. Sadly it's gated behind purple tools, which are in turn gated behind the rng, for someone at least.
- Weapon Crafting - When artifact weapons were first introduced I thought this might become useful as a way of crafting RP. Sadly no level 60 green or blue gear is craftable and besides their RP value is close to worthless fairly early on in the refining process. What level 60 gear is craftable requires a dragon egg, which is fairly rare and more valuable than the RP of the gear you could craft with it.
- Alchemy - Could have been useful but for the fact that potions drop everywhere. The rng nature of progressing the profession, whilst understandable from a sort of role-playing perspective is just more rng in a game full of rng.
- Leadership - Great method of earning AD for a more casual and time constrained player like myself. Also provides potions, RP for artifacts and more. Completely outstrips all other professions in terms of utility and usefulness as a result. Part of me wishes this didn't exist.
- Leatherworking/Platesmithing/Tailoring/Mailsmithing - These are largely crippled by what I believe to be one of the fundamental problems with crafting in general. It levels much more slowly than a character, rendering much if not all of the craftable gear useless. One of best things you could perhaps do with these is have craftable transmutes. The same could apply to weaponsmithing and artificing.
In the grand scheme of the game though crafting is a pretty minor and insignificant part. The amount of work required to make it useful and interesting is probably going to inhibit major change.
It is when there's no real reason to play with friends and guildies. When mod 5 denies you the ability to even do it if you wanted to, yes it is a problem with the game.
So what do you want? Cryptic to FORCE you to run content with your friends?
You need a REASON to socialize?
With everything EXCEPT Tiamat, you can do whatever you like with whatever group you like. Sheesh. Some people just complain just for the sake of complaining.
So what do you want? Cryptic to FORCE you to run content with your friends?
You need a REASON to socialize?
With everything EXCEPT Tiamat, you can do whatever you like with whatever group you like. Sheesh. Some people just complain just for the sake of complaining.
No we want content that is difficult where it makes you want to run with people you know. Taking the first four that want to join you for a run is great for meeting new people, but it doesn't contribute to long term sustainability or happiness. In other mmo's I'd take whoever for groups while leveling or doing easier content, but for endgame raids and hard mode dungeons (being generic here to avoid naming specific games) I'd typically want to run with guildies or channel members because the content was hard enough to require teamwork and it was easier when we all knew each other and our capabilities. Right now we have great dungeons for running with randoms to meet new people, we have horrid dungeons for promoting guild runs and forming communities that stick together to work on content.
So what do you want? Cryptic to FORCE you to run content with your friends?
You need a REASON to socialize?
With everything EXCEPT Tiamat, you can do whatever you like with whatever group you like. Sheesh. Some people just complain just for the sake of complaining.
How about giving an incentive to actually do so and not forbidding us from doing it in new content they release? Would make a nice start.
Dailies are the main content that take up most of our time and it's more of a hassle to not solo it. Dungeons are worthless and If I did want something, I don't want to burden them for my benefit when the content is just a breeze and they don't really benefit from it.
They forced us into guilds with gg and then made little use out of it. If they didn't have that requirement in the first place then at least the 20x20 teams would actually be balanced if they really wanted it not to have any benefit.
I year ago I'd play with people I can count on and get along with that can work together. Now I don't need to bother and if I did it doesn't matter for most of it how uncoordinated they are. Raids were meant to be the prime example of grouped content. If I queue up, I don't really care if I meet up with them or not again. Our guild ran many CN runs a day, Now people don't bother forming groups. Some people still come on and may do tiamat, but on the whole there's really not a lot keeping us here.
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imaginaerum1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 378Arc User
Incorrect. As someone who cares more for PvE, I had incentive to farm CN as many times as I wanted. Now I don't want to because there's no incentive. It killed PvE for me. I play the wonderful world of leadership and the AH if I think something is worthy of investment.
You play a very different version of PvE than I do, then.
