as for the solo friendly nonsense, he's arent what people want as solo friendly, quests, places to explore that is solo friendly content. he's are just mindless grind.
Couldn't agree more with this statement. I belong to a guild but I am very much into solo play and I can tell you clearly that HEs are the last thing I find entertaining. Dailies are good as long as they follow the same pattern as Dread Ring and Well of Dragons, where the quests aren't the same every single day.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I think most of the repliers did not really run the new HE. They are NOT classic HE ("Oh, a group of epic critters, let's roll over them")
I take the DR demonic HE as example: if you do them with the idea of "DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS " you fail them. Period. You need a minimum of tactic and a different choice of powers. In the Arsenal HE, for example, I switch my HR power to do only rooting and dazing, because the goal is not letting the mob go in the portal. In the quarry, I used my OP to get as much aggro as possible to get the critters away from the NpC casting.
Really, these new HE are not simple. It will take time for ppl to learn how to run them. I saw zerg runs fail miserably because they were not even reading the HE description.
That said, I am not a fun of PUG. D&D and PUG are antithetic. At the same time, I accept that this is a good compromise for solo players, low lvl etc..
I also want to point out one thing. Have you done the Demogorgon skirm/dungeon (dunno what to call it, actually)? There you have an NPC explaining to you what to do. You can read, it, see it, hear it. And still the majority of the ppl running it fails to simply direct the minotaur to the right spot. I mean, I was actually pissed that there was an EXPLANATION. Players should figure out those things ALONE. And even then, ppl don't get it with such an effort in explaining it.
As a developer, I would look at this and think: what's the point of investing time in making a difficult dungeon if they don;t get it even when we tell them the trick?
As another of the anti-social solo type players, I can firmly say HE's are not the answer to solo content. Solo content is not something that is seasonal. HE's are. You must follow the hoard, you have to do HE's while they are their most crowded and most popular. For most people like myself, that is also when they are at their most frustrating.
I don't want to follow the crowd, I don't want to be one of the hoard.
So, you wait till they are less crowded. You wait until the hoard and its insanity moves on. If you are lucky you can find enough people with a similar mindset to grind things out for a few weeks. But after that, once the next big thing comes out, HE's become impossible. They cant often be soloed so they therefore are not solo content. And without a constant stream of people interested in doing them. It becomes painfully clear just how un-solo friendly they are.
You cant even earn AD doing them. So the idea that HE's, and mod 8s HE's to be specific, are some kind of design choice to be the savior of the all but abandoned casual soloist. I honestly have to laugh at it.
The real comedy however, is none of this new. Its not like Cryptic is experimenting with new ideas with the HE's. HE's have been around from the very beginning. In Champions, they are simply called open missions. In Star Trek, they are called fleet actions. And in all cases they are all but deserted. Its rare to find players interested in doing them. They draw in the people looking to complete accolades or badges, or the curious. If someone starts one, you might get lucky enough to draw in a few people close enough to help, but not always. So Cryptic knows, they know this type of content is seasonal. They know that once the initial interest and the hoard moves on, these encounters become desolate. The real difference here is, only Neverwinter has this type of content elevated into primary content. In STO and CO they are side missions and diversions, as they should be.
"Solo content" (and I use the term very very loosely) that requires other players. Interesting spin.
0
Options
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
A direct question.. Im not even sure who these "solo" players are.. I would think they are a vast minority of the game. I think the major complaint on strongholds , wasnt that it wasnt solo friendly, the complaint was that it was "large " guild vs "small" guild.
If you are a solo player, please tell us exactly what you do in game? Do you interact with anyone? ever run group content? Frankly this game was only "solo" when you could just buy all the group gear.. it was never solo to play.. it was more like, take your leadership AD, buy group rewards.. which, whatever.. I dont care personally that they did that.
The complaints about solo friendly was from mod 6.. when they amped up difficulity (by player feedback) but sort of screwed it up by the DR bug.. but then messed with difficulty AGAIN before fixing the actual bug.. which resulted in maybe a little too easy experience overall..
which of course also plays into the time vs reward scenerio anyways.. we are NOT much rewarded anymore playing the game, so me personally, could care less if there is a challenge , because at the end of the day, the progression level in the game is so gated behind paywalls, grindwalls, there is no joy in me defeating a hard dd vs a easy one.
There used to be that joy, the back when I first started playing.. because "drumroll" we used to get things for running things.. even when it was HARD to roll through idiris and mad dragon .. (there was a day when it was REALLY hard!) you knew that you had that chance roll to get something really good at the end of it. I remember my first SP run.. on my DC, where I was told I would be the kiter "omg what? " I was sweating by the end of the 15 mins of run, run, run, SB,SB,SB.. random heal.. dodge, SB.. arrrgghhh, sorry guys, restart!
Prior to mod 6, you could do your dailies solo. After mod 6, for a great many players, you cannot. Now, a great many players have to group just to do something like Witch Fen. Now, nearly everyone has to group for any of the WoD lairs (cult prison, drake pens, thayan shelter). Now, you really have to group to complete the Cult Missives daily.
We're not doing it for our health. We're not doing it for camaraderie. We're not doing it because we suddenly like grouping. We're doing it because someone at Cryptic decided to force us into this box. Were doing it because we have been given no choice in the matter.
Do not doubt that if soloability ever returned, a great many people would instantly start soloing again, and having to group for dailies is really rubbing us the wrong way. We especially don't appreciate being told, "you WILL group, and YOU'LL LIKE IT!"
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
0
Options
ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited November 2015
The new HEs are awful. Who thought it was a good idea to slap timers on them to keep you stuck there for even longer than you want.
It's like doing mini-gate crasher skirmishes all over the place. Kill some stuff, wait, kill some stuff, wait, repeat till time is over!
I'm already bored of killing yeti, archons with legs, and imps without legs. Oh wait, they're demons!?
0
Options
aimeesellersMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 342Arc User
I think most of the repliers did not really run the new HE.
And you would be wrong. We have run them. A cleric and a CW can easily duo Demonic Escape... even to the point that none of them reach the center. Yes... I know they scale if more players do them... but that doesnt make them any more challenging.
The problem here isnt the HE's themselves... The problem is that Heroic Encounters are being used in place of dungeons, and that there is no content currently in the game that can support the powers, feats, boons, and gear that are available to players and be of any challenge once you attain them. It doesnt matter if you are getting your gear by grinding HE's, running Temple of the Spider, buying it with tradebars, doing campaigns, or farming refine points.... once you get your gear built up... there is nothing to do with it.
