1. Leveling was always fast in Neverwinter. Faster than any other MMO I ever played. That being said, the only downside I ever saw to it was that the seals you gather leveling are useless. I liked the quick leveling. It still gave you plenty of time to play with different power configurations before you reach top level and start working on your gear.
2. Actually, that is not necessarily true. Almost every single top gear player in this game has significant money invested into the game (even if it was just to build out a leadership army). Some don't think twice about throwing in hundreds or even thousands of dollars to max their character out. There were times when there were rewarding end game dungeons that provided BIS BOE gear that you could make large quantities of AD on via the AH to finance your main and alts, but that is no longer true.
3. Artifacts and Artifact equipment was one of the worst things ever introduced into this game in my opinion. The stat differences they add increases the high end gearing range to ridiculous levels. Before these were introduced into the game, the real grind was enchants. It could literally take a year+ or just to get your enchants up to Rank 10 via heavy game farming (prior to the Rank 7 price drops). In the early mods of NW, the entire grind was the enchants, and there wasn't anywhere near the massive amount of gear difference between a well geared player and a BIS player.
4. One study last year showed that 1/3rd of the US workforce works on the weekend. The best option might be to rotate when the event occurs, or just to have it last for a week at a time.
5. Focusing on guild progression instead of adding content that brought so many to the game in the first place (challenging REWARDING end game dungeons) still baffles me.
I seriously hope Cryptic are looking at what segment of the players that are around are actually playing or just logging in to invoke in the hopes of the game returning to it's former glory. The Steam charts can be debated as accurate or not, but the trend is there and it is enough of a sample population to be statistically significant. Case in point, our guild trimmed down it's inactives in preparation for Strongholds. We have alwasys recruited, focussed on being helpful to newcomers and including / teaching all. We dropped down to 133 accounts. This weekend (what cryptic considers peak playtime) the max players in guild was a whopping 3 while I was around, and I was around a lot.
Seems many have run over to Skyforge, which is to be expected. Some will return and some will not, but I genuinely believe if NW had the content it once had and ceased travelling down the self destructive path of incredibly short sighted customer service mistakes like those pointed out by the OP, that many would not feel the need to look elsewhere. This is just commentary, it saddens me to see this game the way it is right now. I could provide loads of constructive feedback, but tbh everything that seems to be heralded as unacceptable, like missing dungeons, refining requirements, dragon hoard nerfs and the like has thus far fallen on deaf ears. Many people won't complain, they just leave and I believe we are seeing that happen.
3. Artifacts and Artifact equipment was one of the worst things ever introduced into this game in my opinion. The stat differences they add increases the high end gearing range to ridiculous levels. Before these were introduced into the game, the real grind was enchants. It could literally take a year+ or just to get your enchants up to Rank 10 via heavy game farming (prior to the Rank 7 price drops). In the early mods of NW, the entire grind was the enchants, and there wasn't anywhere near the massive amount of gear difference between a well geared player and a BIS player.
The enchanting system was one of first things I liked about NW - I don't mind grinding so much if I get to keep my investment. I liked the system where gear was disposable but upgrades were 'forever'. Artifact gear has reversed that and as casual player I simply won't bother with them.
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drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
When I started playing this game, in March, I was experiencing a game that I could see myself playing for many, many years. I found a great guild to be a part of... we did constant runs through just about everything. They would easily carry me through the gates of Hell to get me geared up. Within a month of joining them I had a t2 set and was working towards better.
Now most of us are never on, if we are it is to play in the preview or to sit and chat in guild chat. It was about 4 weeks ago when we had 15 members on at the same time... now I am lucky to see 6 to 8 members. Some of our stalwart members and guild officers have disappeared.
Do you know what happened? Can Cryptic explain what happened? @strumslinger can you possibly answer my question?
There is a HUGE disconnect between the devs/pwe and the players. When that happens... the rats leave the ship first. It should be required that EVERY DEV play the game that every PWE employee listen and hear what we have to say. There is a HUGE difference between hearing and listening.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
The game isnt that bad per se.. just parts of it are terrible..