For me, PvE isn't about grinding the same dungeon over and over and over to get stuff to sell, it's about experiencing the game play and the content, hopefully with friends old and new, in a fun and enjoyable way. And for me, that means trying NEW content, not mindlessly grinding away at the same old run over and over and over.
It is when there's no real reason to play with friends and guildies. When mod 5 denies you the ability to even do it if you wanted to, yes it is a problem with the game.
Actually, that's a problem with Mod 5, which is a small part of the game. I wasn't even aware of it because I haven't bothered to play Mod 5 much. I went to the zone, saw it was yet another assortment of boring daily grind, and went back to doing fun stuff.
Small notes: ... Class imbalance not being important to PvE? Tell that to the GFs and TRs and even GWFs that played when they weren't wanted. Avoid dailies? Tell me what else there's to do since beta (except tiamat).
My main's been a GWF since beta. I played through the times when "nobody wanted GWFs". Guess what? I found people to play with. The people who didn't want GWFs were the elitist minmaxers whose sole concern was getting ubergear rather than experiencing and enjoying the game.
This is a D&D game. The classes aren't SUPPOSED to be balanced. They're each supposed to have their niche. But people have whined so much that they've changed things that were supposed to make them unique.
Remember that skill for finding and removing traps that rogues have? Nobody bothers to use it. Why? People whined about traps, and traps got gimped. If traps mattered, like they do in a certain other D&D MMO, people would want a rogue with them in every single dungeon, regardless of how much damage output they had. It's not class BALANCE that's the issue in PvE, it's class USEFULNESS. Tanks need to be tankier. Rogues need to be rogues, and not just strikers. Etc.
And yes, I avoid dailies. I don't do them. And I still find plenty to do. Dailies aren't the be-all and end-all of the game. If anything, they're the downfall of the game. They are mindless, uncreative pseudocontent designed to make you think you're experiencing the game when you're just doing the same boring rubbish over and over again.
This game has two things that set it apart from other generic fantasy MMOs. 1) It's D&D. The problem there is it's not the only D&D MMO, and the other one does the D&D part better. 2) It has Foundry. Which they gimped, then ignored.
If this game is going to have longevity, it's not going to be because of more powerful companions, or added daily grinds, or more PvP. It's going to be because they gave us something that is unique to this game, that keeps people in this game.
Like I've said before, a good start toward fixing all of these problems is that they need to re-focus on Foundry, make it a crown jewel of the game (like their early adverts said it was), give it a reward system, and give the option to flag a map for PvP. PvE players get unlimited content without having to do daily grind. PvP players get new maps to play on. Everyone's happy.
You play a very different version of PvE than I do, then.
For me, PvE isn't about grinding the same dungeon over and over and over to get stuff to sell, it's about experiencing the game play and the content, hopefully with friends old and new, in a fun and enjoyable way. And for me, that means trying NEW content, not mindlessly grinding away at the same old run over and over and over.
There's not enough content to find new things. I've already done it all and have no interesting in an unrewarding, no reaching it's potential foundry. Of the new content you have to do dailies to play the stuff that people are more interested in (apart from tiamat with no requirements) and what's the point of doing a month or so worth of dailies to play a dungeon once or twice? Farming dungeons was what I found fun and they killed it. You made progress from actually playing the game back then.
Like I've said before, a good start toward fixing all of these problems is that they need to re-focus on Foundry, make it a crown jewel of the game (like their early adverts said it was), give it a reward system, and give the option to flag a map for PvP. PvE players get unlimited content without having to do daily grind. PvP players get new maps to play on. Everyone's happy.
Can't really argue with that. The players are sure to be able to do a much better job at keeping interest with better tools and rewards. When some of the foundry achievements are bugged that hinder the ability to get the rewards that do exist, I wouldn't hold my breath.
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vinceent1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,264Arc User
edited January 2015
On REFINEMENT - i wish to see upgrading artifact gear more account wide. for example, if you have already one legendary piece of gear, it will be cheaper to upgrade to legendary another one on account. its fair take back alts into the play
You are free to run content with people you know regardless of the difficulty of the content, with the single exception of Tiamat.