The three skirmishes released with this module are little more than glorified "Dread Legion" instances. They are each one room. They take very little time. The tactics needed to do well in them are not complex at all... nor are the mechanics. They would have been better off being combined into one huge dungeon, with legions of demons to fight along the way... which, by the way... are not "trash mobs". Properly designed... like most of the missing dungeons were... the mobs leading up to each boss are part of the fun of running the dungeon.
If someone feels that the monsters between bosses in dungeons are a waste of their time... then HE's and one room skirmishes are just what they need... Instant gratification... rinse, and repeat.
All this being said... am I going to do the new HEs? Yup. Am I going to be bored out of my skull running the ones in the Firey Pit? Yup. Will I run the new skirmishes? Yup. Aside that I will be with friends doing it... will I enjoy any of it? Nope.
But... if I want to keep advancing in the game, it is what I have to do... for now.
The only cool thing about this update is the single player storyline... its what they do very well, but they still recycled old content which pisses me off cause they said they wouldn't do that.
A direct question.. Im not even sure who these "solo" players are.. I would think they are a vast minority of the game. I think the major complaint on strongholds , wasnt that it wasnt solo friendly, the complaint was that it was "large " guild vs "small" guild.
If you are a solo player, please tell us exactly what you do in game? Do you interact with anyone? ever run group content?
I will try my best to answer your question but first I would like to repeat something I said before on another thread:
All PC Gamers are solo players, without exception. It is the 'nature of the beast'. A PC Gamer is only ever one person sat at a keyboard in their own little world. When they play a game, they intereact with the inhabitants of a virtual world inside their computer but it makes no difference if these are controlled by a computer AI or by another real person sat at a computer somewhere else on the planet. The player never really sees them as actual people, they are just inhabitants/characters in a game. If you have any doubts about this assessment of PC Gamers as solo players, just ask a PC Gamers girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/friend how sociable they are being while playing a game on a PC.
I am a solo player. I like to take things at my own pace, so I enjoy doing the various lairs, e.g. Death Spire, Phantasmal Fortress, etc., on my own. That way I can take my time, pick stuff up and refine it, take a quick comfort break, and so on without having to allow for other people and the speed they want to go at. I do run group content but not all of the time. I PUG things like Kessell's Retreat because it is variable that way. Sometimes I am in a group without a clue or under equipped, so it can be a challenge to finish. Other times, everything goes like clockwork. The variety is the fun part for me. If I went in with a premade team every time knowing that it would be completed quickly and efficiently, it would bore me to tears.
I am a member of a guild but it is not something I consider particularly important or significant. When I first started this game last November I only joined a guild at all because it was the only way to gain access to Gauntlgrym. Other than that, guild membership was entirely superfluous to my game playing. Being in a guild now gives me access to the Stronghold maps, so I have somewhere else to go and play for variety. Strongholds are not solo friendly because they are also the largest pieces of RP needing artifact equipment ever seen in the game. My focus is on improving my characters, not a temporary structure like a Stronghold (Note. Strongholds disappear when there is noone in them. So you can't leave your character parked up in one overnight like you can with PE or IceWind Dale and so forth. When you come back the following day you will find yourself sat by a gate in PE not ready to do your first invoke of the day). So putting things like the best possible boons (fortunately not actually needed to play any of the content in the game so far) and for a time the best possible gear behind an impossibly high refinement wall in the form of an oversized artifact that you can never own and which can be taken away from you on a whim by the person who actually does own and control it really did not go down well with me (and I suspect every other solo player out there). Funnily enough, Mod 8 has actually corrected a few of those things. The only exception being the addition of Masterwork Professions to Stronghold. I really enjoyed working on the professions and would like to do more with them but that isn;t going to happen any time soon by the looks of things. I only have two characters, so I'm not whinging about the loss of income from a Leadership army here. just complaining about the way that professions have bcome increasingly less useful.
One thing I really enjoy is playing dungeons on the Gateway. The SCA Epic Dungeons may only be dice rolling but they are challenging and fun. They are also a useful way of building up the experience of a new companion, collecting a few extra coins and AD, and a really good source of things to sell on the AH to help advance my characters
Does that go someway towards answering your questions ?
If someone feels that the monsters between bosses in dungeons are a waste of their time... then HE's and one room skirmishes are just what they need... Instant gratification... rinse, and repeat.
With no disrespect meant towards any of these people, but are you playing the right game then? I mean, this game IS based upon a game that is absolutely no fun by yourself. You need people with you, be it recruited NPC as with the old Baldur's Gate series or live people, which is normal for the Dungeons and Dragons game and very typical for any MMO. Considering this is an MMO and not a single player RPG, the emphasis will always remain on group content. Comes with the type of game.
you completely missed her point. amie and i group all the time. most of the time we have fun. she's one of the 1st to jump forward whenever anyone asks for more members for a dungeon run. these new he's arent very fun. they arent imaginative. they take 2 seconds to master. so this new module has 1 hour of single player fun with the new storyline, and then 2 extremely boring skirmishess that can be performed in a near comatose state, and 1 moderately entertaining 10man fight that is a snooze fest after the 1st coupla times. and he's that are simpistic and dull. but hey we get to grind them to speed up previous content....
I take the DR demonic HE as example: if you do them with the idea of "DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS " you fail them. Period. You need a minimum of tactic and a different choice of powers. In the Arsenal HE, for example, I switch my HR power to do only rooting and dazing, because the goal is not letting the mob go in the portal.
or you could simply agro something and walk away. instant success. oooooooooo lots of tactics.
the only upside to this module is i've caught up on my netflix queue while camping the stupid crab in drowned shores.
0
Options
aimeesellersMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 342Arc User
All PC Gamers are solo players, without exception. It is the 'nature of the beast'. A PC Gamer is only ever one person sat at a keyboard in their own little world. When they play a game, they intereact with the inhabitants of a virtual world inside their computer but it makes no difference if these are controlled by a computer AI or by another real person sat at a computer somewhere else on the planet. The player never really sees them as actual people, they are just inhabitants/characters in a game. If you have any doubts about this assessment of PC Gamers as solo players, just ask a PC Gamers girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/friend how sociable they are being while playing a game on a PC.