They released a VERY bad mod (up to debate if its this mod or mod 4.. as its pretty evenly hated according to polls)
At the same time they increased difficulty of grinding (against the vast majority of player feedback on the matter)
They also seem to have the audacity to claim it benefits the game somehow (when in reality we all know whom it benefits)
1 item we couldve taken (a bad mod) by also slapping the playerbase in the face with increased grinding and broken powers/feats/bugs (ahem.. I spend my own tokens to fix your stupid effing power bug!) you made us all pretty upset about the state of the game overall.
I have seen many people leave, more then usual. How they can continue to justify things like the experience increase and the mob hp pool increase and the dragon hoard nerfing and ect ect ect.. is beyond me.
I WOULDVE even been ok with experience increase, if they just made the mobs easier to blow through, but the OVERFLOW increase shouldve remained as the old.. you dont really farm power points, they came naturually over time, now its a big old pita to get them.
They literally cant get out of thier own way, they finally fixed the RP gain progression by giving us IWD, then nerfed it 75%... not 20%.. not 30, not even 50.. but 75% nerf. After running the math figures on how long it takes to grind out a legendary artifact gear set , its north of 300 hours, thats not progression playing.
Yet despite all of this.. its still fun to roll a alt and get it to 30 or 60.. I park them after that though.. I will not grind for the other stuff as we speak, its not fun, not at all.
Im hoping against hope that this strongholds fixes some of this stuff, but I doubt it.
The main problem is that the game stopped evolving and with the last module devolved.
While we got every module something new (Sharandar: Dailys + MC with new Boss Mechanic; Shadowmantle: Artifacts + VT; Icewinddale: Heroic encounter + New skirmish + open PvP + PvP Campaign; Tyrannny of the Dragon: Big Campaign trough a lot of old regions + New Skirmish + New Dungeon; Rise of Tiamat: Fight a Big Five headed Dragon) we got with module 6 nothing interesting In exchange for our loss in gear progression. Instead we have very little content to play, no possibility to earn additional ADs only via busy work like grinding Kessell.
The hope i have is really Stronghold because it look like something new but the game must start evolving faster. The combat starts to feel repetitive and some new additions would be great like a minigame/button smashing/QTE to break through control effects and get control immunity for 1second to dodge and stuff. Your personal control immunity could determine how easy the QTE is.
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
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drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
I keep coming back to something that strumslinger said a week or so ago... this is their thought process in nutshell.
"When you are done refining what will you do?"
What does that mean... they think is they keep us mildly entertained and working towards an almost unattainable goal that we will break and buy RP... or we will succumb and accept their actions... or we will leave.
I will answer you Andy... a lot of people were done refining everything on all of their toons during the last Mod. Yet they still played and enjoyed the game 100x more than today. What we all did when we weren't refining... which btw is not a D&D based concept but a way to make money... was to level alts, run content and enjoy the DDs/skirmishes and PvP that many of us had run 1000 times before.
I remember something a teacher told me in high school...
"If a few students fail a test, they didn't study enough or they were not prepared. If everyone that takes a test, fails the that test it is the teacher's fault. It is the teacher's fault because they made assumptions about the students and the content. Meaning that the teacher was completely disconnected from the students."
I will let you all draw your own conclusions.
When I worked for Teavana, before they were bought by Starbucks, there were absolutely zero artificial or natural flavors added to the tea. It was all fruit, spices, herbs and tea. After Starbucks bought Teavana... they brought in their own tea. Tea that Starbucks made to mimic the teas that we sold before. These teas had artificial and natural flavors in them.
Here is why this is relevant...
I asked my boss... why the teas now had artificial flavors and we are trained to tell our customers that the tea is all natural. I was told to shut up and do my job. I kept harassing my boss about this issue and she then told me that the artificial flavors are natural, but they are not natural to the tea, so they have to be labeled as artificial. That is what her boss told her to tell me. I am too HAMSTER smart for that HAMSTER line.
Anyways a long story short... too late... employees of a company are told what to say at all times. As long as they are representing the company they do not have to like what they say, but they are towing the company line... or they are fired.
