What I liked about the game when levelling up to 60 has been overshadowed by the ridiculously boring and grindy nature of 60+ content.
Each new change to nerf the enjoyability of this game brings me one step closer towards unhappy. Examples:
1. Increasing XP required to level. Grinding from 60 to 70 is not an enjoyable experience. 1.75 million XP for overflow? Where did that number come from?
2. Refining. Where in the world are we supposed to gather all those refinement points. Dragon hoard enchantment has been broken for months now with no word from the devs. This is really shameful behaviour.
3. Content. Or lack of it. Removal of the majority of dungeons with the introduction of Mod 6. This is a step backwards. This should not happen with additional modules.
4. Sources of gaining AD. Lord Neverember nerf. I think the excuse was that he was "too far away to walk to''; this is a slap to our intelligence. Dungeon drop nerf, making things all BtA, reducing incentive to run dungeons. Now the leadership nerf, to combat the botters, really it is just "cutting off the nose to spite the face".
5. Difficulty. Increasing mobs HP by 50% does not increase difficulty overall, just increases the grind. This is not enjoyable.
What am I staying for?
To see if the Strongholds module will deliver in terms of alternate methods to level and gain XP without it being a further grind.
To see if there are any changes which the player base have been asking for, and giving back to the player base for supporting this game. To see if we are actually heard.
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Unhappy
I kind of want Underdark to introduce more level 61-70 content, and to just make level 61-70 content more similar to level 1-60 content.
Can you imagine how much less frustrating the Elemental Evil zones would have been had you only had to run each of those quests once, with a few more solo dungeons to go through?
I mean, let's all admit the real problem with Neverwinter: it costs way too much in terms of dev time to deliver the same kind of content as levels 1-60 for higher tier gameplay. Sharandar, for all its boring repetitiveness, at least introduced a significant amount of content to burn through. Three different solo dungeons, each with their own surrounding area. Dread Ring reduced it to only one surrounding area, but still had three solo dungeons. Icewind Dale had two surrounding areas but only one solo dungeon, but introduced Heroic Encounters which, okay, yay for group play I suppose.
NWO started as a very solo friendly game. But why didn't "they" (in this case, talking about WotC or whatever) just license out a Neverwinter Nights 3? Well, presumably, they thought off-line solo games weren't gonna make money, so instead it's licensed out to someone making an MMO. But if you're not going to have a solo game because solo games don't make money, why make a solo friendly MMO? You're just going to run into the wall of "<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, to make this solo friendly, we need to continually add a LOT of content..."
If NWO wants to be successful, it needs to add a lot of content. And they're just not interested in doing that.
What I liked about the game when levelling up to 60 has been overshadowed by the ridiculously boring and grindy nature of 60+ content.
Each new change to nerf the enjoyability of this game brings me one step closer towards unhappy. Examples:
1. Increasing XP required to level. Grinding from 60 to 70 is not an enjoyable experience. 1.75 million XP for overflow? Where did that number come from?
3. Refining. Where in the world are we supposed to gather all those refinement points. Dragon hoard enchantment has been broken for months now with no word from the devs. This is really shameful behaviour.
4. Content. Or lack of it. Removal of the majority of dungeons with the introduction of Mod 6. This is a step backwards. This should not happen with additional modules.
5. Sources of gaining AD. Lord Neverember nerf. I think the excuse was that he was "too far away to walk to''; this is a slap to our intelligence. Dungeon drop nerf, making things all BtA, reducing incentive to run dungeons. Now the leadership nerf, to combat the botters, really it is just "cutting off the nose to spite the face".
6. Difficulty. Increasing mobs HP by 50% does not increase difficulty overall, just increases the grind. This is not enjoyable.
What am I staying for?
To see if the Strongholds module will deliver in terms of alternate methods to level and gain XP without it being a further grind.
To see if there are any changes which the player base have been asking for, and giving back to the player base for supporting this game. To see if we are actually heard.
The sad part is.. ALMOST EVERYTHING you listed 1-6(except 4) can be fixed by spending the big $$$$$$, that is fun for them, and not for us is the problem...
