First, I want to give a little clarity on where these changes are actually reflected. The patch notes were wrong and have been updated to say: critters level 61-70+ ... anything below level 61 was unaffected by the change.
I appreciate you coming forward and admitting it, but whosoever is in charge of proofreading really needs to start doing a better job. This isn't the first time patch notes provide incorrect and incomplete information.
Right out of the gate, we wanted to drastically reduce the chance of an Alpha strike; foes had been instantly killing players too frequently in the new zones, and there was nothing you, as a player, could do about it. Through internal testing, we found a value that made this much less likely to happen, without making it so weak that you didn't have to actually play the game. When we tried lowering it further, we found we didn't need to avoid attacks at all, and you could just stand still pressing buttons. That's not what NW combat is about; as part of action combat, you're supposed to have to dodge.
That much I understand and appreciate. And the patch actually forces you to do so for most averagely geared classes. But the downside is that tank classes need 50% more time to kill, which in their case can be quite a lot. They are already standing still due to the nature of their class, just even longer now. Does this mean that tank classes can expect a small damage increase to prevent them from having to spend an hour just to kill the summoned demon in the DR quest or do you intend to force them even more to team up for their daily quests?
Previously, once a player hit a certain threshold of damage output, defensive stats were all you wanted. This is no longer necessarily the case, especially as the player gets better at using their defensive tools and powers.
This patch changed nothing in that respect. It just upped that damage threshold. High DPS classes such as a CW remain largely unaffected because they can easily reach that threshold, while the tank classes (OP, GF and DC) are the ones getting hurt.
It is worth mentioning that these changes also make power choice more important. Carrying disruption and control powers in your damage build now has a much more pointed benefit in solo content. Areas like Sharandar, Dread Ring, and Icewind Dale will still be very difficult solo, as was originally intended when they became level 71, 72, and 73 respectively.
Does this mean that with the next patch the CC resistance of mobs will be lowered? Pushing people into using more CC powers is fine as far as it goes, but controlling does you little good right now due to the high CC resistance mobs currently have, especially lvl70+ mobs.
+1 to all of the above. Internal testing is one thing. Real world application is another.
What's with people who put their Ilvl in their Signatures? They probably have a big gold chain and saggy pants too.
I have never seen a dps DC on this forum who complained about poor survivability. yet so many dps HR's complain about poor survivability.
I missed this gem. Even a DPS build DC has more defence than a defensively built HR. And importantly they have CC and self healing. Only a Trapper HR has significant CC and no HR has self healing. Even trying to compare the two betrays a huge lack of knowledge about HRs.
...also the DPS DC has on tap heals and, most important, Astral Seal as a still working, reliable and rather constant surrogate for the all but vanished to somewhat erratic Lifesteal. AND significantly debuffs enemy damage output...
IMHO the changes we see now are meant to slow th game to the glacial speed of the Healing Potion cooldown... :^/
@Goatshark
You do know, that the patch from May 15th broke the Scourge Warlock Harrowstorm right?
Now how do i disrupt enemies?
And why can't the support help us players out with a free respec, when powers get broken by patches?
Sure, i could pay out of my own pocket for a full respec to find another working setup, but that shouldn't be the way...
And one other point i would like to add, the level 70 health potion for a players heals for 10k... enemies have health potions that give nearly 60k, and practically reset the whole fight back to very beginning.
And perhaps i'm wrong here, but not every class can disrupt a whole group of enemies with a just one ability.
I gave Dread Ring another shot today with my SW, and it is still a pain to play... perhaps you could just copy my character and try it for yourself?
We upped the critter health because right now, once you had "good enough" damage on gear (weapons especially), not only didn't you feel the need to improve your gear, if you DID go through the effort of improving it, you didn't notice a difference because everything already died too quickly.
Who is this "You" you are referring too. What was their item level and gear?
You indirectly nerf our damage because enemies die too quickly? Die too quickly for whom?
I have 25k power and never for one minute thought it was too much. I'm looking for ways to increase damage every day.