Couldnt be farther from the truth there... I play games with my friends. Some I know only online.. others I know in real life. I happen to play this game with my best friend... both in real life, and online. How and where we are social is no different online, than if someone were sitting next to us. I am aware that many play computer games to just play the game. There are also many like myself... that play the game to be with our friends here. In fact... if not for my friends here... I would have left this game a long time ago.
So to say all PC gamers are solo players... without exception... is completely false.
Just a thought here. Heroic Encounters in Module 8 are completely optional. If you don't like doing them, don't do them.
But I do want to point out one thing. The last two modules, people have been extremely vocal about Cryptic forgetting the solo player, and gearing all the content towards groups and guilds. People have been literally screaming about the lack of solo progression for months.
And that feedback was listened to by incorporating an avenue for solo players to earn iLevel 135 and 140 gear (Drowcraft) and BiS weapons (Elemental) through was amounts to very solo-friendly play through Heroic Events. You don't need a guild. You don't need a group. You don't need to queue.
Yes, you still need a group of people, but the dynamics are very solo, low-social friendly. Jump into a highly populated zone, jump into encounters, do your thing and earn your rewards. They're not mean to be hard, or complex, nor are they meant to require anything beyond the most basic level of "kill this" cooperation.
You personally might not like it, that's fine. And I agree with the points that we need more dungeon content, too. But you need a variety of content and encounter types to cater to different playstyles.
And even to that point, Well of Dragons and the Elemental Zones are all packed with people doing HE events. So people are taking advantage of this avenue to advance their toons, and some people might actually be enjoying it.
So just be careful when you loudly declare what the playerbase wants, and argue that an entire playstyle should be cut out. You may want to earn your gear by doing 5-man dungeons, but there's a large percentage of the playerbase that prefers non-group, solo friendly avenues to advancing, as well.
While I agree that we should have a variety of play styles, the last dungeon was added to the game back in Mod 4. Since then there have been no new dungeons and NO variety, only HEs. I understand that solo players want some content, but HEs are a terrible way to do it even for solo players. At the beginning of Mod 3 everyone was running HEs in icewind pass for the Black Ice gloves. By mod 5, nobody was running those anymore. The chance of getting enough people to do the Remorhaz has been zero for a year now. The same thing will happen with all the new heroic encounters and quests. So 3 months from now when everyone has their new weapons, how will a solo player ever fine people to run the major HEs in the elemental zones 100 times for that weapon? Dungeons however have shown more staying power. Go to Protector's Enclave and see how many people want to run Epic Temple of the Spider, a 2+ year old dungeon.
Mod 8's HEs are more optional than Mod 7's ... but not if you want one of the new weapons.
First off , you have to remember that anyone with the green title is going to tow the company line. they have to , it is a requirement to getting the title and keeping it. That person knows what people mean when they ask for single player content, and that is what we all experienced from level 1-60. Barely anyone runs he's and as soon as they can stop running them , they do. This person also knows this is true.
Fact of the matter is , it isn't you who are screaming for an active playstyle to be cut, it is cryptic who cut an active playstyle long ago. No exploration , no new zones to discover, nothing to keep the solo player in any form of happy. So you are not only justified in writing your post , but you are spot on right. This is dungeons and dragons , where are the dungeons? This is the Underdark, where is the underdark?
I think the best anyone with any sense can rate this "expansion" is pathetic. I honestly think we have transitioned from a game that was being developed for profit and fun , to a game that is being developed for profit and to fulfill a contract as cheaply as possible. All you have to do is look at the content we got, or more telling didn't get, this expansion.
All PC Gamers are solo players, without exception. It is the 'nature of the beast'. A PC Gamer is only ever one person sat at a keyboard in their own little world. When they play a game, they intereact with the inhabitants of a virtual world inside their computer but it makes no difference if these are controlled by a computer AI or by another real person sat at a computer somewhere else on the planet. The player never really sees them as actual people, they are just inhabitants/characters in a game. If you have any doubts about this assessment of PC Gamers as solo players, just ask a PC Gamers girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/friend how sociable they are being while playing a game on a PC.
I am a solo player. I like to take things at my own pace, so I enjoy doing the various lairs, e.g. Death Spire, Phantasmal Fortress, etc., on my own. That way I can take my time, pick stuff up and refine it, take a quick comfort break, and so on without having to allow for other people and the speed they want to go at. I do run group content but not all of the time. I PUG things like Kessell's Retreat because it is variable that way. Sometimes I am in a group without a clue or under equipped, so it can be a challenge to finish. Other times, everything goes like clockwork. The variety is the fun part for me. If I went in with a premade team every time knowing that it would be completed quickly and efficiently, it would bore me to tears.
I cannot disagree more here. I have been playing this game since closed beta, with the same core group of friends. Sure, some have come and gone and we have made new friends, but it's a social experience for sure. I think most who have been playing this game long term have done so because of friends here. Often when I have people ask to join my guild it's not "Can I join" it's "Can I join .. and by the way my friend/wife/son would also like to join".
I get that there are solo players out there ... and Neverwinter is a tough game to play solo. It's based off Dungeons and Dragons, which is not even remotely close to a solo game. I also don't argue that there should be content for solo players and that they have not exactly gotten a lot of content the last few modules. But if you are a true solo player, what did you get this module? THREE heroic encounters that spawn in some of the zones. Solo, you need to run these TWELVE times a day to make progress in the campaign. Seriously ... is there anyone who things this is great "content" for solo players?
Heroic Encounters DO have the advantage that anyone can join in. The new ones even scale so you can attempt them solo (As opposed to some of the older ones, which require large numbers of people or very well geared people). But as far as content heroic encounters have a lot of issues:
Heroic encounters can't assume there will be tanks or healers, so they pretty much have to be designed to be handled by pure DPS. The result is that when a group does show up, only the high DPS characters get the best rewards.
All too often doing a specific HE requires standing around waiting at the place they spawn. Need to do "Feeding the Fire" 100 times for your artifact weapon? You will spend hours standing around waiting in the Fiery Pit.
Those that do have decent rewards (ie. Dragon Heralds) usually end up with instance wide zergs doing them. If you want to run them, you have to get into the instance doing them (Which can be a problem as people check iLvLs here as well as class. Paladin and you want to kill dragons? NO WAY ... you might have prism).
Once most of the playerbase has moved on past the part of the campaign that requires a particular HE suddenly nobody does it.