I am not sure which style of free to play is better DDO or Neverwinter.. i think ddo has some better dungeons (at first, but god they got old fast!), and the way so much of the game there is content that is locked unless you pay for it OR pay monthly...
yet here we have a huge wall going up between the "haves" and "havenots" on content/fun simply due to the difficulty changes unless you spend a few hundred bucks OR farm like INSANELY (with a leadership farm, or when icewind dale heroics were dropping RP items like crazy OR back before the mega nerfs (over and over and over) to the dragon hoard runes) OR you exploit, you can not easily do any of the "end game" content, you go into a Pug with blue gear and you get kicked, or the higher GS players simply dump the group.. it takes about 1 person in orange gear, to carry 1 person in blue.. and the 'norm' for the end game stuff seems to be purple gear minimum...
When they nerf something that is 'gold seller' exploitable i understand like say unbound RP items, but the recent changes seem more aimed at, well honestly increasing profit from real players, not punishing bots what so ever.. this "leadership" change punished bots for maybe 48-72 hours, real players it hasn't stopped. Yet you go to the AH and see just STACK after STACK after STACK after stack of rank 4 or 5 runes.. which are OVBIOUSLY botted up, when it is 1 player selling hundreds of stacks! and yet nothing is done there, when spending 30 minutes looking at the AH or even using NWO Uncensored(s) AH script, you can find all the botters there and ban them.. instad they go lazy way on things so often.. nerf universally instead of removing the offenders directly...
Anyways those are the reason i put down unhappy, when last time a poll like this was up, i put uncertain/unknown, i see the "lazy way" being down over and over and over instead of some real work being put into the game like they care..
I can only speak for myself, but I bet a number of other folks feel as I do. I am a retired adult, who has spent his life in a capatilist consumer culture, like most other folks have (not that everybody is a retired adult).
What works in this commercial environment is quality, and long term patronage. Americans will give you money, based on loyalty alone, if they think you're trying to do right by them.
Elder Scrolls Online, The Secret World, Lords of the Rings Online, Guild Wars2, Star Wars the Old Republic all have much better, and much more up-front cash shops. And they all, also have a premium service. With a model like that, I can see the revune stream up front. I don't feel like their are hiddeen costs, and that they are trying to rip me off.
I really like this game, and I grew up loving the franchise. But right now, I play this game, in spite of its bussiness practices. I am quickly loosing my loyalty to Cryptic, and I have absolutely nothing good to say about PWE.
Its time you change your tune and act like you belong in the Western markets by selling a quality, value added product, and courting reltionships with the customer.
This whole post sums it up perfectly. Well said Geoffreys.
No, I'm not happy.
If it wasn't for my tiny rest of a hope that they may eventualy fix the foundry, I wouldn't even check the forums anymore.
The game has transformed from a DnD adventure game, with dungeons, bosses, a fantastic tool like the foundry, that allow neverending new and original content; to a facebook/mobile game where you just press a few buttons everyday and you're done. Grind & Refine online, they should call it.
They have made it so damn hard and long for a regular player to be able to get their equipment that it's not fun anymore too, unless you want to spend like 10k$ on your character or billions upon billion of AD.
Still, hope is the last thing a man loses...
0
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Unhappy
Oh man, speaking of the foundry, you know what they should do-
Remember in the good old days, players got AD from running foundry quests (I don't know, is that still a thing? Whatever).
What if players were rewarded DRASTICALLY MORE for completing a foundry quest for the first time? Like, incentivize foundry quest makers to make foundry quests, and incentivize players to actually run them. That could be interesting.
But historically ,the foundry sucks to run through because it flat-out cannot give decent gear. The reward chests at the end are always "Ha ha, you're gonna vendor this."
It's ideal if a game can get people to spend a bit regularly, but the refinement system is so extreme that there's really no point in paying as it makes so little difference, unless you really are someone willing to pay literally thousands. I also can't see people rushing to buy Zen when they see thousands and thousands of botted stuff on AH every day.
i wont go to detail but here some points:
-time vs reward is plain bad
-leadership armies making actually more ad than a playing player (that is the worst of all)
-Dungeons are hard but 0 rewarding, every item is BoP and not sellable
-no real reliable incoming AD-source. Not nice with so many AD sinks ingame
-24k AD refinement ingame is a joke
-RP requiered for artifact gear is way to much, but dragon hoard nerfed to the ground
-exp and difficult-level past 60 is fail by design.
-classpaths unbalanced, had to respec after lvl 60
-Respec costs Zen, not a single Respec for free is a joke
-Overflow rewards are a joke
-peek time is unplayable due to hardcore laggs
I'm actually reasonably happy. Yes, there are lots and lots of improvements that could be made, but there are also lots and lots of good things. In fact the thing that I find the most difficult to deal with is amount of extraordinarily grumpy people.