You are saying people thought they had too much damage and didn't need an upgrade. I find it hard to believe anyone would think that.
Previously, once a player hit a certain threshold of damage output, defensive stats were all you wanted. This is no longer necessarily the case, especially as the player gets better at using their defensive tools and powers.
In mod 5 maybe. Not mod 6. there is NO SUCH THING as too much offensive stats in mod 6.
In mod 5 your would reach the cap and were FORCED to invest in defense. It was NEVER a choice.
When we tried lowering it further, we found we didn't need to avoid attacks at all, and you could just stand still pressing buttons. That's not what NW combat is about; as part of action combat, you're supposed to have to dodge.
Sure. The average person should have to fight harder. During your testing what gear were you were you wearing?
As a CW with 25k power, 65% sheet crit and 157% Crit Severity I should be able to just stand there. That was the whole reason for bettering my character so I could "Just stand still pressing buttons" like I did in mod 5. Back when the game was fun
What is the point of spending money to make one's character more powerful and the game easier. When no matter how much you spend, it's still too hard to be fun. This is a good design/business model?
BRING BACK THE FUN
Post edited by Undefined on
What's with people who put their Ilvl in their Signatures? They probably have a big gold chain and saggy pants too.
This change caused more bad than good things. Basically all the CC and burst is just not enough to kill mobs and once it's worn off you gonna die, cause 30% dmg penalty on mobs is nothing when they still take ~20-30% of your hp with each swing.
I'm not sure what the thinking is behind this change but it is horrible. I don't want to play a longer grindier game. I want to play a fun engaging game. The changes and design approach since IWD have been the exact opposite of that.
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bioshrikeMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,729Arc User
They should have just reduced NPC armor penetration and perhaps slightly increased the cooldown on their powers. Additionally, I would love to have seen some sort of "random delay" added to enemy reaction times, so that they don't all simultaneously hit you - nothing worse than jumping into a crowd (as a tank) only to get slammed by 3+ enemies' big attacks at the same exact time. It's also annoying that you pop out of stealth or try to ride past a group, and they all hit you in perfect coordination.
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "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
Right out of the gate, we wanted to drastically reduce the chance of an Alpha strike; foes had been instantly killing players too frequently in the new zones, and there was nothing you, as a player, could do about it. Through internal testing, we found a value that made this much less likely to happen, without making it so weak that you didn't have to actually play the game. When we tried lowering it further, we found we didn't need to avoid attacks at all, and you could just stand still pressing buttons. That's not what NW combat is about; as part of action combat, you're supposed to have to dodge.
As with so many others, I wish to know who this enigmatic "we" consists of, and more critically, what their gear, IL, stats, power choice, etc. was. Because, Mr. Goatshark, I'm not sure if you're fully aware of it or not, as I have no idea how much time you and the rest of the devs actually spend among the players upon whom this game depends for its success, but there's a very, very large concern right now that you and your compatriots are more or less existing in your own little reality, testing these scenarios with ultra high end BIS gear and basing your decisions upon that alone. Rather than, say, the 99.5% of players that don't have access to Moradin's +12 Warhammer of Kill-Bloody-Everything and the famed Armor of Invincibility and the Bottomless Wallet artifact.
In sum, the vast majority of us have watched the game that we love and would *love* to continue investing in transforming into the same boring grind-fest that has killed off dozens of other MMOs. A game where we have to seek groups for daily quests that your own sales pitch assures us should be soloable for a "reasonably well geared adventurer" (and which we are rightly beginning to suspect means "an adventurer who has spent at least $300.00 outfitting this one toon). Whether it is right or wrong, you are dealing with a player base where the vast majority, i.e. the people you depend upon to keep this game alive, are under the belief that you are deliberately throwing up paywalls and demanding that they fork out ever vaster sums of money to simply return to the status quo.
