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Mod 8 game design failures and how to avoid them in Mod 9
matthiasthehun76
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,184 Arc User
Hi there fellow players, Mods, Devs!
I would like to talk about a few things i have recently noticed and some of the well known issues, like the rings.
Forgive my words, i don't intend to bash anyone, just have to give an opinion from down the rabbit hole, from deep down, where we, small guild members live our virtual lives and how most of us see the current situation both in PVE and PVP.
I don't want to go into details, we all know, that Mod 6 was a sad day to this game from which it never really recovered, players left by numbers and well established, decent guilds closed from one day to the another.
Mod 7 was a big hope for some, not for me to be honest, i was on Alpha Team for PVP and i already saw, that without proper balancing, Siege will be a complete failure. Also the network background of Cryptic servers didn't wake a good feeling in me, that it would work fine live with thousands of more potential players. The PVE part would have been great and i really loved the approach, it made me think of my service days, when people had to work together to achieve a higher goal. Sadly the not well thought design ruined SH's potential as we can see, cause the bigger got stronger and the small got weaker. Not that anybody says, i am criticizing here without giving some reasonable advise, i personally would have never allowed to mix PVE with PVP and vice versa and trust me dear Devs, the bigger uproar is just about to come, well if PVP survives the current ring affair anyways, cause once those heavy boons and those maxed AP/Stamina drains hit the battleground, it will be over, the disparity between small/medium guilds, who have no access to them and the big or nasty ones, who have and abuse every little bug and broken stuff to their advantage will kill PVP entirely. What makes me feel very sad, that some players have eyes shades before them and don't see, that they are cutting the tree under their selves, cause once they frightened off all the small players, who will they fight, who will play the role of the victim?! That's why i would advise Cryptic to build on the small player,the average player is decent, loyal, likes the game, is willing to spend over time and won't brake the balance, where as the bug abusers will search for a new home as soon as they killed PVP entirely and can't find any more victims to massacre.
So Mod 8 came, sadly the awaited big waiting for a release of some old or new dungeons was all in vain and all we got was the Rings, oh yes.... I do get it, why it was done and won't go into details, but dear Devs you can't balance PVP by adding a ton of broken rings into it. As you can see PVP is nearly dead. I am normally the type of guy, who jumps out of a match at first sight of a cheater, i have no time to waste on them, but yesterday i deliberately stayed in 1 match, just to see, how many players will have the patience to stay against a full premade ring user PVP guild. Let me tell you, i was the penultimate one to jump and this from out of 20, yes 20 people! Nobody had the lust to get himself massacred by unbalanced, broken classes topped with these game breaking rings. I hear from more people around myself and read it in the PVP sub section, that they go on stand by as long as these rings roam around, making skill even less dominant. Just to give you a hint, stand by doesn't pay or rarely does, he or she is either frustrated or angry now. Is a customer in such mood good? Well according to my knowledge, a big NO.
Dear Devs, you got to understand, there is no easy way of avoiding the fixing of PVP, you will have to do it essentially or it will empty itself completely out. It was already a pain, one had to wait sometimes an hour or more for the queue to pop, now it is even worse, not to speak about Mod 7's wonder child, the Siege.
I personally and i think many together with me would have really appreciated, if all the manpower, which has gone into designing those rings, would have went into reworking a fine old or bringing out a nice new Underdark dungeon. I bet people would stand in long lines before Cryptic's offices with flowers and cookies in their hands.
Let me speak a few words about the effect of the rings in PVE. Not much better, maybe only, that we don't kill each other, but sadly i had to witness a few quarrels about those rings too. You see dear Devs, the rings are unfair in every sense, the way one gets them and the way they work on different classes. Obtaining accessories until last Mod was fine, we collected the seals and changed them in for a ring, cool and every rings was the same. Now we have RNG separating us and this can make troubles in PVE parties too. I saw a CW bragging about his ring and had to tell him, man don't bash the others, firstly it is gated behind RNG, secondly, CWs can instantly benefit from the crit ring (sorry forgot the name), where as a GWF has to wait till he can get his stacks up. The other problem is, that the rings are not equal, one can get a crappy +2 or a legendary+5, small difference isn't it?!
You see dear Devs, RNG is dividing players, not bringing them closer.
I know it won't happen, but maybe, God willing, let those rings be left outside PVP arena and let us gather seals or anything similar so we all have the same chance at getting them in PVE. RNG shouldn't widen the already big power creep further.