Yes, however having content that challenges guild teams fosters a sense of community within them. Challenge overcome in such a manner gives that "good feeling" boost. This keeps people playing. I don't know about you but there are very few people I see playing from the mod 2 days or the open beta days. We have massive churn with low player retention from what I can see. I think this is a massive reason for that.
If traps mattered, like they do in a certain other D&D MMO, people would want a rogue with them in every single dungeon, regardless of how much damage output they had. It's not class BALANCE that's the issue in PvE, it's class USEFULNESS.
While in general you are right. I have to point out your specifics are wrong. I played that other game and beat every single quest in that game on it's elite versions with no trapper. You just had to know how to dodge each trap. While increasing trap damage would be great, as traps here are completely ignorable, it doesn't make it where content then requires trappers.
This Game is unplayable at the moment. All the time it is laggin or you'll get the message "Server is not Responding". I know a lot of people who quit the game because of this! They should immediately fix that Serverperformance or the game will be dead soon.
This Game is unplayable at the moment. All the time it is laggin or you'll get the message "Server is not Responding". I know a lot of people who quit the game because of this! They should immediately fix that Serverperformance or the game will be dead soon.
Considering most people are able to play, that's not the server, thats either a misconfiguration where you still have on-demand patching on, or your connection to the server.
Considering most people are able to play, that's not the server, thats either a misconfiguration where you still have on-demand patching on, or your connection to the server.
Nope, only started happening after the friday patch for me, and on 2 pc's exactly the same thing, with the gateway also dropping out.
I monitor my net traffic and there was zero packet loss when this was happening, this used to be the only cause of this effect, imo it's server related this time.
Nope, only started happening after the friday patch for me, and on 2 pc's exactly the same thing, with the gateway also dropping out.
I monitor my net traffic and there was zero packet loss when this was happening, this used to be the only cause of this effect, imo it's server related this time.
Yet somehow when the servers actually have problems there are multiple threads about it, all having 5 or more pages in the first 15 minutes. When the server actually has problems it effects everyone. This is not. There may be a correlation to friday's patch for you, but correlation is not causation. Run a traceroute, pathping, and cryptic's nettest. You likely are getting loss, high ping, or packet throttling.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
edited January 2015
I think the vast majority DO not like the refining system and have pointed many different directions cryptic should take.
Vast majority has pointed out since IWD RNG bracers, that rng at that level is bad incentive to participate in game.
Vast majority has pointed out since ToD that its too grindy, and people who want to play alts are getting more locked out.
Vast majority, did not want implemented refinement system as currently stands.
The last guild I was in , had 340 active players on its roster, we are down to 5-6 who log in daily. Thats hundreds of people who left since IWD started!
It takes 5-10 or even longer minutes to get a pvp match, once entered, you get slammed with a premade, or 2 TRs on each team, and then it boils down to whose TRS are better.
All the response we get back is basically this.. A. Game was too easy and B. we cant implement actual play through content enough without increasing level of grind to this extent.
Question then was summed as this, Why not make pve harder.. answer, we dont want it harder then current level.
Refinement is summed up as this, those who purchased RP before they locked it out and those who didnt. For those who did, kudos to you, for us who didnt, we were fools, and apparently neverwinter wants us to dwell in purgatory for our foolishness.
We group in MMOs, due to progression, thats the catalyst, when you remove it, then people wont do it, thats been social experiment 1, since the start of UO and EQ1.
There simply is no reason to run DD content and Tiamat requires no grouping. Hence, no groups.
PVP requires massive gear score to compete, we are now locked out to get that gear score.. so pvp very unbalanced, more then ever.
RP is boring to grind, its been repeated by the majority, not just forum, channels as well. REDUCE the artifact equipment RP total and remove cooldown on hoards AND give refinement rewards for EVERY DD and a chance to even roll on Brilliant diamonds on new harder content.