Because as far as most of us are concerned, that is all Module 6 is. We have sweated, toiled, and clawed our way through nearly two hundred mind-numbingly repetitive "vigilance tasks", spent fortunes on injury kits to deal with the horrifically unbalanced monsters, (and in my case, bade a more or less tearful farewell to the Ion Stone of Allure I scrimped and saved for and which I used for a year and a half, in order to invest in a companion whose sole purpose is to simply stand there and keep shoving stim-packs into my arm, simply so I don't keel over dead when an enemy sneezes in my general direction) simply to get back to where we were before this so-called expansion module was virtually vomited into our laps!
There's no end-game. There are no new dungeons or skirmishes (indeed, nearly three months after they were taken away from us, nearly three quarters of your Dungeons and skirmishes are *still* gone, and are showing no sign of returning). And with every new patch, your development team seem bound and determined to make the game worse. Whether its nerfing the DHEs into the ground in what I can only assume is a short-sighted attempt to force us to buy more blood-ruby packs (rather than, say, something as innovative as lowering the price or making them offer more RP, thereby making it to where it doesn't cost as much as a Playstation 4 and several games for said system to fully upgrade a toon, start to finish, and as such, making it much more appealing to your players to go 'yeah, I'll spend X to upgrade this guy *and the eight or so alts I have because the price is now reasonable*), or transforming combat into a glacial paced grind that makes a Final Fantasy game look fast-paced and dynamic by comparison, it leaves us wondering who is running things, what logic is behind these seemingly insane decisions, and desperately wondering where the fun, innovative MMO that we've spent the past two years enjoying the heck out of has gone.
And I know that, frustrated as I am, I have it a heck of a lot better than most. I play a CW, which is a near god-tier PVE character, who had been around long enough to have all the boons and the like before Module 6 made it nearly impossible for just-starting new characters to achieve. I shudder to think what it must be like for them, and find it no wonder that so many have quit the game in disgust.
I understand that I've belted on for quite a bit, and there is several grams of vitriol and frustration induced snark in the above, and I do apologize if I've hurt your feelings or insulted you. But this is the emotional state of the vast majority of your player base, as demonstrated by your own in house polls and the plummeting number of players actually playing the game. It is a situation you must address, or Neverwinter, sadly, will probably not be around to celebrate a three year jubilee. Because you don't own a monopoly on the "high fantasy MMO" genre. And your player base can, and has been leaving you for other games.
Please don't let this happen. Don't let this game be remembered as a genuinely fun experience a fresh breath of air that was destroyed by short-sighted greed, a development team that refused to respond to player feedback, and rampant incompetence.
I missed this gem. Even a DPS build DC has more defence than a defensively built HR. And importantly they have CC and self healing. Only a Trapper HR has significant CC and no HR has self healing. Even trying to compare the two betrays a huge lack of knowledge about HRs.
What???
DC control ability is weak. Chains of Blazing Light is easy to miss and duration is nothing special.
DC can self-heal, but DC can not do both well at the same time: either strong heal/weak dps, or medium heal/dps, or weak heal/strong dps. GEAS only has specialized usage and, for me, is a very bad choice, when fighting large mobs.
Archery HR can do some control. duration is short but constricting arrow never completely misses.
Both DC and HR have self healing. HR self-heals wih Oak Skin and Forest Meditation.
HR has fox cunning / fox shift.
Problem is that some archery HR refuse to self-heal and/or refuse to use fox cunning/fox shift and/or refuse to control. Fox shift grants brief immunity to damage. Marauder's escape/rush allows HR to move into and out of combat. HR has many tools fighting mobs, but many HR restrict themselves to only playing a particular way.
By the way, 65k HP is closer to glass build than tank build. Try an angel of protection. Healing is % of character HP. More HP = bigger heals. Also get an augment companion for faster killing of easy monsters.
...also the DPS DC has on tap heals and, most important, Astral Seal as a still working, reliable and rather constant surrogate for the all but vanished to somewhat erratic Lifesteal. AND significantly debuffs enemy damage output...
For me, astral seal works very poorly now when soloing. No more continuous incoming small heals.
The best tool my dps DC has for survival when soloing is to dodge.