At this point they may be thinking, how much would it cost to fix this and how long will it take?
I can tell you this much... if you fixed it when it was first broken... things would not be so out of whack NOW. It will also cost a hell of lot more to fix because things have piled up into a HUGE heap. This is why it is not smart to put your head in the sand to avoid seeing what is really happening. When you finally pull your head out to look at what you have been avoiding is right there on top of you.
One cannot thrive in the present, until they deal with their past and ignore their future.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
Guess one of the main issues is changing "game rules" during the gameplay, which is ofc plain wrong, should not happen more than once a couple of years. Its like after 1st year PWE started to struggle between typical "korean-grind-style" and what the game was launched like (fast-paced both progression and the gameplay), so now its just broken in every aspect. Not to mention the plain wrong development "schedule" system, which effectively leaves bad balance, bugs, poor content and quality and unfinished business behind it.
Again, if the quality (being it content and dungeons, game rules, both PC and NPC design - skills, VI/AI etc, foundry tool et cetera - rly dont know where to start and how to end the list) of the game, its content present and upcoming, was in focus instead of "the plan" (schedule, which plain reminds me commies - "fulfilled, and exceeded even!"), the game would be clearly one of the best, instead of merely mediocre, and majority of us, players currently disappointed, would never spell a word like "grind", or "whale" even.
So yes, i c issues in quality, not in the speed or "fast gains" or "grind" like slow XP, AD or...well whatever. But its usual for almost anything nowadays, being it a TV show or a stove, everything that becomes "common" and a subject of serial production, feeding en masse the "population", ignoring the fact such approach buries all thats of any value...nvm, will stop right here.
A bit nosy NW-DKG7E99X6
"Hardcore" exploration journey and dungeon crawl. Read its description prior to trying it.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
I think the assumption that most of us want to refine things , is false.
We could accept grinding for refinement, if it wasnt so tedious (IE the 80 hours in IWD.. not 300 IT IS CURRENTLY)
The amount of people who want to grind for 300 hours is probably around 1% or so.
WHAT would I do after the effing long, cracked out time? 300 hours!
The answer is simple, I would actually be able to play the game.. IE pvp, pve in groups ect ect..
I think the assumption that most of us want to refine things , is false.
We could accept grinding for refinement, if it wasnt so tedious (IE the 80 hours in IWD.. not 300 IT IS CURRENTLY)
The amount of people who want to grind for 300 hours is probably around 1% or so.
WHAT would I do after the effing long, cracked out time? 300 hours!
The answer is simple, I would actually be able to play the game.. IE pvp, pve in groups ect ect..
...and Cryptic's naive thinking is that you'll hence fling out your CC and buy ZEN to buy AD, and with that the RP from the botters...
I played Dark Age of Camelot for 4 years before moving on due to boredom.
I played World of Warcraft for 5 years before moving on due to boredom.
Since that time have not spend more then 1 year on any game before getting frustrated (or bored) I could not understand why I could not find a decent mmo then it HIT ME.
All the games out there are free to play (the ones that catch my eye) and free to play will NEVER be able to compete with sub based games due to outright GREED.
I can only hope that the new Camelot Unchained is good cause the state of games in todays market sucks big time. It seems we have de-evolved.
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drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
Camelot Unchained? That is a new name... I will have to search for it.
@openforbreakfast I am always hopeful... but I expect one thing out of everyone. That includes corporations, because they are created by human and run by humans. If a human touched it... it will be met with the same expectation.
I expect everyone to be human... therefore every corporation.
What does that mean?
Perfectly imperfect in every way.
When I do that... life is easier and I am never disappointed. Every time I am faced with a situation... I essentially grab 100 d10 and I roll. The outcome is never disappointing...
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
I played Dark Age of Camelot for 4 years before moving on due to boredom.
I played World of Warcraft for 5 years before moving on due to boredom.
Since that time have not spend more then 1 year on any game before getting frustrated (or bored) I could not understand why I could not find a decent mmo then it HIT ME.
All the games out there are free to play (the ones that catch my eye) and free to play will NEVER be able to compete with sub based games due to outright GREED.
