I used to play Neverwinter back at the start before Module 1 and then left right at the start of Module 3.
I was just wondering how this game has changed. I know Control Wizards and Clerics got some "reworks" in some of the early modules, and I know that the Scourge Warlock and Oathbound Paladin were implemented, but is there anything else major (besides the campaigns and new zones)?
Also, one of the reasons I left Neverwinter was that it was very Gear Score dependent. People were very anal about doing dungeons with lower gear score players. Is that still the case, or has this dwindled?
Thanks for the info
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But generally you want to get to level 70, then pick up some blue level 70 gear.
T1 dungeons start out where you can earn iLevel 130 gear through drops, or by purchasing with seals (Elements). It can be upgraded with crafting to 132. iLevel 132 gear drops inT2 dungeons, or you can buy iLevel 135 gear from the next level of seals (Protectors). It can be upgraded to 137 via crafting.
Module 8 also has 135 iLevel gear available through the compaign. You buy it with Demon Ichor found from Demonic Heroic Events, Skirmishes or the Demogorgon Fight. You can only get 400 a week, and pieces cost 400-600. It can be upgraded via crafting to iLevel 140, I believe. For someone who doesn't like dungeons, that's probably the easiest route to go.
There's also Guild Strongholds now, which offer up iLevel 140 gear, upgradable to iLevel 142.
As for who does what with who? There's always going to be elitism. Some of the T2 dungeons are very hard, but the T1 dungeons should be relatively tame. You might get people more picky about T2 parties than T1s, but if you get frustrated you can always run Demonic encounters or the new Skirmishes with little trouble.
1) Plenty of class reworks
2) Level cap raised to 70
3) New Artifacts and Artifact gear/powers
4) Guild Strongholds (think a private zone + castle for your guild)
5) Massive AD/Economy reworks
6) VIP Membership
Anyway, tons of stuff. I'd highly recommend just patching up and seeing what you think.
Here's a good "Stuff I wish I knew thread".
If you're totally lost, there's a NW_Newbie channel you can join to look for help.
Despite some new things generally game is not revarding, I don't feel same exitement like in first 3 modes.
Now everything is boring repeatable grinding and to get some significant buffs you need to be a member of the guild.
Most of locations again are reused ones.
New campaign scenario was written probably in 15 min.
Learning the new ropes might be some fun. Once you've learned them, it's same-ol'-same-ol'-boredom. Many of the assembly-line jobs I've had were more entertaining...
2. You need vast amounts of many different items to level your gear. We are talking millions and millions of ad worth.
3. Most guild will require you to spend a portion of your playtime and currency to upgrade the stronghold, so freedom of choice in how you play has become a little more limited if you want to join a guild.
4. PVP is broken, with no mention of any fixes anytime soon, or even ever.
5. Playing alts is way too expensive or time consuming. The game has become decidedy alt unfriendly.
6. HE's are now the new dungeons, so if you didnt like dungeons , you will like this feature.
7. Repitition is the name of the game here. You must like doing the same few skirmishes, dungeons or adventure areas over and over ad nauseum.
My Advice. Enjoy the leveling experience from 1-60 , because you will never see anything like it again. Once you hit 60. rinse and repeat with another class. This part of the game was when the game was fun. once you pass the "real underdark" portion of the game, you may end up disappointed.
There are no more "old Lems" or "wyndolyn shoosh's" once you leave the real game and embark on what we have at end game.
PnP Red Box DM & Player (74 - ?). NWN + SoU + HotU (4-03),
NWN Diamond Edition, Neverwinter Nights Complete (NWN + NWN2).
The new campaign is extremely friendly to the solo casual gamer now.
Grind, more grind, and even more grind. Rinse and repeat every module. And you don't only need to grind for yourself. you also need to grind for your guild.
Did I mention guild? Forced guilding makes sure solo players and small guilds will meet (or already had met) the fate of dinosaurs.
Even if you are in a guild. You are still a sorry player if your guild is not ranked high enough to make the best gear. As a design developer wrote in his post: players in low ranked guilds can still have fun by supplying the supreme guilds with low end materials. Translation: Come slaves!!! Come Now!!! Give me the materials and I will give you gold so you don't get kicked by your rank 3 guild!!!
it was the Mod 6 that got nearly destroy this game, forcing to "relearn" and some are still struggling and relearning and some players learned faster than others.
we are in beginning of Mod 8, saying of new adventures in underdark, but to me, it is all so wrong, it is barely a town base and no "exploring areas" yet. and we still hadnt adventure in underdark. devs had let most of us a big let down, we were expecting all new exploring terrian settings.
they had shown us "massive drow city landscape", and vast cavern areas teasers and we still not there yet.
It seems the game has lost a lot of players and the associated incomes due to some bad design decisions.
Some player attrition is anyways natural in an mmorpg, but it seems the process was accelerated in NW.
Lower incomes means development work is notably reduced compared to 1-2 years ago. They still push new updates out each 4th month, but they are smaller and less elaborate. Also bugs fixes and necessary gameplay fixes do not happen, or happen late, another sign of low resources. And when fixes do happen they sometimes miss the target, which shows the devs have too little understanding of their own game. Again probably because of low resources.