How does dps DC debuff enemy damage output? power of the sun / brand of the Sun? Have you actually tested it? How much reduction in damage output?
I missed this gem. Even a DPS build DC has more defence than a defensively built HR. And importantly they have CC and self healing. Only a Trapper HR has significant CC and no HR has self healing. Even trying to compare the two betrays a huge lack of knowledge about HRs.
What???
DC control ability is weak. Chains of Blazing Light is easy to miss and duration is nothing special.
DC can self-heal, but DC can not do both well at the same time: either strong heal/weak dps, or medium heal/dps, or weak heal/strong dps. GEAS only has specialized usage and, for me, is a very bad choice, when fighting large mobs.
Archery HR can do some control. duration is short but constricting arrow never completely misses.
Both DC and HR have self healing. HR self-heals wih Oak Skin and Forest Meditation.
HR has fox cunning / fox shift.
Problem is that some archery HR refuse to self-heal and/or refuse to use fox cunning/fox shift and/or refuse to control. Fox shift grants brief immunity to damage. Marauder's escape/rush allows HR to move into and out of combat. HR has many tools fighting mobs, but many HR restrict themselves to only playing a particular way.
By the way, 65k HP is closer to glass build than tank build. Try an angel of protection. Healing is % of character HP. More HP = bigger heals. Also get an augment companion for faster killing of easy monsters.
Fox's cunning avoids ***one*** attack. That's it.
Forest meditation is a daily.
Constricting Arrow lasts for ***one*** second, despite what the tooltip might say. Don't believe me? Take an archer into a dungeon and see for yourself. With mobs' runspeed and 20' reach, it's useless.
Let's say you slot marauder's, fox's cunning, and constricting. Now you have no offense save for at-wills.
Archers have squat for CC. I'm amazed that goatshark doesn't seem to know this.
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Let's say you slot marauder's, fox's cunning, and constricting. Now you have no offense save for at-wills.
.
The melee version of Marauder's, fox cunning, and constricting all do damage.
HR's were designed/intended to be hybrid melee and ranged.
HR's who never use melee are playing less than optimally and should except higher than normal difficulty.
Let's say you slot marauder's, fox's cunning, and constricting. Now you have no offense save for at-wills.
.
The melee version of Marauder's, fox cunning, and constricting all do damage.
HR's were designed/intended to be hybrid melee and ranged.
HR's who never use melee are playing less than optimally and should except higher than normal difficulty.
HRs were ORIGINALLY designed to be hybrid Range/Melee. And that design worked well IMO with virtually every sucessful build being such a hybrid even if with a slight emphasis on on or the othe. Then they redesigned the feat trees with the SPECIFICALLY STATED INTENTION of separating them out into different playstyles based on either Ranged or Melee combat with the Trapper tree added as pure CC based play. It is now impossible to build a truly hybrid HR due to the way the Archery and Melee trees are structured. Base powers are next to useless and rely on powerful feats high up the trees to become viable.
The base damage of Marauders and Constricting is pathetic and Consticting's CC duration is around 1 second unless you go deep into Trapper for the extended Root feats. An Archer has no viable CC. Cordon of Arrows and it's Melee equivalent have laughably short CC durations - they won't even hold a mob in place long enough to land Rain of Arrows most of the time and sometimes a mob will simply ignore them completely.
Please don't try and tell people who have played HR since launch how to do it. You clearly have no clue.
Please don't try and tell people who have played HR since launch how to do it. You clearly have no clue.
I have played HR since HR's were introduced. Your insult is noted. offense taken.
Any player who never presses tab is intentionally handicapping himself.
Impossible to build a truly hybrid HR? Tell that to all the trappers who play ranged and melee.
If Cryptic were to disable melee powers on archer HR, then I would expect ranged powers to be buffed.
However, since melee powers are still enabled, HR would be overpowered if ranged powers are greatly buffed.
In general, 100% dps build is not viable for all soloing. respec or don't solo.
A dps class should either:
dps/heal
dps/tank
dps/control
or dps/combo of heal,tank, or control
Instead of asking the devs to adapt the game to your build and play style, how about adapting your character and play style to the game?
I have played HR since HR's were introduced. Your insult is noted. offense taken.
Any player who never presses tab is intentionally handicapping himself.
Impossible to build a truly hybrid HR? Tell that to all the trappers who play ranged and melee.
If Cryptic were to disable melee powers on archer HR, then I would expect ranged powers to be buffed.
However, since melee powers are still enabled, HR would be overpowered if ranged powers are greatly buffed.
In general, 100% dps build is not viable for all soloing. respec or don't solo.
A dps class should either:
dps/heal
dps/tank
dps/control
or dps/combo of heal,tank, or control
Instead of asking the devs to adapt the game to your build and play style, how about adapting your character and play style to the game?
Well I apologise for the offence but you hide your knowledge/experience of the HR well.
I never said I didn't press Tab. Nor did I suggest that people should avoid doing so. I pointed out that the current structure of the HR feat trees is DELIBERATELY DESIGNED for Archers to spend the majority of time in Ranged Stance, Melee to spend the majority of time in Melee stance, and only Trappers to be regularly switching stances. This was not only clearly stated by the Devs at the time of the rework but is implicit in the feat structure.
A Trapper is not a Hybrid HR. It's a Trapper, focussed on CC and DoT. This is nothing at all like the old Hybrid builds.
I didn't ask for buffs to Ranged powers. Or Melee powers. I pointed out the lack of CC/disruption available to two out of three feat trees and the therefore garbage argument that all characters should be carrying these abilities to deal with the post-patch content.
I pointed out earlier that I don't have a 100% DPS build and indeed already did all the things you were recommending, up to and including companion choice.
I have adapted all my toons many times. My single biggest financial investment in this game is probably respec tokens and continual re-gearing. I'm not asking for the game to be moulded to my own personal preferences, I'm pointing out where there is a disconnect between what the Devs think we are/should be doing and what actually works in game for an averagely geared player.
Some classes and build are almost completely lacking in CC or disruption powers and even where you carry them (and I'm a big fan of doing so) the L61+ mobs have so much CC resistance that their effectiveness is extremely limited.
Mobs in Icewind Dale now have less control resistance to my control powers.
Control duration has increased.
Have not tested other areas.
Instead of arguing on the forum, you really ought to spend more time in game.
We might feel it makes the game tedious and that they were stupid reasons that he seems remarkably uninterested in rethinking but he at least he did tell us what they were.
I wonder what the testers were like. Maybe you could tell them to look up optimal builds on the subforums and tell them to find out what the classes are actually capable of. That would be cool. No one has thought the people appraising the classes has had any clue about them for some time.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
Game is so tedious now. Minions now take longer to kill than Mod 5 elites.
As a dps build who relied on killing mobs before they touch me, this change feels bad. I used to kill mob packs in DR in 2-3 hits, now I'm hitting with a wet noodle and it takes too much time for content which supposed to be trivial for a 2.4ilvl.
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instynctiveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,885Arc User
Again, if they based mob difficulty on the character's ilvl, a stop could be put to all of this nonsense.
I hate this new patch. It makes even more difficult for the squishy classes. 25% reduction in the damage that I was seeing is not enough to make it survivable when they have 50% more HP.
We might feel it makes the game tedious and that they were stupid reasons that he seems remarkably uninterested in rethinking but he at least he did tell us what they were.
And then basically said that anyone who had a problem with this nerf should just L2P. Nice.
The whole tone is now 'my way or the highway'. They are clearly not interested in player feedback and have a vision of how the game should be that they will force on us whether we like it or not.
The XP nerf is another example. They did not 'make playing on-level content more rewarding' at all. They made all the other content LESS rewarding in order for FORCE people to play the EE zones. Instead of rectifying the issues tha make people skip these zones they decided to use a stick and beat the playerbase into line.
It's a terrible attitude for a development team to have and pretty much ensures this game's demise in the not too distant future.