I can only hope that the new Camelot Unchained is good cause the state of games in todays market sucks big time. It seems we have de-evolved.
F2P have nothing to do with greed, look for Dota 2. Over 11kk unique users in last month. 17kk of $ tournament for players. So you not only get a F2P game where $ give 0 advantage in game, but you can also gain a lot of free real money for being good at the game.
4. One study last year showed that 1/3rd of the US workforce works on the weekend.
Not that relevant if you consider that most players are not US residents. MMOs have a global market. And it's still quite common for the rest of the world to be off on weekends. Not that there are no exceptions, of course there are. But even if your statement was true for the entire world, they'd still hit a higher no of players during a weekend than during the midweek.
[...]
Well, do you really think the USA are so much different from the rest of the world??? This percentage is found more or less everywhere... ...might be 25%-ish in very christianity-leaning countries, but basically, all service personnel outside banks regularly has to work on weekends. Almost everywhere.
If you take a look at the server population curves on Steam, and at the appropriate time scale, you'll see that there is a weekend peak population about 1.25 times the weekday peak population (peak typically seen at around 21h CEST <=> 15h East coast on Sat and Sun). Baseline population stays almost constant throughout the week. This WE peak had been higher, when the game still had been more casuals-friendly, but meh, guess who's leaving...
The XP needed 60-70 is a good pace for the Epic Tier of the game. But, it feels like hitting a wall compared to 1-60. However, I don't think the best choice is to make it faster to get to 70.
If you hit the EE content at 60 there is not enough XP to get you to 70 by the time you finish Spinward Rise.
This is clearly broken.
They just expect you to pay up 60$ per character for the level boosters required, to level again at a normal pace to 70.
Yeah - I worked that out right away. Really, really shabby treatment of your playerbase. As a result I haven't logged in to the game in over 2 weeks - not even to invoke or do professions. I'll hang around until Strongholds to see if this game will become playable again but I've already found somewhere else to spend my gaming time and money.
If Cryptic no longer want casual solo players in their game then fair enough - it's their game after all. Wonder how long it will take them to realise how many players fall into one or other of those groups and how much money they tend to spend...
You guys really need more Devs. It's really clear to the players that this game is very, very understaffed, that the devs don't really play their own game, at least not enjoy it and have no passion for it.
The game is constantly losing players, and it really feels like you are ok with it as long as the ones who spend the most money stay.
Most bugs, exploits and such are being ignored simply because the devs are working on another mod. I am aware that every mod brings in a few more dollars, but that lasts for only a few weeks before the numbers drop again.
The last mods have felt like you are putting as little as possible resources/investment/money into to it, just to get a higher revenue. Because why would you invest into a module, when you can just make new artifact gear every 3 months that the whales have to level up to compete.
Sometimes it feels pointless to even report a bug because its not gonna make you any money if you fix it. When the players start to get that mentality you know that you have done a few bad choices down the road.
Andy, you are doing a great job with talking to the players and all, but at the end of the day, it feels like you are here just to talk and that they are paying you just to assure that everything will be "ok" even tho not much is really changing.
Anyway it just seems like you are severely understaffed and i kinda feel sorry for the people working there.
I do have one question for you;
Are you aiming to get as big of a population as possible, or are you settling with a smaller population that regularly pays money and keeps the game running its own course with minimal staff required?
As long as Wizard of the Coast gets their money for the licence, i really doubt that they care about NWO or even any other game with their licence on it.
I do believe in killing the messenger...
Want to know why?
Because it sends a message!
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putzboy78Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,950Arc User
You guys really need more Devs. It's really clear to the players that this game is very, very understaffed, that the devs don't really play their own game, at least not enjoy it and have no passion for it.
The game is constantly losing players, and it really feels like you are ok with it as long as the ones who spend the most money stay.
Most bugs, exploits and such are being ignored simply because the devs are working on another mod. I am aware that every mod brings in a few more dollars, but that lasts for only a few weeks before the numbers drop again.
The last mods have felt like you are putting as little as possible resources/investment/money into to it, just to get a higher revenue. Because why would you invest into a module, when you can just make new artifact gear every 3 months that the whales have to level up to compete.