Right now everyone is busy running The crabs in Drowned shore and Feeding the Fire in the Fiery pit for weapons. Once the majority of the player base have their weapon these will be a nearly insurmountable obstacle for many, doubly so for a solo player.
Yes, I know many have pointed out this is not the only way to improve your weapon. You can also run Epic Demegorgon (group content). Or you can get a stronghold weapon with dragonfangs (seriously group content). Neither are good options for solo players and neither gives the same weapons as the elemental HE quests.
They couldve LEFT everything in place (well except bugs (no ad in thrones) motes difficulty might need a change.. but the rest was ok..
BUT, BUT if they added DV back, with a saleable legendary ring drop.. omg. You guys wouldve had fans and FANS and fans and happy posts upon happy posts.
See.. DV is already there right? retool it.. re-release it, ITS so underdark, its so right!
GIVE us some good news! Tell us this is happening!
Dungeons will be back in Module 9, according to the last Reddit AMA.
Another quote here.
Actions speak louder than words. I trust actions... I do not trust that words are true, especially when they are delivered by anyone @ Cryptic. When the actions have contradicted every word that is written or said... what are we supposed to pay attention to?
Me... I rarely trust words. Words are a manipulation tool... I work in a prison and I have realized that the truth is rarely spoken or written. Truth is always visible in posture, body language and actual work. Until that body of work resembles the words...trust will not be given.
Tell us that the sky is red... when we see that it is blue. This argument is exactly the same as the Bonus Companions discussion... words said and nothing has changed.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
All PC Gamers are solo players, without exception. It is the 'nature of the beast'. A PC Gamer is only ever one person sat at a keyboard in their own little world. When they play a game, they intereact with the inhabitants of a virtual world inside their computer but it makes no difference if these are controlled by a computer AI or by another real person sat at a computer somewhere else on the planet. The player never really sees them as actual people, they are just inhabitants/characters in a game. If you have any doubts about this assessment of PC Gamers as solo players, just ask a PC Gamers girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/friend how sociable they are being while playing a game on a PC.
You're right to a great extend. It's an old stereotype, but there's some truth in it. By design, console players are far more used to co-op games than PC gamers are. For example, a console player playing AC would value a co-op option much more than a PC player generally would. On the other side, a PC gamer usually has no interest in playing tennis against someone like it can be done on a Wii. Apart from FPS games, the supply of co-op games on PC is relatively low. Part of the reason is that co-ops usually require a 2nd PC. A console comes with 2 controllers and requires no additional hardware to turn a single player experience into a co-op game. Having to split a 20 inch monitor is nothing but annoying. It's simply way too small for anything but a racing game, and even then it's all still very small and there's little scenery to enjoy this way. You don't have that problem on a 55 inch TV screen.
However, it's not that black and white anymore. More and more single player games make their way to consoles. Games like Everquest and later WoW and every large and well-known MMO that came afterwards opened the door for a new type of PC gamer that enjoys both co-op and solo play. Most players will generally keep their preference for one of the two. This is why discussions similar to this one can be found on almost every MMO forum. To some people, there's never enough MMO in the early phase of the game (and that made some games focus on that) and to others there's never enough RPG in the end-game of a game. Only a few games out there manage to have an "ideal" mix of the two playstyles and usually gamers try to find that game that focuses on their preference the most.
For Neverwinter, the focus is clearly on co-op and I don't mind that. I'm a PC gamer, but I'm also a DnD player. I know that when I play a game based on DnD, I cannot expect a fully fledged single player RPG. But would I like fun stuff to do without being dependent on the willingness and availability of others? Yes. Definitely. I liked the amount of lairs we got in mod4. We can't do them everyday and that's a minus for me but we had at least 1 a day. Since then we haven't been given a single one. And that's a shame. Bot we haven't been given any dungeon either. We lost 9 or so. 2 were reworked into the new Underdark mod so we'll never see those in their original form again. And I hate that just as much.
and how does this apply to the topic of hes. it doesnt. please stay on topic.
0
Options
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
NWO started out being very friendly to solo gamers. I mean, hell, people have always said that the game is really solid from 1-60, and it's tremendously easy to do that solo.
Solo games are basically the "I like D&D, but getting a gaming group is a major hassle" outlet. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, the classic SSI games, and Neverwinter Nights (though, not the original MMO version of Neverwinter Nights) were all solo games, despite being based on a colaborative table top roleplaying game.
When I started NWO, I felt like it was a reasonable compromise, between the desire for companies to go into the market of free to play MMOs (because screw games with a finite end amirite?) and the desire for a more solo D&D experience. Sharandar and Dread Ring were both very soloable, at least if you had the patience. But every mod since then has become progressively worse for the soloist, starting with the advent of HEs, moving on to dragons, hitting Tiamat after that, and then starting with the mind-numbingly frustrating bits in Elemental Evil. With mod 7, progress as being mandated as group content was canonized, and then module 8 just adds on more of the same.
So, maybe it's not "are you playing the right game?" so much as "is this game still the right game for you?" I'd say, well, no. If I were introduced to NWO today, I'd give a total pass. I only spend any time at all on it because I like the market manipulation type things that are involved in the ZAX.
I think most of the repliers did not really run the new HE. They are NOT classic HE ("Oh, a group of epic critters, let's roll over them")
I take the DR demonic HE as example: if you do them with the idea of "DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS " you fail them. Period. You need a minimum of tactic and a different choice of powers. In the Arsenal HE, for example, I switch my HR power to do only rooting and dazing, because the goal is not letting the mob go in the portal. In the quarry, I used my OP to get as much aggro as possible to get the critters away from the NpC casting.
Really, these new HE are not simple. It will take time for ppl to learn how to run them. I saw zerg runs fail miserably because they were not even reading the HE description.
That said, I am not a fun of PUG. D&D and PUG are antithetic. At the same time, I accept that this is a good compromise for solo players, low lvl etc..
I also want to point out one thing. Have you done the Demogorgon skirm/dungeon (dunno what to call it, actually)? There you have an NPC explaining to you what to do. You can read, it, see it, hear it. And still the majority of the ppl running it fails to simply direct the minotaur to the right spot. I mean, I was actually pissed that there was an EXPLANATION. Players should figure out those things ALONE. And even then, ppl don't get it with such an effort in explaining it.
As a developer, I would look at this and think: what's the point of investing time in making a difficult dungeon if they don;t get it even when we tell them the trick?