That's a terrible idea. I upgrade my character to makes things easier. Not harder.
Then you cry about the game being "too easy", and the devs take that cue to ramp up mob difficulty to impossible levels for characters who aren't as high level.
That's a terrible idea. I upgrade my character to makes things easier. Not harder.
Then you cry about the game being "too easy", and the devs take that cue to ramp up mob difficulty to impossible levels for characters who aren't as high level.
I never complained it was too easy. Not once. I have 25k power. I wish I had 50k.
What's with people who put their Ilvl in their Signatures? They probably have a big gold chain and saggy pants too.
Comments
+1 to all of the above. Internal testing is one thing. Real world application is another.
...also the DPS DC has on tap heals and, most important, Astral Seal as a still working, reliable and rather constant surrogate for the all but vanished to somewhat erratic Lifesteal. AND significantly debuffs enemy damage output...
IMHO the changes we see now are meant to slow th game to the glacial speed of the Healing Potion cooldown... :^/
You do know, that the patch from May 15th broke the Scourge Warlock Harrowstorm right?
Now how do i disrupt enemies?
And why can't the support help us players out with a free respec, when powers get broken by patches?
Sure, i could pay out of my own pocket for a full respec to find another working setup, but that shouldn't be the way...
And one other point i would like to add, the level 70 health potion for a players heals for 10k... enemies have health potions that give nearly 60k, and practically reset the whole fight back to very beginning.
And perhaps i'm wrong here, but not every class can disrupt a whole group of enemies with a just one ability.
I gave Dread Ring another shot today with my SW, and it is still a pain to play... perhaps you could just copy my character and try it for yourself?
Who is this "You" you are referring too. What was their item level and gear?
You indirectly nerf our damage because enemies die too quickly? Die too quickly for whom?
I have 25k power and never for one minute thought it was too much. I'm looking for ways to increase damage every day.
You are saying people thought they had too much damage and didn't need an upgrade. I find it hard to believe anyone would think that.
In mod 5 maybe. Not mod 6. there is NO SUCH THING as too much offensive stats in mod 6.
In mod 5 your would reach the cap and were FORCED to invest in defense. It was NEVER a choice.
Sure. The average person should have to fight harder. During your testing what gear were you were you wearing?
As a CW with 25k power, 65% sheet crit and 157% Crit Severity I should be able to just stand there. That was the whole reason for bettering my character so I could "Just stand still pressing buttons" like I did in mod 5. Back when the game was fun
What is the point of spending money to make one's character more powerful and the game easier. When no matter how much you spend, it's still too hard to be fun. This is a good design/business model?
BRING BACK THE FUN
"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
As with so many others, I wish to know who this enigmatic "we" consists of, and more critically, what their gear, IL, stats, power choice, etc. was. Because, Mr. Goatshark, I'm not sure if you're fully aware of it or not, as I have no idea how much time you and the rest of the devs actually spend among the players upon whom this game depends for its success, but there's a very, very large concern right now that you and your compatriots are more or less existing in your own little reality, testing these scenarios with ultra high end BIS gear and basing your decisions upon that alone. Rather than, say, the 99.5% of players that don't have access to Moradin's +12 Warhammer of Kill-Bloody-Everything and the famed Armor of Invincibility and the Bottomless Wallet artifact.
In sum, the vast majority of us have watched the game that we love and would *love* to continue investing in transforming into the same boring grind-fest that has killed off dozens of other MMOs. A game where we have to seek groups for daily quests that your own sales pitch assures us should be soloable for a "reasonably well geared adventurer" (and which we are rightly beginning to suspect means "an adventurer who has spent at least $300.00 outfitting this one toon). Whether it is right or wrong, you are dealing with a player base where the vast majority, i.e. the people you depend upon to keep this game alive, are under the belief that you are deliberately throwing up paywalls and demanding that they fork out ever vaster sums of money to simply return to the status quo.