This Game is unplayable at the moment. All the time it is laggin or you'll get the message "Server is not Responding". I know a lot of people who quit the game because of this! They should immediately fix that Serverperformance or the game will be dead soon.
It isn't unplayable for me, the ONLY place I've had bad lag in the last couple of months was once in tiamat at the beginning and I think that was someone using a known lag bomb, a couple of minutes later it was all good again and we went on to beat tiamat. But for most of the game I've had little to no lag, a reasonably modern laptop and a fiber optic connection may help matters but it isn't the server else everyone would get it
It isn't unplayable for me, the ONLY place I've had bad lag in the last couple of months was once in tiamat at the beginning and I think that was someone using a known lag bomb, a couple of minutes later it was all good again and we went on to beat tiamat. But for most of the game I've had little to no lag, a reasonably modern laptop and a fiber optic connection may help matters but it isn't the server else everyone would get it
Well the server is in the USA and sometimes we have terrible laggs from europe, so it is not us or the server, the problem is we are on the other side of the earth and have to play on the same server.
What I would like to see (from a PvE standpoint, I do not PvP at all in Neverwinter)...
* Legendary versions of existing dungeons, with RP (black opal?) from the chest. OR a smaller add-on to each existing dungeon, of 'legendary' difficulty which would contain RP as a reward.
* ability to enter existing epic dungeons with parties of less than 5.
* a new campaign, a lengthy one with a LARGE area. Not a lengthy campaign like sharandar, where you do the same small area over and over, but one with a sizable land-mass to explore. As the OP said, the world is too small! NO **** dailies please. What about simply gaining experience...you know like D&D? How about a lengthy weekly quest, one where progression might be saved so you do not necessarily need to complete it in a single session.
* completely NEW dungeons of greater size, legendary difficulty. Ideally I would LOVE to see a couple new dungeons with scale-able difficulty. 5 man min to enter, but would scale to up to 10
* companions, the op mentioned that the companions are worthless...this is true especially considering all of the companions where the active bonus doesn't even work. How about fixing the companions that are broken? Cockatrice, Ioun Stone of Allure, Dire Wolf, etc.
Personally, I am fine with the the artifact's/RP system as it is now (granted I would have preferred an experience system over what we have now, but I don't think scrapping the existing system is feasible)...though RP either needs to drop more frequently, OR they need to have more frequent 2x RP weekeneds. I don't have any legendary artifacts, but there is no content anywhere which encourages me to get my existing arti's to legendary. MY main character has all (belt, neck, weapons, 3 artis) at epic level, ALL from RP obtained by playing the game, none purchased from the AH. However, to get from epic to legendary via that same method will take an exceedingly long time. So much so that I've personally just written those off as an unobtainable, and completely unnecessary, goal. Again, as the OP said dungeons are too easy, and the world is too small, so why bother with character progression.
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Class balance: As a PvE player for the most part I am interested in how well each class does its role in a party against PvE content, not wether the classes e-peen matches up with that of another class. In fact nerfs for 'PvP balance' are a royal PIA. This game doesn't have the main PvP style that I regularly played (Battlegrounds) so I barely touch it on here.
dailys: I agree there are a few too many and worse, they play too great a part in progression.... but what else can they use that we wouldn't simply blast through in a day or two?
Artifact gear: Is certainly NOT stuck behind a pay wall. Yes it takes quite a while but it is supposed to. If you crave instant gratification then you have a problem but otherwise you don't. I certainly don't (Sure it is a bit on the slow side even for my tastes BUT it doesn't force me to use real life money, just be a bit more patient than I would like)
RNG: Oh I am sure that darn thing is sentient and hates me...... I've a toon who's researched level 4 alch over 20 times and only got a single research note so far (Leaving it till sometime I can spend a day on that toon and just hammer at it till I get through!)
Rewards: Yep I think they do need to take a serious look are overhauling this, more old content would still be usable if it was worth going in there, ok you have the farmbot issue, fine make it account bound if you must, but let there be a reason to go back after the first time (Curiosity can be enough for the single time, but there needs to be a reason to return)
Socialisation: At 13k GS I can't solo epic dungeons so friends/guild IS needed at my level... however see the point regarding treasure, no point with most of them, no reason to enter (I don't like PUGs so currently I don't bother at all and have only enticed 2 friends so far to give NW a try, need another two at a minimum before we can set up a guild, more if we want to do regular runs)
Dungeons: despite not liking PUGs I have done a few, with over-geared folk sprinting though without breaking stride. Stop to explore a little and you are left WaaaaY behind. However I didn't expect much different with the older content.
The world: is just fine.... No trailing through 20 mins of basically unused landscape to get to the content I want to do. It isn't an open world game, that is clear from VERY early on, not as if it is a surprise!
Foundry: nice idea, a bit too limited for my tastes but nice for those who use it. I occasionally do the foundry daily otherwise it is not something I bother with.
PvP: I'll leave to those who like PvP, just try not to <removed> over PvE in the eternal search for PvP balance. Give me a nudge if they bring in decent battlegrounds otherwise I'm in the "I only PvP occassionally for the AD" bunch!
When i only need to come to the forums to find out what is new and exciting, this means things are on the right track.
Tbh I read you arguing against it being a wall and wanted to clarify that it was still a wall, just that the ability to do it free is more of a technicality for the most part. I read your last sentence, was like oh... and felt like my post was still worth saying.
1) Exploits/Bots/RMT/Abuse (where are the checks and bans?)
2) The "Upgrade" Gate
3) Timers and Cooldown (Hoards/Dailies/Campaign/Refinement)
4) Bad Queues (Premade vs Pug/GS mismatch/Tiamat/Castlenever)
5) Foundry hype and letdown
6) Drop rate (BI glove/mainhand)
7) Class balance ( DPS is king : Great Success / defensive capability huge gap and diminishing return )
Thank god I don't have a severe form of OCD. This goes under the last of bugs that have gone unfixed since the dawn of time. Thankfully compared to other things it's a little more trivial.
If you queue, you get people who probably don't know what they're doing and don't have purples. He was talking about the queue rather than the actually content. A valid concern, lfg yields better results.
I queued once. It was bad, but as a max cw that was my intention to actually get a challenge. Also also tried soloing it once but didn't realise people would keep coming in. I got people ignoring that I wanted to solo it and they decided to go ahead on their own with low gs trying to rambo it until they got bored and left. I did manage to do it properly another time minus getting wrecked at draco though. I want a sylph :c
They're useful if you have good ones, especially at lower levels. I have one that I get on every character that has a chance of interrupting my opponent. Very useful if I don't have an augment yet. They're only useless once you get beyond a certain power level... or in PvP.
Artifact gear creates huge imbalance...
Artifact gear is available to anyone. What you're really complaining about is that some people can pay to have it now, and people who don't pay have to wait a long time to get it. This issue will never go away in a microtransaction based game. It also, in general, is a PvP issue, because you don't need max gear to PvE, but PvP wants max gear and wants it now.
Class balance is worse then ever...
Only an issue with PvP.
Dailies are boring...
Don't play them. They're optional. That said, I'd love some more real content. Simple fix: Give Foundry an actual reward system. Unlimited content.
RNG is beyond ridiculous...
Their RNG has always been screwy. I don't see them fixing this any time soon.
Rewards have no value...
Only if you insist on having maxgear, which is primarily a PvP issue.
Socialisation is zero...
That's not a problem with the game, it's a problem with the player base. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from joining together with others and running content as a group.
Dungeons are too easy.
This is what happens due to gear inflation. Dungeons that used to be a challenge don't change, but a "good" gear score changes in a year from 12k to 18k+. If you've got high-end gear, of course the old dungeons are easy.
The world is too small, no exploration.
The world is infinite, if you play Foundry quests. Which you might if there was a reward system for it.
Foundry, what is this by the way? Ah, it was a fun feature long ago...
