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Skill nodes are pretty lame now
beckylunatic
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
The refinement drops removed from skill nodes weren't replaced with additional profession resources or anything. And some of the former node loot table options could be nothing but refinement stuff and "treasure" items. With refinement removed, you get the single treasure item and that's all. High-level node loot was generally weighted heavily towards enchants (marks, etc.), and it really shows.
@terramak The loot tables need to be rebalanced so that nodes are actually giving something worthwhile all the time. Increased insignia chances isn't enough when you've taken out most of the loot and the majority of nodes still aren't going to spit up an insignia. Please add more profession stuff.
@terramak The loot tables need to be rebalanced so that nodes are actually giving something worthwhile all the time. Increased insignia chances isn't enough when you've taken out most of the loot and the majority of nodes still aren't going to spit up an insignia. Please add more profession stuff.
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Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
This is typical cryptic. They never replace anything they remove, nor consider that cases like this might be a thing. That's why most leadership tasks are just neutered and idiotic to do now.
On the other hand, I can't remember when last I had so much free bag space.
These are some possible loot table results from former level 70 nodes:
Lesser mark of potency + elemental resource
Lesser mark of potency + 2-silver treasure
1-3 R4s (this had formerly been 3-5 but was reduced unannounced some time ago) + 2 common resources
R5 + treasure/profession
R5 enchant + nothing (only in some zones/lairs would this not come paired with something else)
Peridot/aquamarine + treasure/profession
Insignias had pretty clearly been added as an independent chance drop. Incidentally, the drop rate for insignias from nodes does feel observably better even with a small sample.
Sometimes you'd get a different lesser or normal mark instead of LMoP. You could get one R5 or some R4s. You could get two common resources or one uncommon one. The general structuring seemed to be based on a formula of combining a drop from two separate tables, and now that I'm writing it down, it's looking almost like it was an RP table and a profession/treasure table (with the profession table missing in some cases). If a fix is as simple as telling all the nodes to pull from the profession table twice from now on, that would be ok, although maybe still two separate tables to prevent the chance of getting double treasure and no profession items. (Treasure items being part of the profession loot table is supported because drops of treasure do double when 2xProf is active.)
In Blacklake and Tower District, where the skill nodes do not contain refinement items, you get about 4 common profession resources in a node (I'd have to go confirm the quantity - it might be more), or a treasure or uncommon/rare profession item *and* some common resources. This amount of stuff feels rewarding, and the higher level nodes need to follow the same kind of loot structure now that such a large amount of the former possible items have been disabled.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
There are two things that I consider particularly annoying.
The first issue is that profession nodes are now sometimes completely empty. That is just....wrong. You removed the enchants, but gave us nothing instead. Quite frankly, you seem to have forgotten a fundamental fact. Players play the game for their enjoyment, and something like this takes a bit of the fun away. Maybe I am misunderstanding your motivations, but I would have thought that you wanted people to play more, level up more alts and spend more money on the game. Players do not play this game to be frustrated...but quite frankly, if you continue along this route the problem will be "solved" when more and more players just leave.
The second issue is that although insignia now drop more frequently from profession nodes, they become utterly useless after you have collected the 15 you need for your mounts.
The combined result of this is that opening profession nodes is no longer really worth the effort.
In my opinion this is yet another example of what the game is doing wrong - you keep taking things away, and what you give us instead are things we do not need or want. You claim to listen to the players, but too many of your actions show that that is clearly not the case (well, OK, you did listen when people asked for the perma-bubble to be removed, but that's about it).
For example, you have been giving us things that make the characters more powerful - the mount powers, insignia and most recently the revised EE boons. However, people have *NOT* been asking for more powerful characters - people keep asking for content that actually requires the power we already have. If you actually listened to players, you would realize that this is the number 1 complaint from a significant chunk of the (remaining) players.
There are other things people keep asking for.
Until we actually get some of the things we keep asking for, nobody is going to take your claims that you "listen to community feedback" seriously.
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Now, the current profession node issue can be improved a bit.
Those ideas for improving the nodes are fantastic! Regardless of them in general, I've been thinking for a long while now that insignias should be improved in some sort of manner as I somehow manage find a TON of the basic ones, I don't have room for them all, I can't trade them with players I know that need them because they're bound, AND I only have one mount at the moment while I accumulate enough Astral Diamonds to get some rare mounts and make it worth while. Being able to somehow improve the ones I have has been a prominent desire I've had for the last month or so, since they don't even sell for very much gold, even. Being able to trade them in for different ones or better ones would be great!
I'd also like to see very basic profession supplies be increased in those nodes since I am always running out of wood, ore, etc. I never find any type of vitriol anymore, so slowly farming it with tasks is... very taxing and boring, lol; 5 supplies with the 6 hour tasks is so not worth it when you need 10 or more for a task later. The basic supplies don't sell for much at all on the Auction House anyways, and people that need them don't sell them since they'll be using them, so I don't think much harm could come out of increasing the amount of them from the nodes. Anything green or higher would be an obvious problem, however, with bots. Bots wouldn't really make a profit with the basic supplies, however, so it's a good trade-off for people that actually do the professions and to cut back on the botting still since the profit wouldn't be worth it, even with stacks of 99, or even 999 as it would go down to 1 AD per item VERY quickly.
However, the drop rate has not gone up enough to make up for the loss of enchantments from skill nodes.
And it does not feel good to use a professions kit and get nothing from a node, or just a piece of white trash. You apparently just changed the enchantments to "null" in the drop tables -- so when we would have gotten an enchantment, we get nothing.
Please change the null value to another random pick of profession resources.
3 or even 5% .. its too small to notice on any regular kill.
I still need to test more if there's also a cooldown involved.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Nothing is ever PROVED in this game, neither the INCREASE of drops, seems they "removed them outright", so WHERE ARE THE STONES "from most enemy in the world" or "from the critters". AND ALWAYS SMOKY SHADY VAGUENESS. They know who needs more and is known that that's what They wish AAAAAARGH, stabbed (X ' X)
Forcing players who regularly loot nodes to devote 18+ more bag spaces to RP stacks, assuming that they can shunt most of the bound green and blue marks of X into consolidated storage space with some regularity (possibly via VIP).
BtA enchants are why I ditched Fey Blessings from all utility slots. And those don't even produce runes.
I don't like having the stuff removed. I am absolutely peeved that the implementation didn't account for replacing the removed loot with anything (!!!). But BtA isn't the amazing solution people think, unless you sincerely believe you're prepared to deal with that much more stuff overflowing your inventory, since unbound items would continue to drop from kills, HEs, and so on.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
There's always a reason and benefit to botting. Tedium being the primary reason, and avoiding it the primary benefit.
Node farming bots gave us all the luxury of avoiding tedium. Getting rid of them just makes your own gaming experience more miserable. Either Cryptic is relying on a loyal supply of masochistic whales, or there will be no choice but to severely reduce RP requirements on most items because eventually everyone will leave in droves once it finally dawns on them how many months of intense play, or years of normal playing, it will take to accomplish a single refinement goal.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia