Challenge for the NW Devs

theycallmetomu · September 2015

Eh, it's possible to play through to level 70. It was annoyingly hard when mod 6 was first released, but I imagine that with a bit of stick tuitiveness and gumption, they'd be able to survive.

juleadream · September 2015

I'd ask them to run eCC under the following conditions (bearing in mind this is to show them how it is for a new player with a fresh level 70) :

1) Level 70 blue gear only. This can include gear from Sharandar, Dread Ring, Guild, etc.
2) Average enchantment level of rank 6.
3) They can have an Epic (purple) mount and an Ioun Stone, but the Stone may not be upgraded.
4) Artifact main/offhand, neck and belt upgraded no higher than Rare (blue), and done using only drops.
5) 3 Artifacts, upgraded no higher than Rare (blue). One of these must be from the level 21 artifact quest (Waters, Lantern or the Catalog); the other two must be class sigils, and one of those must be for the class they are using (If they are unable to make 2k item level, then they may have a 3rd, but only if it is needed to make up the difference).
6) Lesser Weapon and Armour enchantments.
7) No higher than 3rd tier of campaign boons.

That is the situation most new, f2p players are looking at shortly after making it to level 70

regenerde · September 2015

As mentioned before, they should start with the IL they recommend for the dungeons/skirmishes and not a point above, no Dev/GM tools and please do stream those runs.

tripsofthrymr · September 2015

juleadream said:
I'd ask them to run eCC under the following conditions (bearing in mind this is to show them how it is for a new player with a fresh level 70) :

It has been done with 2K parties. Search Youtube for ecc neverwinter 2k.

However, it's very challenging like that. You really need to know your characters.

I think the boss is just fine as-is (except that he can be bugged... which 95% of parties do). The problem right now is, if you leave eCC hard as it currently is, there is not enough content for parties that aren't ready for it. I sure hope they always have 1-2 dungeons that only the best players (in terms of knowing their character) can beat, but then become doable for other parties as average power level increases. If new modules bring content that the best-geared and/or most knowledgeable players can cakewalk through, where every player can expect to queue for any content and win without thought to strategy, Neverwinter will be a bland place indeed.

I enjoyed the early days of Neverwinter, before the power escalation, when legit groups really had to plan out their power selection and strategy. Many 2K groups that take the time to learn their class mechanics and create a plan of attack will be able to win. The groups that won't do either should not be able to win the hardest content a particular module has to offer.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

There needs to be more cakewalk activities in general, I would say.

juleadream · September 2015

tripsofthrymr said:

juleadream said:
I'd ask them to run eCC under the following conditions (bearing in mind this is to show them how it is for a new player with a fresh level 70) :

It has been done with 2K parties. Search Youtube for ecc neverwinter 2k.

However, it's very challenging like that. You really need to know your characters.

I think the boss is just fine as-is (except that he can be bugged... which 95% of parties do). The problem right now is, if you leave eCC hard as it currently is, there is not enough content for parties that aren't ready for it. I sure hope they always have 1-2 dungeons that only the best players (in terms of knowing their character) can beat, but then become doable for other parties as average power level increases. If new modules bring content that the best-geared and/or most knowledgeable players can cakewalk through, where every player can expect to queue for any content and win without thought to strategy, Neverwinter will be a bland place indeed.

I enjoyed the early days of Neverwinter, before the power escalation, when legit groups really had to plan out their power selection and strategy. Many 2K groups that take the time to learn their class mechanics and create a plan of attack will be able to win. The groups that won't do either should not be able to win the hardest content a particular module has to offer.
I never said it could not, or has not been done. I would like to see the DEVS do it under those conditions. I have no doubt there are players who are more than capable of doing so. The purpose of those conditions is for the developers to see how difficult it truly is at the bare minimum.

And agreed, there should be content for the top end players. I think all dungeons need to be brought back as T1 and T2, with a few select ones as a T3 "Legendary" difficulty. Maybe even one dungeon at T4 "Mythic" level.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

4 months with very modest play seems about right. I mean, think about Tiamat and the max rank boons. You need, what, 110 Linu's favors? Doing Tiamat 1/day means that would take just under 4 months, but that's exclusively devoted to Tiamat.

So in part it depends on just how casual you wanna make the game. But, I never finished that boon trees.

bioshrike · September 2015

magenubbie said:

oliboyph said:
The reason for my challenge is of course to show that the amount of time needed is not reasonable. Remember i'm not saying reach lvl 70, but be strong enough to do one epic dungeon from scratch. It took me four months in previous AD setup to get 2.5k ilvl
This is going to sound silly, but am I the only one thinking that 4 months to have grown with the current end-game content is not such a bad thing? Isn't that what we players want? Things to do? A goal to reach? And I'm not talking about BiS. I'm talking about feeling confident for the end-game say around 2.k IL. Once most of us reach that, we generally get a new mod to keep us occupied.

I would say that part of the issue is the fresh 70 to dungeons progression. It'll take you several days to get a piece of the Sharandar or Dread Ring gear, as a fresh 70, minimum, and even then, you'll have to sacrifice progression in that campaign in order to get enough currency for the armor. Compare this to before Mod 6, when a fresh 60 could run the Dread Ring lairs, and get a chance for epic armor and weapons, even on the first run.

Now add into this the fact that blue items pretty much only drop from the leveling dungeons, and you are now "forced" to farm those for decent starter gear, versus being able to simply run campaign dailies for gear, with a chance of getting blue or purple gear in the process.

There needs to be a better transition from new 70 to epic end-game content...

theycallmetomu · September 2015

I'd say that proceeding through old modules as a new character should be MONUMENTALLY faster than it was for the old characters when they did it.

That way, new people aren't too disadvantaged.

bioshrike · September 2015

theycallmetomu said:
I'd say that proceeding through old modules as a new character should be MONUMENTALLY faster than it was for the old characters when they did it.

That way, new people aren't too disadvantaged.

They did streamline the amount of time it takes to progress through the Sharandar zones, but the Boons are still rather expensive to unlock...

theycallmetomu · September 2015

Well, then they should lower the cost of the boons.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

It doesn't help that I have no idea what these so called 3 man DDs even are.

darkstarcrash · September 2015

Hit "K" for the queue. See those dungeons that only require 3 people to run? That's what he's talking about. I personally favor ToS, and with the loss of DD hour I still get in within seconds after queuing.

You get a piece of blue gear from each boss, and another piece in the chest if you have a key. Wear the gear or AH it so you can afford well-statted blues for yourself.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

I have iLevel 122 gear from crafting. Is this gear any better?

jrfbrunet · September 2015

magenubbie said:

bioshrike said:
There needs to be a better transition from new 70 to epic end-game content...
The way I understand how it's supposed to go from now on is like this:
1. max level then
2. campaign 1, 2, low ranking ToD boons + 3 man DD (learn to play in a party!!) then
3. T1(+ R7s or 8s), making extra AD on skirmishes from 2 then
4. T2 + IWD
5. WoD/Tiamat.
6. Underdark.
I cannot comment on step 2. I bought my fresh lvl70s for my first character and had all previous boons already. The rest seems a logical order to me. There used to be a gap between 2, 3 and 4, but now that the armpen bug is fixed only IWD and ToD remains relatively difficult for most if you play in the right order of things. And considering they are the final 2 phases of the endgame, I think that's fair.

It's not that the transition isn't there, its the fact there's no guidance. Or clearly not enough. Gating the campaign areas like they used to do with IWD with boon and/or IL requirements would make a huge difference for new players and allows for a far more natural progression. As would telling Knox about the new order of things and update his and his fellow questgivers quests with the correct information. If this is what you meant by a better transition, then I absolutely agree. The game is currently a mess after reaching lvl70. It needs cleaning up.

Here's where I see problems for a new player/fresh lvl 70:
By the time the toon makes it to lvl 70, as things currently stand, they won't have enough AD for more than 1 or 2 R8 enchants. If they spend extra time making 'extra AD on skirmishes', then there in for more than 4 months just to get to finish step 2.

I wouldn't expect the average player (12-18 hours per week) to get enough AD for completing step 3 until they've farmed skirmishes dungeons and PvP for an additional 4 months AFTER reaching lvl 70.
That's 8 months before they're prepared to conquer IWD and start T2 dungeons. Even at that point, they're still at the bottom end of ilvl and will have trouble getting accepted into groups.
If they want to get over 2.5k ilvl, I'd expect more than a year of playing before acquiring enough AD for all the upgrades.

It's not that the transition isn't there, its that it will take a new player much, much longer to reach the step 5/6, aka endgame, than any other MMO in existence.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

Prior to mod 6, you were punished pretty heavily for "chasing" stats. But the side effect of that was that there were some serious diminishing returns to getting those bonus stat points. So if you didn't have rank 10 enchants ... who cared? It didn't really have that much effect over all.