It's the only thing in this game that makes it unique and special. Everything else makes it just another fantasy game. They should have been making Foundry a primary feature, instead of ignoring it for the past year plus.
PvP ...
... is not the focus of this game. It is and has always been a PvE focused game, as it should be, being based on D&D. PvP was tacked on as an afterthought because someone pointed out that it's a moneymaker, and it is quite apparent it was tacked on. The issue for me isn't lack of PvP content, it's lack of real (non-dailygrind) new PvE content. If they would upgrade Foundry to include 1) a viable reward system and 2) the ability to flag a map as PvP, it would make both the PvP and PvE crowds happy. Why they haven't is a mystery. Happy players stay longer, which gives more chance to spend money on the game.
It is when there's no real reason to play with friends and guildies. When mod 5 denies you the ability to even do it if you wanted to, yes it is a problem with the game.
Small notes: Companions suck. You're talking about passive bonuses (which have also been in decline in originality) which isn't the point they were designed for. Class imbalance not being important to PvE? Tell that to the GFs and TRs and even GWFs that played when they weren't wanted. Avoid dailies? Tell me what else there's to do since beta (except tiamat).
Well it used to be that you could run dungeons instead of dailies, then the evil goddess Tiamat rose up and unleashed a pve apocalypse.
I'm pleased someone mentioned the crafting professions in addition to the other issues because this is one of my disappointments with the game. With the rng being my most disliked feature.
- Jewelcrafting - It's nice that we have a crafting profession where you can actually create usuable gear for the higher geared player. Sadly it's gated behind purple tools, which are in turn gated behind the rng, for someone at least.
- Weapon Crafting - When artifact weapons were first introduced I thought this might become useful as a way of crafting RP. Sadly no level 60 green or blue gear is craftable and besides their RP value is close to worthless fairly early on in the refining process. What level 60 gear is craftable requires a dragon egg, which is fairly rare and more valuable than the RP of the gear you could craft with it.
- Alchemy - Could have been useful but for the fact that potions drop everywhere. The rng nature of progressing the profession, whilst understandable from a sort of role-playing perspective is just more rng in a game full of rng.
- Leadership - Great method of earning AD for a more casual and time constrained player like myself. Also provides potions, RP for artifacts and more. Completely outstrips all other professions in terms of utility and usefulness as a result. Part of me wishes this didn't exist.
- Leatherworking/Platesmithing/Tailoring/Mailsmithing - These are largely crippled by what I believe to be one of the fundamental problems with crafting in general. It levels much more slowly than a character, rendering much if not all of the craftable gear useless. One of best things you could perhaps do with these is have craftable transmutes. The same could apply to weaponsmithing and artificing.
In the grand scheme of the game though crafting is a pretty minor and insignificant part. The amount of work required to make it useful and interesting is probably going to inhibit major change.
So what do you want? Cryptic to FORCE you to run content with your friends?
You need a REASON to socialize?
With everything EXCEPT Tiamat, you can do whatever you like with whatever group you like. Sheesh. Some people just complain just for the sake of complaining.
No we want content that is difficult where it makes you want to run with people you know. Taking the first four that want to join you for a run is great for meeting new people, but it doesn't contribute to long term sustainability or happiness. In other mmo's I'd take whoever for groups while leveling or doing easier content, but for endgame raids and hard mode dungeons (being generic here to avoid naming specific games) I'd typically want to run with guildies or channel members because the content was hard enough to require teamwork and it was easier when we all knew each other and our capabilities. Right now we have great dungeons for running with randoms to meet new people, we have horrid dungeons for promoting guild runs and forming communities that stick together to work on content.
You are free to run content with people you know regardless of the difficulty of the content, with the single exception of Tiamat.
How about giving an incentive to actually do so and not forbidding us from doing it in new content they release? Would make a nice start.
Dailies are the main content that take up most of our time and it's more of a hassle to not solo it. Dungeons are worthless and If I did want something, I don't want to burden them for my benefit when the content is just a breeze and they don't really benefit from it.