Sometimes it feels pointless to even report a bug because its not gonna make you any money if you fix it. When the players start to get that mentality you know that you have done a few bad choices down the road.
Andy, you are doing a great job with talking to the players and all, but at the end of the day, it feels like you are here just to talk and that they are paying you just to assure that everything will be "ok" even tho not much is really changing.
Anyway it just seems like you are severely understaffed and i kinda feel sorry for the people working there.
I do have one question for you;
Are you aiming to get as big of a population as possible, or are you settling with a smaller population that regularly pays money and keeps the game running its own course with minimal staff required?
It's called disinvestment.
Cryptic does not want to do this game anymore; they are doing just enough to meet contractual requirements without suffering legal retaliation. Hopefully in the near future they will sell the game to someone else to manage (like they did with City of Heroes and City of Villains) and hopefully that company has a better long term strategy. Obviously we are not privy to the reasoning behind the disinvestment (maybe the cost of development is to high, there has been a lot of talk about the people who know the code are gone and the new developers cannot decipher it or lack the resource hours to decipher it). Either way Cryptic obviously wants out of Neverwinter.
The developers do not want to do this game anymore. It’s an old engine and based on comments we’ve heard circulating about the code no one has the insight into it to build significantly new features. Think about it, most likely the developers are relatively new to the career field. They want an environment where they can be creative and have fun, but they’ve been given someone else’s pile of smoldering #$^% . These guys do not want to eat and sleep Neverwinter. Odds are these guys went home and burned everything in their house that references D&D after the first week of being on the project (if they ever enjoyed D&D at all). Whenever they do create something new, we flame on it all over the forums. I feel sorry for them and can only imagine they spend half their day checking monster and careerbuilder for an escape.
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drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
I agree that this cannot be an easy place to be for anyone related. We also know that one week from yesterday there is a PWE meeting in China... to discuss current affairs.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
I don't think Neverwinter is on maimntenance mode like CO, we still get updates often and new areas. In CO the last area that was added was Vibora Bay like a bazillion years ago.
Cryptic has said that each game gets the content it can pay for, and for now NW at least ensures updates every 3-4 months.
I wish they had the time to fix the bugs though, I wouldn't mind 8 months without updates if that means we could get important bugs fixed.
But updates are probably timed by WotC, so they can't change that.
It should be required that EVERY DEV play the game.
I think that's a great idea, and by play, it should really mean PLAY. Not as a dev, but with a regular non-admin account. They should be required to join guilds - no more than 2 or 3 of staff in any given guild and they should be required generate at least 12K AD per play session without professions... and they should be required to do this at least once a week.
I'm going to close this thread as it has gotten to a point where it's the thread to vent to and has segued into pure speculation. To end things, the devs do care and are listening, hence their increased presence in the forums and our increased presence in general. I also don't appreciate the amount of insulting PMs I've received over my words in this thread - and will probably get more with this. I'm very open and honest about my opinions as a gamer myself, but if you prefer I sugarcoat things, then I shall.
Call me Andy (or Strum, or Spider-Man)! Follow Neverwinter on Twitter: NeverwinterGame Like Neverwinter on Facebook: Neverwinter Follow me on Twitter: StrumSlinger
Comments
2. Actually, that is not necessarily true. Almost every single top gear player in this game has significant money invested into the game (even if it was just to build out a leadership army). Some don't think twice about throwing in hundreds or even thousands of dollars to max their character out. There were times when there were rewarding end game dungeons that provided BIS BOE gear that you could make large quantities of AD on via the AH to finance your main and alts, but that is no longer true.
3. Artifacts and Artifact equipment was one of the worst things ever introduced into this game in my opinion. The stat differences they add increases the high end gearing range to ridiculous levels. Before these were introduced into the game, the real grind was enchants. It could literally take a year+ or just to get your enchants up to Rank 10 via heavy game farming (prior to the Rank 7 price drops). In the early mods of NW, the entire grind was the enchants, and there wasn't anywhere near the massive amount of gear difference between a well geared player and a BIS player.