I would like to talk about a few things i have recently noticed and some of the well known issues, like the rings.
Forgive my words, i don't intend to bash anyone, just have to give an opinion from down the rabbit hole, from deep down, where we, small guild members live our virtual lives and how most of us see the current situation both in PVE and PVP.
I don't want to go into details, we all know, that Mod 6 was a sad day to this game from which it never really recovered, players left by numbers and well established, decent guilds closed from one day to the another.
Mod 7 was a big hope for some, not for me to be honest, i was on Alpha Team for PVP and i already saw, that without proper balancing, Siege will be a complete failure. Also the network background of Cryptic servers didn't wake a good feeling in me, that it would work fine live with thousands of more potential players. The PVE part would have been great and i really loved the approach, it made me think of my service days, when people had to work together to achieve a higher goal. Sadly the not well thought design ruined SH's potential as we can see, cause the bigger got stronger and the small got weaker. Not that anybody says, i am criticizing here without giving some reasonable advise, i personally would have never allowed to mix PVE with PVP and vice versa and trust me dear Devs, the bigger uproar is just about to come, well if PVP survives the current ring affair anyways, cause once those heavy boons and those maxed AP/Stamina drains hit the battleground, it will be over, the disparity between small/medium guilds, who have no access to them and the big or nasty ones, who have and abuse every little bug and broken stuff to their advantage will kill PVP entirely. What makes me feel very sad, that some players have eyes shades before them and don't see, that they are cutting the tree under their selves, cause once they frightened off all the small players, who will they fight, who will play the role of the victim?! That's why i would advise Cryptic to build on the small player,the average player is decent, loyal, likes the game, is willing to spend over time and won't brake the balance, where as the bug abusers will search for a new home as soon as they killed PVP entirely and can't find any more victims to massacre.
So Mod 8 came, sadly the awaited big waiting for a release of some old or new dungeons was all in vain and all we got was the Rings, oh yes.... I do get it, why it was done and won't go into details, but dear Devs you can't balance PVP by adding a ton of broken rings into it. As you can see PVP is nearly dead. I am normally the type of guy, who jumps out of a match at first sight of a cheater, i have no time to waste on them, but yesterday i deliberately stayed in 1 match, just to see, how many players will have the patience to stay against a full premade ring user PVP guild. Let me tell you, i was the penultimate one to jump and this from out of 20, yes 20 people! Nobody had the lust to get himself massacred by unbalanced, broken classes topped with these game breaking rings. I hear from more people around myself and read it in the PVP sub section, that they go on stand by as long as these rings roam around, making skill even less dominant. Just to give you a hint, stand by doesn't pay or rarely does, he or she is either frustrated or angry now. Is a customer in such mood good? Well according to my knowledge, a big NO.
Dear Devs, you got to understand, there is no easy way of avoiding the fixing of PVP, you will have to do it essentially or it will empty itself completely out. It was already a pain, one had to wait sometimes an hour or more for the queue to pop, now it is even worse, not to speak about Mod 7's wonder child, the Siege.
I personally and i think many together with me would have really appreciated, if all the manpower, which has gone into designing those rings, would have went into reworking a fine old or bringing out a nice new Underdark dungeon. I bet people would stand in long lines before Cryptic's offices with flowers and cookies in their hands.
Let me speak a few words about the effect of the rings in PVE. Not much better, maybe only, that we don't kill each other, but sadly i had to witness a few quarrels about those rings too. You see dear Devs, the rings are unfair in every sense, the way one gets them and the way they work on different classes. Obtaining accessories until last Mod was fine, we collected the seals and changed them in for a ring, cool and every rings was the same. Now we have RNG separating us and this can make troubles in PVE parties too. I saw a CW bragging about his ring and had to tell him, man don't bash the others, firstly it is gated behind RNG, secondly, CWs can instantly benefit from the crit ring (sorry forgot the name), where as a GWF has to wait till he can get his stacks up. The other problem is, that the rings are not equal, one can get a crappy +2 or a legendary+5, small difference isn't it?!
You see dear Devs, RNG is dividing players, not bringing them closer.
I know it won't happen, but maybe, God willing, let those rings be left outside PVP arena and let us gather seals or anything similar so we all have the same chance at getting them in PVE. RNG shouldn't widen the already big power creep further.