Nah they're pretty much all DPS. Kill things before they run into the circle, kill things before they hit the harper, and well just kill things period.
Just a thought here. Heroic Encounters in Module 8 are completely optional. If you don't like doing them, don't do them.
But I do want to point out one thing. The last two modules, people have been extremely vocal about Cryptic forgetting the solo player, and gearing all the content towards groups and guilds. People have been literally screaming about the lack of solo progression for months.
And that feedback was listened to by incorporating an avenue for solo players to earn iLevel 135 and 140 gear (Drowcraft) and BiS weapons (Elemental) through was amounts to very solo-friendly play through Heroic Events. You don't need a guild. You don't need a group. You don't need to queue.
Yes, you still need a group of people, but the dynamics are very solo, low-social friendly. Jump into a highly populated zone, jump into encounters, do your thing and earn your rewards. They're not mean to be hard, or complex, nor are they meant to require anything beyond the most basic level of "kill this" cooperation.
You personally might not like it, that's fine. And I agree with the points that we need more dungeon content, too. But you need a variety of content and encounter types to cater to different playstyles.
And even to that point, Well of Dragons and the Elemental Zones are all packed with people doing HE events. So people are taking advantage of this avenue to advance their toons, and some people might actually be enjoying it.
So just be careful when you loudly declare what the playerbase wants, and argue that an entire playstyle should be cut out. You may want to earn your gear by doing 5-man dungeons, but there's a large percentage of the playerbase that prefers non-group, solo friendly avenues to advancing, as well.
While I agree that we should have a variety of play styles, the last dungeon was added to the game back in Mod 4. Since then there have been no new dungeons and NO variety, only HEs. I understand that solo players want some content, but HEs are a terrible way to do it even for solo players. At the beginning of Mod 3 everyone was running HEs in icewind pass for the Black Ice gloves. By mod 5, nobody was running those anymore. The chance of getting enough people to do the Remorhaz has been zero for a year now. The same thing will happen with all the new heroic encounters and quests. So 3 months from now when everyone has their new weapons, how will a solo player ever fine people to run the major HEs in the elemental zones 100 times for that weapon? Dungeons however have shown more staying power. Go to Protector's Enclave and see how many people want to run Epic Temple of the Spider, a 2+ year old dungeon.
Mod 8's HEs are more optional than Mod 7's ... but not if you want one of the new weapons.
First off , you have to remember that anyone with the green title is going to tow the company line. they have to , it is a requirement to getting the title and keeping it. That person knows what people mean when they ask for single player content, and that is what we all experienced from level 1-60. Barely anyone runs he's and as soon as they can stop running them , they do. This person also knows this is true.
Fact of the matter is , it isn't you who are screaming for an active playstyle to be cut, it is cryptic who cut an active playstyle long ago. No exploration , no new zones to discover, nothing to keep the solo player in any form of happy. So you are not only justified in writing your post , but you are spot on right. This is dungeons and dragons , where are the dungeons? This is the Underdark, where is the underdark?
I think the best anyone with any sense can rate this "expansion" is pathetic. I honestly think we have transitioned from a game that was being developed for profit and fun , to a game that is being developed for profit and to fulfill a contract as cheaply as possible. All you have to do is look at the content we got, or more telling didn't get, this expansion.
No not really. They're just volunteers that are here to moderate the forums.
On the Blacklight forums they talked all kinds of **** about the devs and PWE. The only thing they have to do is close/move threads that are getting out of hand. If a mod looks like they're "towing the company line" it's because they actually believe it.
When people complain about not being able to solo stuff at end game, I imagine they are talking about the grind side of things. When you have 50 dailies to do which you've done 300 times before, nobody wants to form a group to go out and do it for fun. People do them because they have to.
Adding in HEs doesn't fix the problem. They're grind that require groups of random players who don't work together but instead just pound out as much DPS as possible. This isn't fun, it's not solo, and it's not group based.
It's clear to everyone (community moderators included) that people wanted more dungeons, a return of the old dungeons, more skirmishes, more questing zones. Not HEs. Expecting us all to do the same two dungeons for 18 months and counting is pretty ridiculous in a game about dungeons.
On my second char atm farming the drowned weapon, someone pls shoot me! This is worst thing in NW so far. its just LAZY.
0
Options
blazious11Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 331Arc User
Additionally, no more heroic encounters disguised as skirmishes! While Prophecy and Dwarf throne is interesting for a while, (escpecially with hulks,) this concept of kill everything that spawns is cheap, and should be avoided in next dungeons and skirmishes.
My story is truly a grand tale! Of course, any story about me is going to be grand simply by virtue of the main character.
I agree wholeheartedly with the OP (and most of this thread's posts') tenor: HEs are
a) overdone, b) lame, c) not fun, d) way too many, e) not solo friendly in the primal sense, f) way too repetitive within their "diversity" (killing 4 waves of spiders, demons, or orcs... ...yay, variety...), and hence g) bound to scare many many players away through boredom.
Or, to put it in a C-Mgmt-comprehensible way:
"Will a player spend RL $$$ to speed up his infiniGrind(TM) boredom???"
I won't. Maybe there are some, but their numbers will dwindle...
1 - Sharandar, new zones, new dungeon, new skirmish. 2 - Dread Ring, new zones, new dungeon, new skirmish. 3 - IWD, new zones, new skirmish. 4 - ToD, no zones, new skirmish, the last new dungeon. 5 - Tiamat, a zone filled with dailies and HEs, no story. No dungeons or skirmishes. 6 - A few zones filled with dailies and HEs and appalling grind, no dungeons or skirmishes. 7 - SH, loads more dailies and HEs. 8 - No zones, no dungeons, no skirmishes (instanced HEs don't count), a couple of HEs placed everywhere to substitute content.
Pattern from good quality content to low quality, lazy content. Basically 1-3 is what the game was best for. 4 and 5 should have been one mod. After that we're basically just getting HEs.
The new HEs are awful. Who thought it was a good idea to slap timers on them to keep you stuck there for even longer than you want.
It's like doing mini-gate crasher skirmishes all over the place. Kill some stuff, wait, kill some stuff, wait, repeat till time is over!
I'm already bored of killing yeti, archons with legs, and imps without legs. Oh wait, they're demons!?
yeah the only new Model in this mod was the Demogorgon, but they made that crab like demons to copy this one too... (weird enough the real archons have hiden leg (try frozen them)
1 - Sharandar, new zones, new dungeon, new skirmish. 2 - Dread Ring, new zones, new dungeon, new skirmish. 3 - IWD, new zones, new skirmish. 4 - ToD, no zones, new skirmish, the last new dungeon. 5 - Tiamat, a zone filled with dailies and HEs, no story. No dungeons or skirmishes. 6 - A few zones filled with dailies and HEs and appalling grind, no dungeons or skirmishes. 7 - SH, loads more dailies and HEs. 8 - No zones, no dungeons, no skirmishes (instanced HEs don't count), a couple of HEs placed everywhere to substitute content.
Pattern from good quality content to low quality, lazy content. Basically 1-3 is what the game was best for. 4 and 5 should have been one mod. After that we're basically just getting HEs.
Almost perfect only one thing to add, till Mod3 we could be get almost all boons solo, and then go search a party or guild to gear up... now is just impossible for new players, i like to help new people to get boons and gear up (sometimes even LV up between 60-70) so i know a lot of new guys , but theswe days they don't stay in the game, they quit because they don't want to be carried all the way, and can't do it solo either... (sorry for my grammar)
You personally might not like it, that's fine. And I agree with the points that we need more dungeon content, too. But you need a variety of content and encounter types to cater to different playstyles.
I totally agree with that the problem is we have seen 9 new HE's(3 repeated 3 times) added in the latest mod and 0 dungeons in the last 3. This is not a variety of content. I think this is what the OP meant.
I do appreciate the fact that solo players can play the new HE's. The gear that you can get form mod 8 still can't come close to Guild gear(Dragon flight). Meaning solo players or small guild players are still left behind.Mod 8 just discourages Small guilds and solo players.
I do how ever like the fact that small guild and solo players can get the New weapons. Especially the Edemo weapons ... since i believe in 3 months it will be impossible for a solo player to get the HE weapons. It will be like trying to fight the Remorhaz at this moment. It is simply not possible or you have to be very lucky.
Post edited by mynaam on
There are more than BIS players in this game RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ???? FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
0
Options
urlord283Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,084Arc User
Leave it to an employee to try and rationalize anything that has been done in this game lol. I would pay money to see one just say, "Yeah we messed up." - I don't think they have ever said that... in all the delays. Every single mod from the start (allllll of them have been delayed, yet still have a timer for some reason), Caturday, Resonators, you name it... They never once said "We messed up".... And even on the forums lol.... "Your voices were heard" - dude... do you even play the game? Like... do you know how classes work? feats? what enchants have not been used since they were released? what rings are broken with no CD, what rings are useless b/c they don't work, anything? I bet my account worth over 100 million... that not one dev knows the the answer to all those questions, b/c they don't play...
The simple fact w/every single mod getting worse... They don't play their own game. They are terrrrrrible at their own game. And it was as clear as day when the mods introduced tenacity back in whatever mod (this new AMAZING IDEA) and got beat 1000 to 0 by a premade lol.. They just have no clue guys.
Comments
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
They are NOT classic HE ("Oh, a group of epic critters, let's roll over them")
I take the DR demonic HE as example: if you do them with the idea of "DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS " you fail them. Period.
You need a minimum of tactic and a different choice of powers. In the Arsenal HE, for example, I switch my HR power to do only rooting and dazing, because the goal is not letting the mob go in the portal.
In the quarry, I used my OP to get as much aggro as possible to get the critters away from the NpC casting.
Really, these new HE are not simple. It will take time for ppl to learn how to run them. I saw zerg runs fail miserably because they were not even reading the HE description.
That said, I am not a fun of PUG. D&D and PUG are antithetic. At the same time, I accept that this is a good compromise for solo players, low lvl etc..
I also want to point out one thing. Have you done the Demogorgon skirm/dungeon (dunno what to call it, actually)?
There you have an NPC explaining to you what to do. You can read, it, see it, hear it. And still the majority of the ppl running it fails to simply direct the minotaur to the right spot. I mean, I was actually pissed that there was an EXPLANATION. Players should figure out those things ALONE.
And even then, ppl don't get it with such an effort in explaining it.
As a developer, I would look at this and think: what's the point of investing time in making a difficult dungeon if they don;t get it even when we tell them the trick?
Lethinath - DC
Fayn Fiddler - HR
Jean Fiddler - OP
Quinn Fiddler - TR
Tre'Davious Flynn - SW
Bogus Skullslicker - GF
Vanhankaupunginselk - CW
Alea - GWF
Noble Misfits
I don't want to follow the crowd, I don't want to be one of the hoard.
So, you wait till they are less crowded. You wait until the hoard and its insanity moves on. If you are lucky you can find enough people with a similar mindset to grind things out for a few weeks. But after that, once the next big thing comes out, HE's become impossible. They cant often be soloed so they therefore are not solo content. And without a constant stream of people interested in doing them. It becomes painfully clear just how un-solo friendly they are.
You cant even earn AD doing them. So the idea that HE's, and mod 8s HE's to be specific, are some kind of design choice to be the savior of the all but abandoned casual soloist. I honestly have to laugh at it.
The real comedy however, is none of this new. Its not like Cryptic is experimenting with new ideas with the HE's. HE's have been around from the very beginning. In Champions, they are simply called open missions. In Star Trek, they are called fleet actions. And in all cases they are all but deserted. Its rare to find players interested in doing them. They draw in the people looking to complete accolades or badges, or the curious. If someone starts one, you might get lucky enough to draw in a few people close enough to help, but not always. So Cryptic knows, they know this type of content is seasonal. They know that once the initial interest and the hoard moves on, these encounters become desolate. The real difference here is, only Neverwinter has this type of content elevated into primary content. In STO and CO they are side missions and diversions, as they should be.
If you are a solo player, please tell us exactly what you do in game? Do you interact with anyone? ever run group content? Frankly this game was only "solo" when you could just buy all the group gear.. it was never solo to play.. it was more like, take your leadership AD, buy group rewards.. which, whatever.. I dont care personally that they did that.
The complaints about solo friendly was from mod 6.. when they amped up difficulity (by player feedback) but sort of screwed it up by the DR bug.. but then messed with difficulty AGAIN before fixing the actual bug.. which resulted in maybe a little too easy experience overall..
which of course also plays into the time vs reward scenerio anyways.. we are NOT much rewarded anymore playing the game, so me personally, could care less if there is a challenge , because at the end of the day, the progression level in the game is so gated behind paywalls, grindwalls, there is no joy in me defeating a hard dd vs a easy one.