Yes, not everything works perfectly. Yes, bugs need to be fixed more. But it is a free to play game. I enjoy playing a lot of the content when it isn't laggy. Yes some people are 4k, but unless you end up PVPing them that doesn't really impact on you much. I am quite happy not having the absolutely BiS, as the game is perfectly playable without.
That said - all the improvement suggestions you guys are listing are valid. But be realistic - how much dev time does the money you put into the game buy?
It's ideal if a game can get people to spend a bit regularly, but the refinement system is so extreme that there's really no point in paying as it makes so little difference, unless you really are someone willing to pay literally thousands. I also can't see people rushing to buy Zen when they see thousands and thousands of botted stuff on AH every day.
The 'extreme' part is my biggest problem with NW. I allow myself a budget of $100-$150 per year to spend on games but I've spent only tens of dollars playing NW because everything is such poor value. When I first started I immediately went to upgrade my companions then realised the cost was just stupid. And ever since it's been the same: the (financial) goals are unattainable and costs are just stupid. So I play what I can for free. I could spend another $100 on NW but the obvious gouging makes me not want to. That and Mod 6 ...
Voted unhappy. Basically, NW has become a fancy chat program that I log in from time to time to catch up with friends I've made. For actual gameplay and enjoyment, I've gone elsewhere. . . a game with no subscription and balanced pvp.
Anyways, NW was fun, but changes have made it otherwise.
Простая Кавказская девушка я, Но все же прошу послушать меня, Скажу вам-довольно огня и войны, Ведь мы же Кавказцы-мы духом сильны!
I'm... Uncertain. While I disagree with some of the major changes lately, I also understand, and in some cases agree with the motivation behind them. Which makes me question the thoughtfulness of the decision itself. A change that causes more harm than good in the long run is bad, even if it seemed necessary at the time.
All that aside, though, my biggest point of contention is that making major unpopular decisions while an eagerly awaited and popular competitor is going into open beta is amazingly shortsighted. Frankly, it doesn't matter of the changes were vital - if they drive away your customers, you'll end up with a worse problem on your hands than you were fixing.
It's not a Dev problem. It's not really even an issue with the game itself. I'm uncertain because from where I'm standing, it feels like Cryptic's management has been acting extremely unwisely. Time may vindicate them, but at the moment it seems pretty bleak. So, I vote "uncertain"
They have made it so damn hard and long for a regular player to be able to get their equipment that it's not fun anymore too, unless you want to spend like 10k$ on your character or billions upon billion of AD.
That is the thing. Does anybody here really have 10k to spend on a video game? Has anyone done it?
There are people who have done that here.
While on the one hand it's these people's unalienable right to do so, the management apparently has decided to make the game into Whale's World and do everything to ascertain that normal players, spending less than, say, 20 $/€ per month, get a chance to scratch that precious blubber...
I think it all depends on what people want out of the game, that makes them happy or not. Honestly all I care about in the game are the campaign zones and getting my boons. I do not care about dungeons, skirmishes, and especially not about PvP. So I get my enjoyment in game by doing quests in Dread Ring and Sharandar.
Let me reword this to clearspeak in the context of this poll:
"I'm perfectly happy with the game as it was a year ago."
Let me reword this for you.
"You can't be happy, let me make you sound like you're not really happy."
What I liked about the game when levelling up to 60 has been overshadowed by the ridiculously boring and grindy nature of 60+ content.
There is a reason for that. The original level 1 - 60 content (and original dungeons) were designed by the pre-beta team. Unfortunately those guys are long gone. Everything that has been done after that has been various new teams. They just don't have the magic of the original team.
I think it all depends on what people want out of the game, that makes them happy or not. Honestly all I care about in the game are the campaign zones and getting my boons. I do not care about dungeons, skirmishes, and especially not about PvP. So I get my enjoyment in game by doing quests in Dread Ring and Sharandar.
Let me reword this to clearspeak in the context of this poll:
"I'm perfectly happy with the game as it was a year ago."
Let me reword this for you.
"You can't be happy, let me make you sound like you're not really happy."
Not at all.
I meant exactly what I wrote: "Perfectly happy - with the game as it was a year ago."
Also, i don't want to disentitle you from your happiness - but it's (after three, four or even more post-Mod-6 attenuation patches) the game it had been a year ago. even more, as DR after all was followed by IwD in the first half of 2014. This happens to be the time I'd oined up, and decided that this is the game to go for. IwD as it had been good, too. Tougher, but new concepts. Mod 4 - first part of ToD - was still good. But since Mod 5 IMHO this game has rapidly decayed into mindless, repetitive grind-o-rama on par with the worse sort of assembly line labor...
...80 times Tiamat (and little else of relevance) to complete the whole Module 5 campaign part?
...sixteen of the same dozen or so quests to move on a third of the map to the next quest hub where the same thing repeats with another type of more or less reskinned old monsters and slighty different names to quests and objectives?
...the same three dungeons/skirmishes (of formerly 10) over and over to collect tokens which when accumulated in sufficient amount (requiring 10-30 runs ot these dungeons) to buy the next piece of armor, which again gives my nothing more than a slightly better stat value?
This is the game as it IS.
And I'm not happy with it, but do the same as you do and rather move a new-rolled Paladin, and some old, set aside chars through old Capaignistan - because Now, with what came after it, the then vilified weekly repetition of Sharandear becomes almost delightful when compared to the two-hour repeat frequency of EE...
I'm not sure where this game is headed so - Uncertain.
I'm hanging out until Underdark come out to see if any new (original) content gets added. As @kvet posted above, my concerns lie not necessarily with the devs but rather with the NW management team at Cryptic (not sure if different games have different mgmt teams). Why some of these decisions were made is beyond me (1.7mil XP for a CHANCE at a power point??) but I honestly thing that they need to have a long sit-down to read the forums as one body and see what we're talking about.
We know that most of the devs play NW, if at least sporadically, but I don't think that anyone from management does. If they do, they either like pain or have a cruel streak as big as the Nine Hells.
I'm begging for someone in management to listen to us. Stop trying to suck the life out of this game through our wallets. Let us help you to help us:
Create some valuable Zen purchases at a smaller price point (I'd spend $5 more often than $35). I'm not here to pay for your speed boat by myself
Fix the game breaking bugs/exploits/issues (who thought lowering the dps of npc's and bosses while adding HP was a good thing?)
Devote dev time to the important things, not (necessarily) the easy things (a mount that gives you a huge increase to movement was only needed because it was realized that the Strongholds map was to freaking huge for PvP).
Return the old dungeons and BoE rewards
Return the ways we used to earn AD by playing the game
Give us events that we WANT to do with rewards that fit the expenditure of time (Winterfest is a great time/reward event in my opinion)
For the love of everything Holy, stop punishing those of us that still show up in your futile quest to stop botters. If you see a single account selling 19 stacks of R5s on the AH, lock their account. If that account is a real person, they'll contact support. If not, no harm no foul.
Fix and market the Foundry. Remember when that was the reason NW was started?
I love NW as it used to be, not as it has become. Give us a reason to login . . .
anyway, what the devs didnt listen or seem avoiding, when they say something, i dont believe them.
whenever i ask/other players asked...
1. we want these elite 73 lvl mobs tone down, all devs did was 180 degree other way around by adding more health and longer boring fight when players want to kill them quicker.
2. boons, used to be easy at 60 lvl, and cant do them at 70, and devs put the "blocking wall". those "Boons quest" are meant for "Personal's Goal" and it is not part of group/pug.
3. changing the seals and now i still got some unuseable leftover seals, so i cant clean out the old seals, for example, it cost 20 a bag, and i got 17 seals left.
4. lack of able to get "Companion Tokens" for upgrading them, getting from lockbox is very very long shot and extremely low chance, and we get too many companions and they had hit thier current max base and still waiting for tokens in order to have upgrades.
what i have seen, when devs decided to fix something what players didnt ask for, they broke it when they should have fix most annoying bugs of all, devs just wasted thier time just to make game harder than needed and focus on strongholds, and while many players have been waiting for fixes for many weeks, and many i knew just left the game, players are saying, devs is killing the game and fun factor and also take out some older dungeons, and the rewards and loot drops are pathetic which doesnt cover the cost of using up health kits.
now my concern the most of all.
devs should add 1 row of bank slots per mod/expansion, since there is so many newer items added and many dont have rooms for potions, kits, runes and enchants, mounts, weapons and armors set/collection for appearances.
Bank need to open a new tab for Mounts and Fashions, also the Potions for alchemy versions.