The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
Post edited by zebular on
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Comments
I don't see how the rings affect pve. SFW if this one guy who was lucky enough to beat RNG is bragging about his ring. Put him on ignore, problem solved, you never have to hear from him again. The rings are a pvp problem and added a whole new layer of HAMSTER to an already HAMSTER-infested side of the game.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
where is your roadmap cryptic, do you have any?
p.s. hotfix to siege. reward AD too.....
I think the inclusion of Bronze/Silver/Gold rankings was a step in the right direction.
Right now, Gold is pretty easy to earn in Module 8...which is ok for now, because perhaps the expectation from players is they should always deserve gold. I'd just like see things re-balanced in future content so that Silver is the expectation from the devs for almost every group, and Gold rankings are rare but offer much better chances at the super-shiney loots.
And I'd like to see the devs stay firm on that approach. Say Module 9 launched with a bunch of redone dungeons, with higher drop rates for Gold successes. I'm positive this forum would be raging night at day about how unfriendly the system was to casual players or PUGs who can't get Gold every time. However, I would meet this criticism with the response that the game was balanced around Silver rankings being the normal, and that achieving Gold require gear and skill, and over-coming obstacles that could even be described as totally unfair.
I would point to fights like eGWD and eCC (pre-nerf or "armor pen" fix), in which very, very, very few groups were able to finish legitimately...but with great rewards for those who did.
(I've already heard all the "it can't be done" excuses from the "armchair devs" so don't bother.)
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
Your point is? No need to be salty. It's more than just orange pixels. They have good stats/abilities and two enchant slots. If they were not any good people wouldn't be after them.
The problem is IL , Hi-end gear and lack of harder playable content. I myself see no point in being able of make a 4K IL toon when gameplay is runnable with under 3K IL toons, somethings way off here. Too much too fast, i believe gear should walk hand in hand with the game content and not push over it. Or we end up in situations like now, when BIS/near bis toons are way over the requirements of the content. And voila peole with high gear get frustrated cos content drags behind. Actually content does not drag behind, gear runs too much ahead. By implementing higher rank enchants for instance, designers broke the games balance with gear and content. This is what i do not understand. But maybe they had to make better gear so the Whales keep upgrading and keeping up the steady flow of money, dont know for sure.
Like SH and its boons, there are guilds that run already with some freaking high arpen, power, LS and other stats due to these boons. Yes they give us lower geared toons a lot of help but over 3K IL toon doesnt need them to pass the current content with ease. Something has to be done and frankly more difficult content must be made for the BIS. And i bet ill be way over 3K IL before any of my guilds boons are even near to 2K making them a not so needed help in this game content. They help LVL 70 guild mates to gear up faster due to ease in dungeon runs tho.
To the new rings. Sorry NW crew u F-ed up this time, Pardon me for writing so, but that is the truth. By bringing in these rings you broke the PVP even more. they are prolly a good addition to PVE, but for those who have a decent gear and boons so the stat drops dont affect so much, IMO. PVP has gone to the toilet with these and is broken beyond imagination now, u CANNOT REPAIR PVP by making more broken stuff to use there. You have made PVP unbalanced with; no proper IL laddering in queues, there is no "party challenge" option PUG or PREMADE wise, no PVP league and the list goes on, and what do you do, you make SH PVE boons viable in PVP, Mount bonuses viable in PVP and now you trash it even more with these rings, OMG. No wonder the average player and the supporter that has played since the beginning of the game gets pissed off. I dont mind the RNGesus being low, but yes some stuff would be nice to get by playing not farming one dungeon like crazy, it gets boring and frustrating, thats why i only run for them from skirmshes and HEs and salvage them for AD to buy stuff in AH and upgrade my Enchs and gear, sorry u wont get me hunting these BIS rings for "FUN" or for them being good/better gear.
Here ends my ranting.
I agree with some points ,i disagree with others.
Is game too easy?It is for experienced plus geared players.I don't see any wrong with that.players that play the game for 2 years + and have modest gear should find the game, a one with moderate difficulty challenge.If it was the contrary ,we would also had a problem.
For players with 2-4 alts ,and not enough experience to be accepted to a veteran party ,game is still difficult.NW is not the most explained game out there.Tooltips are misleading,forums are not read by newscomers.Finding rotations that work plus gear to support them takes considerable time/money investment ,something that most new players have not.