While I like being able to chase stats more now, if it makes it difficult to get to the position where you're able to compete with endgame content, that's definitely something that needs to be addressed.

oliboyph · September 2015

magenubbie said:

oliboyph said:
The reason for my challenge is of course to show that the amount of time needed is not reasonable. Remember i'm not saying reach lvl 70, but be strong enough to do one epic dungeon from scratch. It took me four months in previous AD setup to get 2.5k ilvl
This is going to sound silly, but am I the only one thinking that 4 months to have grown with the current end-game content is not such a bad thing? Isn't that what we players want? Things to do? A goal to reach? And I'm not talking about BiS.

I'm talking about feeling confident for the end-game say around 2.3-2.5k IL. That's an augment pet with R7s, T1 gear, all but one or two boons, R8s, 2 lesser enchantments, 4 purple artifacts and 4 pieces of artifact gear, none of which is better than low ranking purple. I don't feel like 4 months is that bad if that's what it takes without spending money. Althouh I think it'll be a bit longer, it's rather short. It took me a year to get that far on Forsaken World. But NW is a year younger than FW and FW gets much more attention from PWE.

I should have been more clear about this. I mean four months from reaching lvl 70, with "previous AD farming" setup. Meaning 10 characters with LS, and plenty of time to buy low and sell high in AH.

thefabricant · September 2015

inyawayupdeep said:
NO WAY, don't make it easy on them. No cash, no Zen unless they earn AD and convert it. No god mode and Dungeon must be legit using a mix of classes, no using five OPS, in fact have one person pug a dungeon whatever team make up the game comes up with is what should be used. This would and should be a humbling and useful information gathering experience, if you allow them anything it should be the ability to change the game itself to make it playable.

Look, ok, personally I think this is a troll topic and should be closed anyhow, but when I enter an MMO, its normally with a group of people I have played with prior to that MMO and I DON'T random queue for stuff. Why? Simple. The issue with random queueing is you get a group of random people who don't know what they doing and don't care to learn, 9/10 times. Expecting the devs to run with people who shouldn't be able to beat the content regardless is silly and I don't expect them to beat dungeons under those circumstances anyhow. Just because you don't know how to use lfg or get a proper group, or join one of the many existing custom channels in the game for these things, doesn't mean that other players can't.

Yes, I think stuff is overpriced, I am completely against artifact gear, but the idea of "humbling" or "humiliating" the devs...that is just childish. The way to approach a situation like this is to not act petty, you achieve nothing by doing so and only serve to make people think less of you.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

thefabricant said:

inyawayupdeep said:
NO WAY, don't make it easy on them. No cash, no Zen unless they earn AD and convert it. No god mode and Dungeon must be legit using a mix of classes, no using five OPS, in fact have one person pug a dungeon whatever team make up the game comes up with is what should be used. This would and should be a humbling and useful information gathering experience, if you allow them anything it should be the ability to change the game itself to make it playable.
Look, ok, personally I think this is a troll topic and should be closed anyhow, but when I enter an MMO, its normally with a group of people I have played with prior to that MMO and I DON'T random queue for stuff. Why? Simple. The issue with random queueing is you get a group of random people who don't know what they doing and don't care to learn, 9/10 times. Expecting the devs to run with people who shouldn't be able to beat the content regardless is silly and I don't expect them to beat dungeons under those circumstances anyhow. Just because you don't know how to use lfg or get a proper group, or join one of the many existing custom channels in the game for these things, doesn't mean that other players can't.

Yes, I think stuff is overpriced, I am completely against artifact gear, but the idea of "humbling" or "humiliating" the devs...that is just childish. The way to approach a situation like this is to not act petty, you achieve nothing by doing so and only serve to make people think less of you.

Agreed. When we say "the devs should try out being a new player," the only possible way that has any legitimacy is if the devs try out being a new player under their expected circumstances. We can't layer our own stipulations, because that's just ridiculous; they didn't say we were supposed to be able to do it "our way," they said it should be possible doing it their way.

Also, the devs really aren't a best fit for this. If anyone should try a new character run, it'd be Strumslinger, possibly with a video blog chronicling the whole experience, as a sort of Let's Play. But, well, I wouldn't actually advise him to do that. Say the wrong thing and, as a person in an official capacity at the company, it could cost him his job!

So while I may question whether the devs really understand what it's like for new players (and I do say question-I'm increasingly convinced they have a half-decent understanding of the game and are just in a questionable position given the multiple stakeholders at issue), I don't think we should try dehumanizing them. That doesn't lead to anyone getting what they want.

oliboyph · September 2015

thefabricant said:

inyawayupdeep said:
NO WAY, don't make it easy on them. No cash, no Zen unless they earn AD and convert it. No god mode and Dungeon must be legit using a mix of classes, no using five OPS, in fact have one person pug a dungeon whatever team make up the game comes up with is what should be used. This would and should be a humbling and useful information gathering experience, if you allow them anything it should be the ability to change the game itself to make it playable.
Look, ok, personally I think this is a troll topic and should be closed anyhow, but when I enter an MMO, its normally with a group of people I have played with prior to that MMO and I DON'T random queue for stuff. Why? Simple. The issue with random queueing is you get a group of random people who don't know what they doing and don't care to learn, 9/10 times. Expecting the devs to run with people who shouldn't be able to beat the content regardless is silly and I don't expect them to beat dungeons under those circumstances anyhow. Just because you don't know how to use lfg or get a proper group, or join one of the many existing custom channels in the game for these things, doesn't mean that other players can't.

Yes, I think stuff is overpriced, I am completely against artifact gear, but the idea of "humbling" or "humiliating" the devs...that is just childish. The way to approach a situation like this is to not act petty, you achieve nothing by doing so and only serve to make people think less of you.

Alot of posts on this thread is already way off from the original post. The original intention of this thread was to ask devs if they knew what the game plan for new players should be. During the time I posted this (prior to announcement of GMOP prices), the road map to being a useful player was extremely long and difficult. That was really my only intention, the idea of asking them to actually run a difficult dungeon to humiliate them was never the intention. I just wanted to know that given the circumstances, what steps did they intend new players to take in order to arrive at the point when thing get interesting. This is the second time I've pointed out that this thread was getting off topic.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

Well then perhaps it would be best to ask the mods to close it before it descends into nothing but rampant trolling?

deathbeez · September 2015

Dev's develop what they're required [told] to develop.
At best, maybe a lead or senior engineer will get a fraction of one voice to state concerns or ideas before being out-voiced by management or sales.

Imagine if a bus company changes all the routes, and the bus that used to pick you up at 7:30, now shows up at 7:40 because of the route changes, but when the bus shows up at 7:40, you blame and berate the bus driver...every day.
=90% of the threads lately.

jrfbrunet · September 2015

deathbeez said:
Dev's develop what they're required [told] to develop.
At best, maybe a lead or senior engineer will get a fraction of one voice to state concerns or ideas before being out-voiced by management or sales.

Imagine if a bus company changes all the routes, and the bus that used to pick you up at 7:30, now shows up at 7:40 because of the route changes, but when the bus shows up at 7:40, you blame and berate the bus driver...every day.
=90% of the threads lately.

It's too easy to say that players are blaming the wrong people. AND, it does nothing to further the conversation.

When the players have only ONE option of communicating with the decision makers (i.e. the forums), then what is said on the forums should always be taken as "pointed at the decisions makers, whether its Devs or their bosses."

I believe the Devs are smart enough to interpret these threads and understand the valid points being made.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

Okay, so, here's the question:

If people are so gung ho about saying what's wrong with the game, all they have to do is gather and create data about how similar changes in similar MMOs have lead to a monetary loss for the companies in charge.

I mean, if you're trying to convince the suits, then your reasoning needs to be directed towards the suits.

jrfbrunet · September 2015

That's a good point. However, where does a player get access to such protected data? I think asking the suits to do their jobs, which includes doing said research themselves, isn't that much to ask.

Then again, you'd be naive to think the suits will ever learn of anything originating from these forums. They depend on the CMs to give them the relevant info, or so I'm told. Is it a CMs duty then, to do said research? I wouldn't put such a responsibility on them. However, we humble players have very limited options.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

If you don't have any evidence that these sorts of changes are bad business, then why are you complaining? Because they hurt you personally. That's kind of my point: yes, we all may be verily sad at this or that decision, but we don't really have much of a leg to stand on, because we're missing sight of the true end goal.

jrfbrunet · September 2015

The true end goal being the continued profitability of the game? If enough players leave due to irreconcilable barriers to character progression, the game becomes unprofitable. I think that's as good a leg to stand on as any.

Challenge for the NW Devs

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