There used to be that joy, the back when I first started playing.. because "drumroll" we used to get things for running things.. even when it was HARD to roll through idiris and mad dragon .. (there was a day when it was REALLY hard!) you knew that you had that chance roll to get something really good at the end of it. I remember my first SP run.. on my DC, where I was told I would be the kiter "omg what? " I was sweating by the end of the 15 mins of run, run, run, SB,SB,SB.. random heal.. dodge, SB.. arrrgghhh, sorry guys, restart!
Now.. omg.. another peridot.. sheesh.
We're not doing it for our health.
We're not doing it for camaraderie.
We're not doing it because we suddenly like grouping.
We're doing it because someone at Cryptic decided to force us into this box. Were doing it because we have been given no choice in the matter.
Do not doubt that if soloability ever returned, a great many people would instantly start soloing again, and having to group for dailies is really rubbing us the wrong way. We especially don't appreciate being told, "you WILL group, and YOU'LL LIKE IT!"
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
It's like doing mini-gate crasher skirmishes all over the place. Kill some stuff, wait, kill some stuff, wait, repeat till time is over!
I'm already bored of killing yeti, archons with legs, and imps without legs. Oh wait, they're demons!?
The problem here isnt the HE's themselves... The problem is that Heroic Encounters are being used in place of dungeons, and that there is no content currently in the game that can support the powers, feats, boons, and gear that are available to players and be of any challenge once you attain them. It doesnt matter if you are getting your gear by grinding HE's, running Temple of the Spider, buying it with tradebars, doing campaigns, or farming refine points.... once you get your gear built up... there is nothing to do with it.
The three skirmishes released with this module are little more than glorified "Dread Legion" instances. They are each one room. They take very little time. The tactics needed to do well in them are not complex at all... nor are the mechanics. They would have been better off being combined into one huge dungeon, with legions of demons to fight along the way... which, by the way... are not "trash mobs". Properly designed... like most of the missing dungeons were... the mobs leading up to each boss are part of the fun of running the dungeon.
If someone feels that the monsters between bosses in dungeons are a waste of their time... then HE's and one room skirmishes are just what they need... Instant gratification... rinse, and repeat.
All this being said... am I going to do the new HEs? Yup. Am I going to be bored out of my skull running the ones in the Firey Pit? Yup. Will I run the new skirmishes? Yup. Aside that I will be with friends doing it... will I enjoy any of it? Nope.
But... if I want to keep advancing in the game, it is what I have to do... for now.
Pandora's Misfits Guild Leader
All PC Gamers are solo players, without exception. It is the 'nature of the beast'. A PC Gamer is only ever one person sat at a keyboard in their own little world. When they play a game, they intereact with the inhabitants of a virtual world inside their computer but it makes no difference if these are controlled by a computer AI or by another real person sat at a computer somewhere else on the planet. The player never really sees them as actual people, they are just inhabitants/characters in a game. If you have any doubts about this assessment of PC Gamers as solo players, just ask a PC Gamers girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/friend how sociable they are being while playing a game on a PC.
I am a solo player. I like to take things at my own pace, so I enjoy doing the various lairs, e.g. Death Spire, Phantasmal Fortress, etc., on my own. That way I can take my time, pick stuff up and refine it, take a quick comfort break, and so on without having to allow for other people and the speed they want to go at. I do run group content but not all of the time. I PUG things like Kessell's Retreat because it is variable that way. Sometimes I am in a group without a clue or under equipped, so it can be a challenge to finish. Other times, everything goes like clockwork. The variety is the fun part for me. If I went in with a premade team every time knowing that it would be completed quickly and efficiently, it would bore me to tears.
I am a member of a guild but it is not something I consider particularly important or significant. When I first started this game last November I only joined a guild at all because it was the only way to gain access to Gauntlgrym. Other than that, guild membership was entirely superfluous to my game playing. Being in a guild now gives me access to the Stronghold maps, so I have somewhere else to go and play for variety. Strongholds are not solo friendly because they are also the largest pieces of RP needing artifact equipment ever seen in the game. My focus is on improving my characters, not a temporary structure like a Stronghold (Note. Strongholds disappear when there is noone in them. So you can't leave your character parked up in one overnight like you can with PE or IceWind Dale and so forth. When you come back the following day you will find yourself sat by a gate in PE not ready to do your first invoke of the day). So putting things like the best possible boons (fortunately not actually needed to play any of the content in the game so far) and for a time the best possible gear behind an impossibly high refinement wall in the form of an oversized artifact that you can never own and which can be taken away from you on a whim by the person who actually does own and control it really did not go down well with me (and I suspect every other solo player out there). Funnily enough, Mod 8 has actually corrected a few of those things. The only exception being the addition of Masterwork Professions to Stronghold. I really enjoyed working on the professions and would like to do more with them but that isn;t going to happen any time soon by the looks of things. I only have two characters, so I'm not whinging about the loss of income from a Leadership army here. just complaining about the way that professions have bcome increasingly less useful.
One thing I really enjoy is playing dungeons on the Gateway. The SCA Epic Dungeons may only be dice rolling but they are challenging and fun. They are also a useful way of building up the experience of a new companion, collecting a few extra coins and AD, and a really good source of things to sell on the AH to help advance my characters
Does that go someway towards answering your questions ?
the only upside to this module is i've caught up on my netflix queue while camping the stupid crab in drowned shores.
So to say all PC gamers are solo players... without exception... is completely false.
Pandora's Misfits Guild Leader
Fact of the matter is , it isn't you who are screaming for an active playstyle to be cut, it is cryptic who cut an active playstyle long ago. No exploration , no new zones to discover, nothing to keep the solo player in any form of happy. So you are not only justified in writing your post , but you are spot on right. This is dungeons and dragons , where are the dungeons? This is the Underdark, where is the underdark?
I think the best anyone with any sense can rate this "expansion" is pathetic. I honestly think we have transitioned from a game that was being developed for profit and fun , to a game that is being developed for profit and to fulfill a contract as cheaply as possible. All you have to do is look at the content we got, or more telling didn't get, this expansion.