I am unhappy, leaning towards uncertain. However, I am far too cynical and pessimistic for the slightly too optimistic and naive sounding category of "Uncertain for the future". I am no stranger to making tough calls, especially being given the order to choose a direction that solves things in a short term, but does not adequately account for the long term. Cryptic and PWE are mirroring the one trend of business that looks towards maximizing in the short term, at the expense of long term outlook.
With NW, Cryptic developers and project management are again throwing all their eggs in one basket and banking on what they implement in Strongholds will bandaid over some issues and revitalize the dwindling interest. However, the truly practical side of me sees Cryptic largely washing their hands of the unhappy and disillusioned, instead choosing to focus on those remnants left.
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
Uncertain for the future
The #s are pretty Representative I would say, like 10% are happy, 50% are like, effing hey, and the rest of us are just like, come on guys.. stop ruining a perfectly fine game by over reaching knee jerk reactions and just lessen the grind a bit (like 50% or so) so we can play alts again.
They are wrongly assuming some things about their own playerbase. they were never this out of touch, which is the disturbing part.
Comments
What I liked about the game when levelling up to 60 has been overshadowed by the ridiculously boring and grindy nature of 60+ content.
Each new change to nerf the enjoyability of this game brings me one step closer towards unhappy. Examples:
1. Increasing XP required to level. Grinding from 60 to 70 is not an enjoyable experience. 1.75 million XP for overflow? Where did that number come from?
2. Refining. Where in the world are we supposed to gather all those refinement points. Dragon hoard enchantment has been broken for months now with no word from the devs. This is really shameful behaviour.
3. Content. Or lack of it. Removal of the majority of dungeons with the introduction of Mod 6. This is a step backwards. This should not happen with additional modules.
4. Sources of gaining AD. Lord Neverember nerf. I think the excuse was that he was "too far away to walk to''; this is a slap to our intelligence. Dungeon drop nerf, making things all BtA, reducing incentive to run dungeons. Now the leadership nerf, to combat the botters, really it is just "cutting off the nose to spite the face".
5. Difficulty. Increasing mobs HP by 50% does not increase difficulty overall, just increases the grind. This is not enjoyable.
What am I staying for?
To see if the Strongholds module will deliver in terms of alternate methods to level and gain XP without it being a further grind.
To see if there are any changes which the player base have been asking for, and giving back to the player base for supporting this game. To see if we are actually heard.
Can you imagine how much less frustrating the Elemental Evil zones would have been had you only had to run each of those quests once, with a few more solo dungeons to go through?
I mean, let's all admit the real problem with Neverwinter: it costs way too much in terms of dev time to deliver the same kind of content as levels 1-60 for higher tier gameplay. Sharandar, for all its boring repetitiveness, at least introduced a significant amount of content to burn through. Three different solo dungeons, each with their own surrounding area. Dread Ring reduced it to only one surrounding area, but still had three solo dungeons. Icewind Dale had two surrounding areas but only one solo dungeon, but introduced Heroic Encounters which, okay, yay for group play I suppose.
NWO started as a very solo friendly game. But why didn't "they" (in this case, talking about WotC or whatever) just license out a Neverwinter Nights 3? Well, presumably, they thought off-line solo games weren't gonna make money, so instead it's licensed out to someone making an MMO. But if you're not going to have a solo game because solo games don't make money, why make a solo friendly MMO? You're just going to run into the wall of "<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, to make this solo friendly, we need to continually add a LOT of content..."
If NWO wants to be successful, it needs to add a lot of content. And they're just not interested in doing that.
The sad part is.. ALMOST EVERYTHING you listed 1-6(except 4) can be fixed by spending the big $$$$$$, that is fun for them, and not for us is the problem...
I am not sure which style of free to play is better DDO or Neverwinter.. i think ddo has some better dungeons (at first, but god they got old fast!), and the way so much of the game there is content that is locked unless you pay for it OR pay monthly...
yet here we have a huge wall going up between the "haves" and "havenots" on content/fun simply due to the difficulty changes unless you spend a few hundred bucks OR farm like INSANELY (with a leadership farm, or when icewind dale heroics were dropping RP items like crazy OR back before the mega nerfs (over and over and over) to the dragon hoard runes) OR you exploit, you can not easily do any of the "end game" content, you go into a Pug with blue gear and you get kicked, or the higher GS players simply dump the group.. it takes about 1 person in orange gear, to carry 1 person in blue.. and the 'norm' for the end game stuff seems to be purple gear minimum...