While NW might not be dead yet, it definitely is in a downward death spiral. Less income leading to less resources leading to less development work leading to less satisfied players leading to fewer players leading to less income.
Also, players are leaving because the game's not fun any more, not because fifty or so forumites whine to the three or five hundred in total reading these.
Yes, the game still has one of the best combat systems I've seen in MMOs so far - imbalanced as it is. But applying this in like 10 types of 3-5 minute standard situations with differently skinned mobs, dozens of times in a row, day after day, week after week,... ....still gets boring, even if you call them Heroic Encounters. And getting to use MountSimulator(TM) for a minute or two to get to the next identically proceeding HE doesn't ameliorate this. Quite the opposite...
Come again when you have arguments instead of slogans, platitudes, and offences...
Most of the game is soloable - I have 2 main toons - both around 2.7iL (a GF and CW) and they can solo everything except maybe the mini dungeons in WOD (although I haven't tried those since I was 2.5K il).
You can get AD from Arcane Res, Biggrins Tomb and Recovering the Hoard and Portal to Tuern - all can be Solo'd.
They removed AD from leadership and got rid of timed DD and instead added AD to Dungeon Runs and Skirmishes no matter when you do them. This suits the casual gamer if you ask me and those of us without leadership armies. Maybe overall AD generation is reduced (for me it has gone down around 30%) but at the same time the price of GMOPs has been reduced by 75% and Coalescent Wards by 60%. 3 Months ago I couldn't afford a Greater Vorp enchant, yesterday I could because of the price drops and I had spare change to get my GF a Perfect Plaguefire.
Regarding guilds, I am in a guild where there are 3 regular players, we have a level 2 (maybe even level 1) stronghold, are we ever going to max out our SH? probably not, does that prevent me from enjoying the game - no.
Is there lots of grinding - yes, and at times it feels like a drag. But if it was easy and quick to get boons etc. we would get to the end much too quickly and then we would complain that there is nothing left to do.
Ironzerg, gets lynch mobbed every time he says something positive about the game. ffs can't he be allowed to enjoy it without incurring the wrath of the jilted masses??
Regarding the difficulty, Mod 6 was hard mostly because of one-shots, but I was happy for that because my GF got to run Dungeons again and parties needed him. Now the game is back to easy mode for all the areas and we are probably a few months away from all DPS parties burning through Dungeons. Anyone who is anywhere near BIS will be melting mobs like they were popsicles hit with a flame thrower. If anything this game needs much harder areas to keep the high end guys interested but if they do that, ppl will complain.
that's my 2 cents, I'm in no way an expert on this game, but I think its still enjoyable and a f2p player can progress albeit with a bit of grinding (well maybe a lot of grinding).
The content is easily solo-able. As to the person who said players even with the highest IL are complaining it's too hard, that's just hogwash, players in my guild complain the game is too easy, and we only have a 2,500 IL requirement to be in the guild.
The devs are making great changes imo to rebuild the foundation of the game. On one hand, you will have players saying cryptic is only in it for the money (well, they are a company), but I reckon the Devs the changes would cost them some old time players, but sacrificed this for the health of the game.
If you look at the posting history of some of the haters, they have been threatening to quit the game for a thousand posts.
Of course the game cannot keep up in content with the players. No game can. It takes 1,000x as long to deliver new content as it does to play that content. I suggest to those player, try another game, consider that your new content. I am sure there is a utopia game out there that will suit your needs (no?). I love this game and a couple others, but I get bored of them all from time to time and have to switch things up. When new content comes out in the other MMO's I play, I go play it, bugs and all, and enjoy it, the same goes for NWN.
They lowered the cost of many items, the trade bar vendor is great. The new content is new, and I love it. Sometimes the glass is half full, you take what you can, and enjoy it for what it's worth. Market corrections are obvious, and in the right direction.
IMO the devs are doing a pretty good job, but again, if you are looking for perfection, you won't find it here or in any other game that I know of (and if there was a perfect game, the grumpy old men from the balcony really need to go find it and move on, many of us are all quite sick of hearing the same dozen of you hijacking every thread and sitting in PE complaining about the game, discouraging returning players and discouraging new players). Attitudes are contagious, and at this point, the haters are banking on that contagiousness, hoping new players don't join and hoping everyone quits, so they can have their way.
Some of you sound like your girlfriend has broken up with you, and you just can't let go and move on.
All companies have limited resources, and they must prioritize those resources, for some players, their priorities don't align with the devs, and they throw tantrums. I suggest you just try the game for yourself, and see if it suit your entertainment needs.
Best Regards,
An Obvious Fanboi of this and other games.
Whether people love or hate the game, I'm sure most of us agree that the combat system, bugs and imbalance aside, is amazingly well-done. It is probably what keeps most people in the game and what keeps most people on this forum constantly "complaining" (giving constructive feedback) in hopes of the game becoming more successful. Anyway, I will likely shelve the game again like most people, and hope that someday there will be dungeons to do again and the game hasn't died yet due to the poor design decisions which so many people on the forum have eloquently described in hopes of them being addressed.
if they offered a chance to remove all mod1+ stuff except for classes and the few bug fixes they did it would make for MUCH better game, even with all the exploits and the old refining system, even if there werent many things to do, it was simple and much more fun
I have the most fun just levelling up different classes to 60. For end game progression, go to another game.