I get that there are solo players out there ... and Neverwinter is a tough game to play solo. It's based off Dungeons and Dragons, which is not even remotely close to a solo game. I also don't argue that there should be content for solo players and that they have not exactly gotten a lot of content the last few modules. But if you are a true solo player, what did you get this module? THREE heroic encounters that spawn in some of the zones. Solo, you need to run these TWELVE times a day to make progress in the campaign. Seriously ... is there anyone who things this is great "content" for solo players?
Heroic Encounters DO have the advantage that anyone can join in. The new ones even scale so you can attempt them solo (As opposed to some of the older ones, which require large numbers of people or very well geared people). But as far as content heroic encounters have a lot of issues:
- Heroic encounters can't assume there will be tanks or healers, so they pretty much have to be designed to be handled by pure DPS. The result is that when a group does show up, only the high DPS characters get the best rewards.
- All too often doing a specific HE requires standing around waiting at the place they spawn. Need to do "Feeding the Fire" 100 times for your artifact weapon? You will spend hours standing around waiting in the Fiery Pit.
- Those that do have decent rewards (ie. Dragon Heralds) usually end up with instance wide zergs doing them. If you want to run them, you have to get into the instance doing them (Which can be a problem as people check iLvLs here as well as class. Paladin and you want to kill dragons? NO WAY ... you might have prism).
- Once most of the playerbase has moved on past the part of the campaign that requires a particular HE suddenly nobody does it.
Right now everyone is busy running The crabs in Drowned shore and Feeding the Fire in the Fiery pit for weapons. Once the majority of the player base have their weapon these will be a nearly insurmountable obstacle for many, doubly so for a solo player.Yes, I know many have pointed out this is not the only way to improve your weapon. You can also run Epic Demegorgon (group content). Or you can get a stronghold weapon with dragonfangs (seriously group content). Neither are good options for solo players and neither gives the same weapons as the elemental HE quests.
Winter Lily (CW) / Winter Rose (DC) / Winter Ivy (HR)
Pandora's Misfits Guild Leader
Actions speak louder than words. I trust actions... I do not trust that words are true, especially when they are delivered by anyone @ Cryptic. When the actions have contradicted every word that is written or said... what are we supposed to pay attention to?
Me... I rarely trust words. Words are a manipulation tool... I work in a prison and I have realized that the truth is rarely spoken or written. Truth is always visible in posture, body language and actual work. Until that body of work resembles the words...trust will not be given.
Tell us that the sky is red... when we see that it is blue. This argument is exactly the same as the Bonus Companions discussion... words said and nothing has changed.
Solo games are basically the "I like D&D, but getting a gaming group is a major hassle" outlet. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, the classic SSI games, and Neverwinter Nights (though, not the original MMO version of Neverwinter Nights) were all solo games, despite being based on a colaborative table top roleplaying game.
When I started NWO, I felt like it was a reasonable compromise, between the desire for companies to go into the market of free to play MMOs (because screw games with a finite end amirite?) and the desire for a more solo D&D experience. Sharandar and Dread Ring were both very soloable, at least if you had the patience. But every mod since then has become progressively worse for the soloist, starting with the advent of HEs, moving on to dragons, hitting Tiamat after that, and then starting with the mind-numbingly frustrating bits in Elemental Evil. With mod 7, progress as being mandated as group content was canonized, and then module 8 just adds on more of the same.
So, maybe it's not "are you playing the right game?" so much as "is this game still the right game for you?" I'd say, well, no. If I were introduced to NWO today, I'd give a total pass. I only spend any time at all on it because I like the market manipulation type things that are involved in the ZAX.
On the Blacklight forums they talked all kinds of **** about the devs and PWE. The only thing they have to do is close/move threads that are getting out of hand. If a mod looks like they're "towing the company line" it's because they actually believe it.
Adding in HEs doesn't fix the problem. They're grind that require groups of random players who don't work together but instead just pound out as much DPS as possible. This isn't fun, it's not solo, and it's not group based.
It's clear to everyone (community moderators included) that people wanted more dungeons, a return of the old dungeons, more skirmishes, more questing zones. Not HEs. Expecting us all to do the same two dungeons for 18 months and counting is pretty ridiculous in a game about dungeons.
a) overdone,
b) lame,
c) not fun,
d) way too many,
e) not solo friendly in the primal sense,
f) way too repetitive within their "diversity" (killing 4 waves of spiders, demons, or orcs... ...yay, variety...), and hence
g) bound to scare many many players away through boredom.
Or, to put it in a C-Mgmt-comprehensible way:
"Will a player spend RL $$$ to speed up his infiniGrind(TM) boredom???"
I won't. Maybe there are some, but their numbers will dwindle...
1 - Sharandar, new zones, new dungeon, new skirmish.
2 - Dread Ring, new zones, new dungeon, new skirmish.
3 - IWD, new zones, new skirmish.
4 - ToD, no zones, new skirmish, the last new dungeon.
5 - Tiamat, a zone filled with dailies and HEs, no story. No dungeons or skirmishes.
6 - A few zones filled with dailies and HEs and appalling grind, no dungeons or skirmishes.
7 - SH, loads more dailies and HEs.
8 - No zones, no dungeons, no skirmishes (instanced HEs don't count), a couple of HEs placed everywhere to substitute content.
Pattern from good quality content to low quality, lazy content. Basically 1-3 is what the game was best for. 4 and 5 should have been one mod. After that we're basically just getting HEs.
(weird enough the real archons have hiden leg (try frozen them)
only one thing to add, till Mod3 we could be get almost all boons solo, and then go search a party or guild to gear up... now is just impossible for new players, i like to help new people to get boons and gear up (sometimes even LV up between 60-70) so i know a lot of new guys , but theswe days they don't stay in the game, they quit because they don't want to be carried all the way, and can't do it solo either...
(sorry for my grammar)
I do appreciate the fact that solo players can play the new HE's. The gear that you can get form mod 8 still can't come close to Guild gear(Dragon flight). Meaning solo players or small guild players are still left behind.Mod 8 just discourages Small guilds and solo players.
I do how ever like the fact that small guild and solo players can get the New weapons. Especially the Edemo weapons ... since i believe in 3 months it will be impossible for a solo player to get the HE weapons. It will be like trying to fight the Remorhaz at this moment. It is simply not possible or you have to be very lucky.
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
The simple fact w/every single mod getting worse... They don't play their own game. They are terrrrrrible at their own game. And it was as clear as day when the mods introduced tenacity back in whatever mod (this new AMAZING IDEA) and got beat 1000 to 0 by a premade lol.. They just have no clue guys.