Because as far as most of us are concerned, that is all Module 6 is. We have sweated, toiled, and clawed our way through nearly two hundred mind-numbingly repetitive "vigilance tasks", spent fortunes on injury kits to deal with the horrifically unbalanced monsters, (and in my case, bade a more or less tearful farewell to the Ion Stone of Allure I scrimped and saved for and which I used for a year and a half, in order to invest in a companion whose sole purpose is to simply stand there and keep shoving stim-packs into my arm, simply so I don't keel over dead when an enemy sneezes in my general direction) simply to get back to where we were before this so-called expansion module was virtually vomited into our laps!
There's no end-game. There are no new dungeons or skirmishes (indeed, nearly three months after they were taken away from us, nearly three quarters of your Dungeons and skirmishes are *still* gone, and are showing no sign of returning). And with every new patch, your development team seem bound and determined to make the game worse. Whether its nerfing the DHEs into the ground in what I can only assume is a short-sighted attempt to force us to buy more blood-ruby packs (rather than, say, something as innovative as lowering the price or making them offer more RP, thereby making it to where it doesn't cost as much as a Playstation 4 and several games for said system to fully upgrade a toon, start to finish, and as such, making it much more appealing to your players to go 'yeah, I'll spend X to upgrade this guy *and the eight or so alts I have because the price is now reasonable*), or transforming combat into a glacial paced grind that makes a Final Fantasy game look fast-paced and dynamic by comparison, it leaves us wondering who is running things, what logic is behind these seemingly insane decisions, and desperately wondering where the fun, innovative MMO that we've spent the past two years enjoying the heck out of has gone.
And I know that, frustrated as I am, I have it a heck of a lot better than most. I play a CW, which is a near god-tier PVE character, who had been around long enough to have all the boons and the like before Module 6 made it nearly impossible for just-starting new characters to achieve. I shudder to think what it must be like for them, and find it no wonder that so many have quit the game in disgust.
I understand that I've belted on for quite a bit, and there is several grams of vitriol and frustration induced snark in the above, and I do apologize if I've hurt your feelings or insulted you. But this is the emotional state of the vast majority of your player base, as demonstrated by your own in house polls and the plummeting number of players actually playing the game. It is a situation you must address, or Neverwinter, sadly, will probably not be around to celebrate a three year jubilee. Because you don't own a monopoly on the "high fantasy MMO" genre. And your player base can, and has been leaving you for other games.
Please don't let this happen. Don't let this game be remembered as a genuinely fun experience a fresh breath of air that was destroyed by short-sighted greed, a development team that refused to respond to player feedback, and rampant incompetence.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Aratech
What???
DC control ability is weak. Chains of Blazing Light is easy to miss and duration is nothing special.
DC can self-heal, but DC can not do both well at the same time: either strong heal/weak dps, or medium heal/dps, or weak heal/strong dps. GEAS only has specialized usage and, for me, is a very bad choice, when fighting large mobs.
Archery HR can do some control. duration is short but constricting arrow never completely misses.
Both DC and HR have self healing. HR self-heals wih Oak Skin and Forest Meditation.
HR has fox cunning / fox shift.
Problem is that some archery HR refuse to self-heal and/or refuse to use fox cunning/fox shift and/or refuse to control. Fox shift grants brief immunity to damage. Marauder's escape/rush allows HR to move into and out of combat. HR has many tools fighting mobs, but many HR restrict themselves to only playing a particular way.
By the way, 65k HP is closer to glass build than tank build. Try an angel of protection. Healing is % of character HP. More HP = bigger heals. Also get an augment companion for faster killing of easy monsters.
For me, astral seal works very poorly now when soloing. No more continuous incoming small heals.
The best tool my dps DC has for survival when soloing is to dodge.
How does dps DC debuff enemy damage output? power of the sun / brand of the Sun? Have you actually tested it? How much reduction in damage output?
Fox's cunning avoids ***one*** attack. That's it.
Forest meditation is a daily.
Constricting Arrow lasts for ***one*** second, despite what the tooltip might say. Don't believe me? Take an archer into a dungeon and see for yourself. With mobs' runspeed and 20' reach, it's useless.