4. One study last year showed that 1/3rd of the US workforce works on the weekend. The best option might be to rotate when the event occurs, or just to have it last for a week at a time.
5. Focusing on guild progression instead of adding content that brought so many to the game in the first place (challenging REWARDING end game dungeons) still baffles me.
Seems many have run over to Skyforge, which is to be expected. Some will return and some will not, but I genuinely believe if NW had the content it once had and ceased travelling down the self destructive path of incredibly short sighted customer service mistakes like those pointed out by the OP, that many would not feel the need to look elsewhere. This is just commentary, it saddens me to see this game the way it is right now. I could provide loads of constructive feedback, but tbh everything that seems to be heralded as unacceptable, like missing dungeons, refining requirements, dragon hoard nerfs and the like has thus far fallen on deaf ears. Many people won't complain, they just leave and I believe we are seeing that happen.
The enchanting system was one of first things I liked about NW - I don't mind grinding so much if I get to keep my investment. I liked the system where gear was disposable but upgrades were 'forever'. Artifact gear has reversed that and as casual player I simply won't bother with them.
Now most of us are never on, if we are it is to play in the preview or to sit and chat in guild chat. It was about 4 weeks ago when we had 15 members on at the same time... now I am lucky to see 6 to 8 members. Some of our stalwart members and guild officers have disappeared.
Do you know what happened? Can Cryptic explain what happened? @strumslinger can you possibly answer my question?
There is a HUGE disconnect between the devs/pwe and the players. When that happens... the rats leave the ship first. It should be required that EVERY DEV play the game that every PWE employee listen and hear what we have to say. There is a HUGE difference between hearing and listening.
They released a VERY bad mod (up to debate if its this mod or mod 4.. as its pretty evenly hated according to polls)
At the same time they increased difficulty of grinding (against the vast majority of player feedback on the matter)
They also seem to have the audacity to claim it benefits the game somehow (when in reality we all know whom it benefits)
1 item we couldve taken (a bad mod) by also slapping the playerbase in the face with increased grinding and broken powers/feats/bugs (ahem.. I spend my own tokens to fix your stupid effing power bug!) you made us all pretty upset about the state of the game overall.
I have seen many people leave, more then usual. How they can continue to justify things like the experience increase and the mob hp pool increase and the dragon hoard nerfing and ect ect ect.. is beyond me.
I WOULDVE even been ok with experience increase, if they just made the mobs easier to blow through, but the OVERFLOW increase shouldve remained as the old.. you dont really farm power points, they came naturually over time, now its a big old pita to get them.
They literally cant get out of thier own way, they finally fixed the RP gain progression by giving us IWD, then nerfed it 75%... not 20%.. not 30, not even 50.. but 75% nerf. After running the math figures on how long it takes to grind out a legendary artifact gear set , its north of 300 hours, thats not progression playing.
Yet despite all of this.. its still fun to roll a alt and get it to 30 or 60.. I park them after that though.. I will not grind for the other stuff as we speak, its not fun, not at all.
Im hoping against hope that this strongholds fixes some of this stuff, but I doubt it.
While we got every module something new (Sharandar: Dailys + MC with new Boss Mechanic; Shadowmantle: Artifacts + VT; Icewinddale: Heroic encounter + New skirmish + open PvP + PvP Campaign; Tyrannny of the Dragon: Big Campaign trough a lot of old regions + New Skirmish + New Dungeon; Rise of Tiamat: Fight a Big Five headed Dragon) we got with module 6 nothing interesting In exchange for our loss in gear progression. Instead we have very little content to play, no possibility to earn additional ADs only via busy work like grinding Kessell.
The hope i have is really Stronghold because it look like something new but the game must start evolving faster. The combat starts to feel repetitive and some new additions would be great like a minigame/button smashing/QTE to break through control effects and get control immunity for 1second to dodge and stuff. Your personal control immunity could determine how easy the QTE is.
"When you are done refining what will you do?"
What does that mean... they think is they keep us mildly entertained and working towards an almost unattainable goal that we will break and buy RP... or we will succumb and accept their actions... or we will leave.