From 4-5k NW players the geared ones are a small percentage.You don't see many newcomers cause they leave after sometime.The wall to get gear with out friends to support them ,is still high.
As for mod8.I see more and more people in PE.I see instances full.Game is in the right track needs caution though.
So bottom line:game needs to be challenging for old players but accesible to new ones.
Solution:
Add different versions of the same dungeons.
Add a new tier ,let's say "Legendary" of current dungeons.And instead to buff damage or/and hp of adds/bosses add them more crit.Add crit resistance to tank/healer PVE gear.So tanks/healers will be continue to be optimal in order to quarantee a succesfull run and to prevent wipes by crit spikes.
Other things that could be done:(And i am already ready to take the rage :P )
-Look at prot Paladins powers.Shorter buff duration perhaps?
-NERF!
-Companion Gift activation needs lower % to happen or an ICD.
-Take a look at SH boons.
-Drowned weapon healing needs to have longer iCD of 1 minute for sure.With current power increase in every mod soon 5 DPS classes parties wielding this weapon will not need healer.
-New mounts bonuses need a tone down.4k points is too much.
-If you introduce new weapons in every mod don't increase base damage but rather add different bonus set powers.
Same with every new gear.
^^^^
These suggestions are in a hurry ,i am jot saying i am correct in all of them,except elol and drowned,which i am adamandant in my thesis.
I don't advocate the nerf of any class ,some blame spesific class for having high DPS,they might be wrong,i don't know i don't play that class.In any case the accused class has a superb community and they know better if and what needs t be looked at.And i am sure they would be willing to assist the devs and exchange feedback on what's need to be done and if needs to be done at all.
Sorry for my long post and my english.
This is especially obvious for us veteran players who mentor newbies, and perhaps to many members of newbie go-to custom channels like NW_legit_community. We give them feedback, we tell them what powers to use, we tell them how stuff like mitigation work, we give them tips about how to juggle campaigns and dailies, we guide them through dungeons and basic playstyles. And suddenly these players switch from "average" to "did we just kill that T2 boss without breaking a sweat?"-type players.
And it's not a fluke. It doesn't always happen, in fact it only tends to happen to the few who stick around long enough to realize that whiners are just full of ****.
The game does have problems, serious ones, but atm it seems the biggest problem is that the whiners are making such a big deal out of everything that the devs are losing track of what that really needs fixing.
How do we expect the devs to focus on the finer points of PvP balancing when some whiner is making a "I HATE THIS, FIX IT!" thread every other minute? Naturally the new/inexperienced players, because of the lack of a knowledge thread and because no one ever told them about all their options, can't help but fill the thread to bloating with "I agree" posts.
Hell, its happening here as we speak.
I personally support skill, but skill can overcome any reasonable difficulties, so put this aside for now.
You see guys, i do appreciate skill. The ones who know me closely, they know, that's the only thing i really look up to, that's how i mastered many things in RL, learning from higher skilled people, never gave a dime about whales waving their cash in the hands and getting everything the easy way.
My concern is the pure BiS players, who lack skill, but have a big budget and can be BiS without developing proper skills, by playing the actual game.
Now this is my point, which some of you did get, some missed, but no problem, here it comes again, now a bit more clearly. Cryptic can't go the BiS route any further, yes they did it, cause that's where the big bucks come from and it comes fast, and the emphasis is on fast. While a normal player would play and pay from time to time, the whales spend a huge amount on the spot. A good game publisher simply can not target just 1 group of the player base, cause the whales will be always bored, they go into the cash shop or AH and buy all the stuff at the beginning of each Mod and be bored on the next day. I give you an example, the new Dusk Set. Heck i already fear, that Cryptic will introduce rank 13-15 enchants in the near future to satisfy their needs and yes, those, who will have it, will be bored and the ones, who can afford only rank 7/8's due to their time/money/AD limitations will yell, that they are left behind.
Forgive me, but i see and saw this always, maybe better than some others, cause i was always in guilds, which had a wide range of players. Those who are in a top level guild see only high geared folks around themselves.
The power creep should stop now and content should fill the space. Currently all we do is gear up our toons, cause we lack the dungeons, but if those dungeons didn't vanish in the first place or where already back, we all had a place to satisfy our needs. The better geared could do a reworked CN, while the lower geared would do Pirate King. Hey i didn't invent the wheel, wasn't that how we played before Mod 6? Didn't the most of us start their T2 journey in Pirate King and the top of the cake was CN or Dread Vault.