When they nerf something that is 'gold seller' exploitable i understand like say unbound RP items, but the recent changes seem more aimed at, well honestly increasing profit from real players, not punishing bots what so ever.. this "leadership" change punished bots for maybe 48-72 hours, real players it hasn't stopped. Yet you go to the AH and see just STACK after STACK after STACK after stack of rank 4 or 5 runes.. which are OVBIOUSLY botted up, when it is 1 player selling hundreds of stacks! and yet nothing is done there, when spending 30 minutes looking at the AH or even using NWO Uncensored(s) AH script, you can find all the botters there and ban them.. instad they go lazy way on things so often.. nerf universally instead of removing the offenders directly...
Anyways those are the reason i put down unhappy, when last time a poll like this was up, i put uncertain/unknown, i see the "lazy way" being down over and over and over instead of some real work being put into the game like they care..
That being said, I voted unhappy with the game in general because the endgame of farm AD to buy RP is fricking stupid as hell.
This whole post sums it up perfectly. Well said Geoffreys.
If it wasn't for my tiny rest of a hope that they may eventualy fix the foundry, I wouldn't even check the forums anymore.
The game has transformed from a DnD adventure game, with dungeons, bosses, a fantastic tool like the foundry, that allow neverending new and original content; to a facebook/mobile game where you just press a few buttons everyday and you're done. Grind & Refine online, they should call it.
They have made it so damn hard and long for a regular player to be able to get their equipment that it's not fun anymore too, unless you want to spend like 10k$ on your character or billions upon billion of AD.
Still, hope is the last thing a man loses...
Remember in the good old days, players got AD from running foundry quests (I don't know, is that still a thing? Whatever).
What if players were rewarded DRASTICALLY MORE for completing a foundry quest for the first time? Like, incentivize foundry quest makers to make foundry quests, and incentivize players to actually run them. That could be interesting.
But historically ,the foundry sucks to run through because it flat-out cannot give decent gear. The reward chests at the end are always "Ha ha, you're gonna vendor this."
i wont go to detail but here some points:
-time vs reward is plain bad
-leadership armies making actually more ad than a playing player (that is the worst of all)
-Dungeons are hard but 0 rewarding, every item is BoP and not sellable
-no real reliable incoming AD-source. Not nice with so many AD sinks ingame
-24k AD refinement ingame is a joke
-RP requiered for artifact gear is way to much, but dragon hoard nerfed to the ground
-exp and difficult-level past 60 is fail by design.
-classpaths unbalanced, had to respec after lvl 60
-Respec costs Zen, not a single Respec for free is a joke
-Overflow rewards are a joke
-peek time is unplayable due to hardcore laggs
Yes, not everything works perfectly. Yes, bugs need to be fixed more. But it is a free to play game. I enjoy playing a lot of the content when it isn't laggy. Yes some people are 4k, but unless you end up PVPing them that doesn't really impact on you much. I am quite happy not having the absolutely BiS, as the game is perfectly playable without.
That said - all the improvement suggestions you guys are listing are valid. But be realistic - how much dev time does the money you put into the game buy?
The 'extreme' part is my biggest problem with NW. I allow myself a budget of $100-$150 per year to spend on games but I've spent only tens of dollars playing NW because everything is such poor value. When I first started I immediately went to upgrade my companions then realised the cost was just stupid. And ever since it's been the same: the (financial) goals are unattainable and costs are just stupid. So I play what I can for free. I could spend another $100 on NW but the obvious gouging makes me not want to. That and Mod 6 ...
I think a lot of people have a problem with the amount of dev time spent wrecking the game...
Anyways, NW was fun, but changes have made it otherwise.
All that aside, though, my biggest point of contention is that making major unpopular decisions while an eagerly awaited and popular competitor is going into open beta is amazingly shortsighted. Frankly, it doesn't matter of the changes were vital - if they drive away your customers, you'll end up with a worse problem on your hands than you were fixing.
It's not a Dev problem. It's not really even an issue with the game itself. I'm uncertain because from where I'm standing, it feels like Cryptic's management has been acting extremely unwisely. Time may vindicate them, but at the moment it seems pretty bleak. So, I vote "uncertain"
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
There are people who have done that here.
While on the one hand it's these people's unalienable right to do so, the management apparently has decided to make the game into Whale's World and do everything to ascertain that normal players, spending less than, say, 20 $/€ per month, get a chance to scratch that precious blubber...