I will answer you Andy... a lot of people were done refining everything on all of their toons during the last Mod. Yet they still played and enjoyed the game 100x more than today. What we all did when we weren't refining... which btw is not a D&D based concept but a way to make money... was to level alts, run content and enjoy the DDs/skirmishes and PvP that many of us had run 1000 times before.
I remember something a teacher told me in high school...
"If a few students fail a test, they didn't study enough or they were not prepared. If everyone that takes a test, fails the that test it is the teacher's fault. It is the teacher's fault because they made assumptions about the students and the content. Meaning that the teacher was completely disconnected from the students."
I will let you all draw your own conclusions.
When I worked for Teavana, before they were bought by Starbucks, there were absolutely zero artificial or natural flavors added to the tea. It was all fruit, spices, herbs and tea. After Starbucks bought Teavana... they brought in their own tea. Tea that Starbucks made to mimic the teas that we sold before. These teas had artificial and natural flavors in them.
Here is why this is relevant...
I asked my boss... why the teas now had artificial flavors and we are trained to tell our customers that the tea is all natural. I was told to shut up and do my job. I kept harassing my boss about this issue and she then told me that the artificial flavors are natural, but they are not natural to the tea, so they have to be labeled as artificial. That is what her boss told her to tell me. I am too HAMSTER smart for that HAMSTER line.
Anyways a long story short... too late... employees of a company are told what to say at all times. As long as they are representing the company they do not have to like what they say, but they are towing the company line... or they are fired.
At this point they may be thinking, how much would it cost to fix this and how long will it take?
I can tell you this much... if you fixed it when it was first broken... things would not be so out of whack NOW. It will also cost a hell of lot more to fix because things have piled up into a HUGE heap. This is why it is not smart to put your head in the sand to avoid seeing what is really happening. When you finally pull your head out to look at what you have been avoiding is right there on top of you.
One cannot thrive in the present, until they deal with their past and ignore their future.
Again, if the quality (being it content and dungeons, game rules, both PC and NPC design - skills, VI/AI etc, foundry tool et cetera - rly dont know where to start and how to end the list) of the game, its content present and upcoming, was in focus instead of "the plan" (schedule, which plain reminds me commies - "fulfilled, and exceeded even!"), the game would be clearly one of the best, instead of merely mediocre, and majority of us, players currently disappointed, would never spell a word like "grind", or "whale" even.
So yes, i c issues in quality, not in the speed or "fast gains" or "grind" like slow XP, AD or...well whatever. But its usual for almost anything nowadays, being it a TV show or a stove, everything that becomes "common" and a subject of serial production, feeding en masse the "population", ignoring the fact such approach buries all thats of any value...nvm, will stop right here.
We could accept grinding for refinement, if it wasnt so tedious (IE the 80 hours in IWD.. not 300 IT IS CURRENTLY)
The amount of people who want to grind for 300 hours is probably around 1% or so.
WHAT would I do after the effing long, cracked out time? 300 hours!
The answer is simple, I would actually be able to play the game.. IE pvp, pve in groups ect ect..
Now that is an interesting thing to say... lol.
I think you assume too much.
I wouldn't expect any 'fix', because that comes with an admission of wrongdoing. Certainly, we just aren't playing the game they intend.
...and Cryptic's naive thinking is that you'll hence fling out your CC and buy ZEN to buy AD, and with that the RP from the botters...
I played Dark Age of Camelot for 4 years before moving on due to boredom.
I played World of Warcraft for 5 years before moving on due to boredom.
Since that time have not spend more then 1 year on any game before getting frustrated (or bored) I could not understand why I could not find a decent mmo then it HIT ME.
All the games out there are free to play (the ones that catch my eye) and free to play will NEVER be able to compete with sub based games due to outright GREED.
I can only hope that the new Camelot Unchained is good cause the state of games in todays market sucks big time. It seems we have de-evolved.
@openforbreakfast I am always hopeful... but I expect one thing out of everyone. That includes corporations, because they are created by human and run by humans. If a human touched it... it will be met with the same expectation.
I expect everyone to be human... therefore every corporation.
What does that mean?
Perfectly imperfect in every way.