This is why i think, that some sort of balancing should come to SH too, the disparity between guilds is huge by now. I don't know, how Cryptic thought about it, but many of us still stayed in their small family type guilds and we are left behind without a chance to progress in reasonable time frame. People get bored way faster of the endless grind of HEs, before the results show up. I still can't see the point, why a 15 active players guild has the same requirements like a full 150 members guild. Hmmm...
I hope you see my point better now.
Thank you!
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
And what comes to the RNG of drops, yes its good to have RNGesus, but i myself have ran dungeons countless of times, maybe put together over 1000(RNG)? havent counted, got no clue, many times (played over a year now). Anyways i have never seen the arti in malabog, maybe 2 times the crown shard in VT, Elol horns gotten 2(in 2 months, RNG?), DR coffer arti got 1, kessels arti never seen, imperial rod never dropped(dragon kills are thru the roof), etc. etc. so i if my drops are like this i bow to the players who have ran also a year and gotten zip nada zero artis from any of these dungeons, and i applaude to them for their resilience to try and in the end they buy them with either AD or ZEN, cos they just want to go forward in the game and make their toons better. And thank god arti prices have come down in AH. I have and will buy my new artis with these prices, no grind for me anymore thank you. Why? u ask, because u might never get them thru grind.
I would prefer gear gained by playing(read dungeon delving) but it is too much for me now. So i slowly accumulate AD and clickthe "auction house" button. So make us new multi-tier dungeons and set the prizes accordingly, u beat the dungeon, u get better items or something worth delving for. And make the drops BoE please, let people trade, sell and buy, that is true rpg IMO.
But all that being said im in a good place with good guildies and good daily AD runs
PS. Sorry about the RNG rant, got a little carried away, but couldnt bare to erase it, hard work this writing thingy
PSS. If u cant get any items with RNG how else are u suppose to advance but to buy them with AD or ZEN
PSSS. I farmed dragons for a full month for a Imperial rod. That is alot of dragons, believe me.
Put some additional cool transmutes or tokens or AD into the box, up the mob dmg and HP, bingo! Legendary Dungeons...
And yes magenubbie, maybe yer aproach would be better,im not so good with these tier or scaling things, just throwing out ideas for more wiser(knowledgeable) mmo creeps to sort them out, pardon my expression
- Developers that listen.
- Developers that can deliver.
- A company that is well run and knows how to satisfy most of its customers.
Asking to fix broken classes, major bugs, balance classes, come up with pvp that is enjoyable for average players, come up with innovative ideas, etc. etc. - none of this is going to happen until the more fundamental problems are fixed.
Now, the *enormous* fallacy aside, the life blood of an RPG is to keep gearing, keep progressing. The feeling of progression keeps people interested and keeps the game going, both in the sense of content as in the sense of cash-flow. It's in the interest of everyone to appeal to as many groups as possible. While I can't say developing for one side won't affect the other - Dev time is limited, after all - simply writing people off as 'whiners' that aren't worth anyone's - or the dev's - time is just silly.
In PvE a fresh 70 character with the right level 70 blue AH gear, the Spinward artifact mainhand/offhand and the right powers/feats is an asset even in basic skirmishes. You can also get artifact RP and salvageables by going to WoD and joining HE/herald runs. Everything starts from there - hit the rough AD cap a few times on just one character and a few days later you can be parading around your shiny new Frost/Flame/Plaguefire enchant, or even new artifacts/artifact gear.
Unfortunately the lack of a knowledge thread means we have new level 70 people wandering into wherever, getting themselves killed trying to solo whichever and joining something like pointless veteran-gamer discussions about the availability of boons. BOONS. As if 400 extra power/crit/recovery means squat compared to new and better artifacts/artifact gear/enchants. Hell 3-4 points in Astral Shield/Indomitable Battle Strike/Tyrannical Threat/other core class powers are worth more than all the boons in IWD/Shara, and yet we have people running around with 0-1 points in them.
This is why we badly need a knowledge thread.
The power creep must be fixed, but there is little that can be done about the effects already out there. Minimizing the damage is a good first step. Unfortunately, given the the current whining trend, the devs probably out there trying to figure out ways to improve +5 rings drops and mote availability. Like THAT is going to do anything except make some random player's character look nicer.