They forced us into guilds with gg and then made little use out of it. If they didn't have that requirement in the first place then at least the 20x20 teams would actually be balanced if they really wanted it not to have any benefit.
I year ago I'd play with people I can count on and get along with that can work together. Now I don't need to bother and if I did it doesn't matter for most of it how uncoordinated they are. Raids were meant to be the prime example of grouped content. If I queue up, I don't really care if I meet up with them or not again. Our guild ran many CN runs a day, Now people don't bother forming groups. Some people still come on and may do tiamat, but on the whole there's really not a lot keeping us here.
You play a very different version of PvE than I do, then.
For me, PvE isn't about grinding the same dungeon over and over and over to get stuff to sell, it's about experiencing the game play and the content, hopefully with friends old and new, in a fun and enjoyable way. And for me, that means trying NEW content, not mindlessly grinding away at the same old run over and over and over.
Actually, that's a problem with Mod 5, which is a small part of the game. I wasn't even aware of it because I haven't bothered to play Mod 5 much. I went to the zone, saw it was yet another assortment of boring daily grind, and went back to doing fun stuff.
My main's been a GWF since beta. I played through the times when "nobody wanted GWFs". Guess what? I found people to play with. The people who didn't want GWFs were the elitist minmaxers whose sole concern was getting ubergear rather than experiencing and enjoying the game.
This is a D&D game. The classes aren't SUPPOSED to be balanced. They're each supposed to have their niche. But people have whined so much that they've changed things that were supposed to make them unique.
Remember that skill for finding and removing traps that rogues have? Nobody bothers to use it. Why? People whined about traps, and traps got gimped. If traps mattered, like they do in a certain other D&D MMO, people would want a rogue with them in every single dungeon, regardless of how much damage output they had. It's not class BALANCE that's the issue in PvE, it's class USEFULNESS. Tanks need to be tankier. Rogues need to be rogues, and not just strikers. Etc.
And yes, I avoid dailies. I don't do them. And I still find plenty to do. Dailies aren't the be-all and end-all of the game. If anything, they're the downfall of the game. They are mindless, uncreative pseudocontent designed to make you think you're experiencing the game when you're just doing the same boring rubbish over and over again.
This game has two things that set it apart from other generic fantasy MMOs. 1) It's D&D. The problem there is it's not the only D&D MMO, and the other one does the D&D part better. 2) It has Foundry. Which they gimped, then ignored.
If this game is going to have longevity, it's not going to be because of more powerful companions, or added daily grinds, or more PvP. It's going to be because they gave us something that is unique to this game, that keeps people in this game.
Like I've said before, a good start toward fixing all of these problems is that they need to re-focus on Foundry, make it a crown jewel of the game (like their early adverts said it was), give it a reward system, and give the option to flag a map for PvP. PvE players get unlimited content without having to do daily grind. PvP players get new maps to play on. Everyone's happy.
Can't really argue with that. The players are sure to be able to do a much better job at keeping interest with better tools and rewards. When some of the foundry achievements are bugged that hinder the ability to get the rewards that do exist, I wouldn't hold my breath.
While in general you are right. I have to point out your specifics are wrong. I played that other game and beat every single quest in that game on it's elite versions with no trapper. You just had to know how to dodge each trap. While increasing trap damage would be great, as traps here are completely ignorable, it doesn't make it where content then requires trappers.
Considering most people are able to play, that's not the server, thats either a misconfiguration where you still have on-demand patching on, or your connection to the server.
Nope, only started happening after the friday patch for me, and on 2 pc's exactly the same thing, with the gateway also dropping out.
I monitor my net traffic and there was zero packet loss when this was happening, this used to be the only cause of this effect, imo it's server related this time.
Yet somehow when the servers actually have problems there are multiple threads about it, all having 5 or more pages in the first 15 minutes. When the server actually has problems it effects everyone. This is not. There may be a correlation to friday's patch for you, but correlation is not causation. Run a traceroute, pathping, and cryptic's nettest. You likely are getting loss, high ping, or packet throttling.