Let's say you slot marauder's, fox's cunning, and constricting. Now you have no offense save for at-wills.
Archers have squat for CC. I'm amazed that goatshark doesn't seem to know this.
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The melee version of Marauder's, fox cunning, and constricting all do damage.
HR's were designed/intended to be hybrid melee and ranged.
HR's who never use melee are playing less than optimally and should except higher than normal difficulty.
The base damage of Marauders and Constricting is pathetic and Consticting's CC duration is around 1 second unless you go deep into Trapper for the extended Root feats. An Archer has no viable CC. Cordon of Arrows and it's Melee equivalent have laughably short CC durations - they won't even hold a mob in place long enough to land Rain of Arrows most of the time and sometimes a mob will simply ignore them completely.
Please don't try and tell people who have played HR since launch how to do it. You clearly have no clue.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
I have played HR since HR's were introduced. Your insult is noted. offense taken.
Any player who never presses tab is intentionally handicapping himself.
Impossible to build a truly hybrid HR? Tell that to all the trappers who play ranged and melee.
If Cryptic were to disable melee powers on archer HR, then I would expect ranged powers to be buffed.
However, since melee powers are still enabled, HR would be overpowered if ranged powers are greatly buffed.
In general, 100% dps build is not viable for all soloing. respec or don't solo.
A dps class should either:
dps/heal
dps/tank
dps/control
or dps/combo of heal,tank, or control
Instead of asking the devs to adapt the game to your build and play style, how about adapting your character and play style to the game?
I never said I didn't press Tab. Nor did I suggest that people should avoid doing so. I pointed out that the current structure of the HR feat trees is DELIBERATELY DESIGNED for Archers to spend the majority of time in Ranged Stance, Melee to spend the majority of time in Melee stance, and only Trappers to be regularly switching stances. This was not only clearly stated by the Devs at the time of the rework but is implicit in the feat structure.
A Trapper is not a Hybrid HR. It's a Trapper, focussed on CC and DoT. This is nothing at all like the old Hybrid builds.
I didn't ask for buffs to Ranged powers. Or Melee powers. I pointed out the lack of CC/disruption available to two out of three feat trees and the therefore garbage argument that all characters should be carrying these abilities to deal with the post-patch content.
I pointed out earlier that I don't have a 100% DPS build and indeed already did all the things you were recommending, up to and including companion choice.
I have adapted all my toons many times. My single biggest financial investment in this game is probably respec tokens and continual re-gearing. I'm not asking for the game to be moulded to my own personal preferences, I'm pointing out where there is a disconnect between what the Devs think we are/should be doing and what actually works in game for an averagely geared player.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
Mobs in Icewind Dale now have less control resistance to my control powers.
Control duration has increased.
Have not tested other areas.
Instead of arguing on the forum, you really ought to spend more time in game.
We might feel it makes the game tedious and that they were stupid reasons that he seems remarkably uninterested in rethinking but he at least he did tell us what they were.
I wonder what the testers were like. Maybe you could tell them to look up optimal builds on the subforums and tell them to find out what the classes are actually capable of. That would be cool. No one has thought the people appraising the classes has had any clue about them for some time.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
Oh <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, let me escape from this mob right into two more.
That's a terrible idea. I upgrade my character to makes things easier. Not harder.
The whole tone is now 'my way or the highway'. They are clearly not interested in player feedback and have a vision of how the game should be that they will force on us whether we like it or not.
The XP nerf is another example. They did not 'make playing on-level content more rewarding' at all. They made all the other content LESS rewarding in order for FORCE people to play the EE zones. Instead of rectifying the issues tha make people skip these zones they decided to use a stick and beat the playerbase into line.
It's a terrible attitude for a development team to have and pretty much ensures this game's demise in the not too distant future.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
Then you cry about the game being "too easy", and the devs take that cue to ramp up mob difficulty to impossible levels for characters who aren't as high level.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
I never complained it was too easy. Not once. I have 25k power. I wish I had 50k.