(idk how people put in the colored box
voted happy because i'm having more fun now than on mod 5. (although the 60-70 grind was really bad)
edit: sooo, it's automatic :P
"You can't be happy, let me make you sound like you're not really happy."
There is a reason for that. The original level 1 - 60 content (and original dungeons) were designed by the pre-beta team. Unfortunately those guys are long gone. Everything that has been done after that has been various new teams. They just don't have the magic of the original team.
Not at all.
I meant exactly what I wrote: "Perfectly happy - with the game as it was a year ago."
Also, i don't want to disentitle you from your happiness - but it's (after three, four or even more post-Mod-6 attenuation patches) the game it had been a year ago. even more, as DR after all was followed by IwD in the first half of 2014. This happens to be the time I'd oined up, and decided that this is the game to go for. IwD as it had been good, too. Tougher, but new concepts. Mod 4 - first part of ToD - was still good. But since Mod 5 IMHO this game has rapidly decayed into mindless, repetitive grind-o-rama on par with the worse sort of assembly line labor...
...80 times Tiamat (and little else of relevance) to complete the whole Module 5 campaign part?
...sixteen of the same dozen or so quests to move on a third of the map to the next quest hub where the same thing repeats with another type of more or less reskinned old monsters and slighty different names to quests and objectives?
...the same three dungeons/skirmishes (of formerly 10) over and over to collect tokens which when accumulated in sufficient amount (requiring 10-30 runs ot these dungeons) to buy the next piece of armor, which again gives my nothing more than a slightly better stat value?
This is the game as it IS.
And I'm not happy with it, but do the same as you do and rather move a new-rolled Paladin, and some old, set aside chars through old Capaignistan - because Now, with what came after it, the then vilified weekly repetition of Sharandear becomes almost delightful when compared to the two-hour repeat frequency of EE...
I'm hanging out until Underdark come out to see if any new (original) content gets added. As @kvet posted above, my concerns lie not necessarily with the devs but rather with the NW management team at Cryptic (not sure if different games have different mgmt teams). Why some of these decisions were made is beyond me (1.7mil XP for a CHANCE at a power point??) but I honestly thing that they need to have a long sit-down to read the forums as one body and see what we're talking about.
We know that most of the devs play NW, if at least sporadically, but I don't think that anyone from management does. If they do, they either like pain or have a cruel streak as big as the Nine Hells.
I'm begging for someone in management to listen to us. Stop trying to suck the life out of this game through our wallets. Let us help you to help us:
I love NW as it used to be, not as it has become. Give us a reason to login . . .
anyway, what the devs didnt listen or seem avoiding, when they say something, i dont believe them.
whenever i ask/other players asked...
1. we want these elite 73 lvl mobs tone down, all devs did was 180 degree other way around by adding more health and longer boring fight when players want to kill them quicker.
2. boons, used to be easy at 60 lvl, and cant do them at 70, and devs put the "blocking wall". those "Boons quest" are meant for "Personal's Goal" and it is not part of group/pug.
3. changing the seals and now i still got some unuseable leftover seals, so i cant clean out the old seals, for example, it cost 20 a bag, and i got 17 seals left.
4. lack of able to get "Companion Tokens" for upgrading them, getting from lockbox is very very long shot and extremely low chance, and we get too many companions and they had hit thier current max base and still waiting for tokens in order to have upgrades.
what i have seen, when devs decided to fix something what players didnt ask for, they broke it when they should have fix most annoying bugs of all, devs just wasted thier time just to make game harder than needed and focus on strongholds, and while many players have been waiting for fixes for many weeks, and many i knew just left the game, players are saying, devs is killing the game and fun factor and also take out some older dungeons, and the rewards and loot drops are pathetic which doesnt cover the cost of using up health kits.
now my concern the most of all.
devs should add 1 row of bank slots per mod/expansion, since there is so many newer items added and many dont have rooms for potions, kits, runes and enchants, mounts, weapons and armors set/collection for appearances.
Bank need to open a new tab for Mounts and Fashions, also the Potions for alchemy versions.
With NW, Cryptic developers and project management are again throwing all their eggs in one basket and banking on what they implement in Strongholds will bandaid over some issues and revitalize the dwindling interest. However, the truly practical side of me sees Cryptic largely washing their hands of the unhappy and disillusioned, instead choosing to focus on those remnants left.
glassdoor.com - Cryptic Studios Review
They are wrongly assuming some things about their own playerbase. they were never this out of touch, which is the disturbing part.