When I do that... life is easier and I am never disappointed. Every time I am faced with a situation... I essentially grab 100 d10 and I roll. The outcome is never disappointing...
F2P have nothing to do with greed, look for Dota 2. Over 11kk unique users in last month. 17kk of $ tournament for players. So you not only get a F2P game where $ give 0 advantage in game, but you can also gain a lot of free real money for being good at the game.
Well, do you really think the USA are so much different from the rest of the world??? This percentage is found more or less everywhere... ...might be 25%-ish in very christianity-leaning countries, but basically, all service personnel outside banks regularly has to work on weekends. Almost everywhere.
If you take a look at the server population curves on Steam, and at the appropriate time scale, you'll see that there is a weekend peak population about 1.25 times the weekday peak population (peak typically seen at around 21h CEST <=> 15h East coast on Sat and Sun). Baseline population stays almost constant throughout the week. This WE peak had been higher, when the game still had been more casuals-friendly, but meh, guess who's leaving...
If Cryptic no longer want casual solo players in their game then fair enough - it's their game after all. Wonder how long it will take them to realise how many players fall into one or other of those groups and how much money they tend to spend...
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
You guys really need more Devs. It's really clear to the players that this game is very, very understaffed, that the devs don't really play their own game, at least not enjoy it and have no passion for it.
The game is constantly losing players, and it really feels like you are ok with it as long as the ones who spend the most money stay.
Most bugs, exploits and such are being ignored simply because the devs are working on another mod. I am aware that every mod brings in a few more dollars, but that lasts for only a few weeks before the numbers drop again.
The last mods have felt like you are putting as little as possible resources/investment/money into to it, just to get a higher revenue. Because why would you invest into a module, when you can just make new artifact gear every 3 months that the whales have to level up to compete.
Sometimes it feels pointless to even report a bug because its not gonna make you any money if you fix it. When the players start to get that mentality you know that you have done a few bad choices down the road.
Andy, you are doing a great job with talking to the players and all, but at the end of the day, it feels like you are here just to talk and that they are paying you just to assure that everything will be "ok" even tho not much is really changing.
Anyway it just seems like you are severely understaffed and i kinda feel sorry for the people working there.
I do have one question for you;
Are you aiming to get as big of a population as possible, or are you settling with a smaller population that regularly pays money and keeps the game running its own course with minimal staff required?
It's called disinvestment.
Cryptic does not want to do this game anymore; they are doing just enough to meet contractual requirements without suffering legal retaliation. Hopefully in the near future they will sell the game to someone else to manage (like they did with City of Heroes and City of Villains) and hopefully that company has a better long term strategy. Obviously we are not privy to the reasoning behind the disinvestment (maybe the cost of development is to high, there has been a lot of talk about the people who know the code are gone and the new developers cannot decipher it or lack the resource hours to decipher it). Either way Cryptic obviously wants out of Neverwinter.
The developers do not want to do this game anymore. It’s an old engine and based on comments we’ve heard circulating about the code no one has the insight into it to build significantly new features. Think about it, most likely the developers are relatively new to the career field. They want an environment where they can be creative and have fun, but they’ve been given someone else’s pile of smoldering #$^% . These guys do not want to eat and sleep Neverwinter. Odds are these guys went home and burned everything in their house that references D&D after the first week of being on the project (if they ever enjoyed D&D at all). Whenever they do create something new, we flame on it all over the forums. I feel sorry for them and can only imagine they spend half their day checking monster and careerbuilder for an escape.
Cryptic has said that each game gets the content it can pay for, and for now NW at least ensures updates every 3-4 months.
I wish they had the time to fix the bugs though, I wouldn't mind 8 months without updates if that means we could get important bugs fixed.
But updates are probably timed by WotC, so they can't change that.
I think that's a great idea, and by play, it should really mean PLAY. Not as a dev, but with a regular non-admin account. They should be required to join guilds - no more than 2 or 3 of staff in any given guild and they should be required generate at least 12K AD per play session without professions... and they should be required to do this at least once a week.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
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Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Call me Andy (or Strum, or Spider-Man)!
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