Vast majority has pointed out since IWD RNG bracers, that rng at that level is bad incentive to participate in game.
Vast majority has pointed out since ToD that its too grindy, and people who want to play alts are getting more locked out.
Vast majority, did not want implemented refinement system as currently stands.
The last guild I was in , had 340 active players on its roster, we are down to 5-6 who log in daily. Thats hundreds of people who left since IWD started!
It takes 5-10 or even longer minutes to get a pvp match, once entered, you get slammed with a premade, or 2 TRs on each team, and then it boils down to whose TRS are better.
All the response we get back is basically this.. A. Game was too easy and B. we cant implement actual play through content enough without increasing level of grind to this extent.
Question then was summed as this, Why not make pve harder.. answer, we dont want it harder then current level.
Refinement is summed up as this, those who purchased RP before they locked it out and those who didnt. For those who did, kudos to you, for us who didnt, we were fools, and apparently neverwinter wants us to dwell in purgatory for our foolishness.
We group in MMOs, due to progression, thats the catalyst, when you remove it, then people wont do it, thats been social experiment 1, since the start of UO and EQ1.
There simply is no reason to run DD content and Tiamat requires no grouping. Hence, no groups.
PVP requires massive gear score to compete, we are now locked out to get that gear score.. so pvp very unbalanced, more then ever.
RP is boring to grind, its been repeated by the majority, not just forum, channels as well. REDUCE the artifact equipment RP total and remove cooldown on hoards AND give refinement rewards for EVERY DD and a chance to even roll on Brilliant diamonds on new harder content.
It isn't unplayable for me, the ONLY place I've had bad lag in the last couple of months was once in tiamat at the beginning and I think that was someone using a known lag bomb, a couple of minutes later it was all good again and we went on to beat tiamat. But for most of the game I've had little to no lag, a reasonably modern laptop and a fiber optic connection may help matters but it isn't the server else everyone would get it
Well the server is in the USA and sometimes we have terrible laggs from europe, so it is not us or the server, the problem is we are on the other side of the earth and have to play on the same server.
AGREED
What I would like to see (from a PvE standpoint, I do not PvP at all in Neverwinter)...
* Legendary versions of existing dungeons, with RP (black opal?) from the chest. OR a smaller add-on to each existing dungeon, of 'legendary' difficulty which would contain RP as a reward.
* ability to enter existing epic dungeons with parties of less than 5.
* a new campaign, a lengthy one with a LARGE area. Not a lengthy campaign like sharandar, where you do the same small area over and over, but one with a sizable land-mass to explore. As the OP said, the world is too small! NO **** dailies please. What about simply gaining experience...you know like D&D? How about a lengthy weekly quest, one where progression might be saved so you do not necessarily need to complete it in a single session.
* completely NEW dungeons of greater size, legendary difficulty. Ideally I would LOVE to see a couple new dungeons with scale-able difficulty. 5 man min to enter, but would scale to up to 10
* companions, the op mentioned that the companions are worthless...this is true especially considering all of the companions where the active bonus doesn't even work. How about fixing the companions that are broken? Cockatrice, Ioun Stone of Allure, Dire Wolf, etc.
Personally, I am fine with the the artifact's/RP system as it is now (granted I would have preferred an experience system over what we have now, but I don't think scrapping the existing system is feasible)...though RP either needs to drop more frequently, OR they need to have more frequent 2x RP weekeneds. I don't have any legendary artifacts, but there is no content anywhere which encourages me to get my existing arti's to legendary. MY main character has all (belt, neck, weapons, 3 artis) at epic level, ALL from RP obtained by playing the game, none purchased from the AH. However, to get from epic to legendary via that same method will take an exceedingly long time. So much so that I've personally just written those off as an unobtainable, and completely unnecessary, goal. Again, as the OP said dungeons are too easy, and the world is too small, so why bother with character progression.