Creating Diversity for NW

meowinton · August 2016

Hello community of NW it is I Low Lite Star!

I am here to share ideas that me and my friend @theguiido discussed. We thought of new possible features that could be added into the game to increase the diversity of builds.

What do I mean by increase the diversity?

Well as many of you know, this game doesn't have much diversity when it comes to making a build for a certain class, everyone at the end sort of ends up with the same/similar build. Not are only builds not diverse enough but currently this game is heavily based on raw stats...

Now what do I mean by that?

In NW if you want to do dmg you stack power, crit, and arp If you want to tank you stack def, deflect, and HP its very simple to get what you want without much thinking, and it doesn't create any diversity its just a stacking game not creating builds.

So how are these things fixed to create more diversity?

Idea (1/2): Adding Conditions to Stats

One way I thought of fixing this problem was to move toward gear/boons/insignias that give stats under certain conditions instead of giving raw stats like most things in the game do...

For example:

PvP Prestige set: While controlled you gain 10% more DR

or the new insignia bonuses that were added in

Combatant's Maneuver: Whenever you control an enemy, you gain 5% combat advantage for 10s
Berserker's Rage: While full Action Points you gain 10% of your ArP as power
Assassin's Covenant: You lose 10% of your def/defl/LS and gain it as Power

or some boons that we already have that work like this

The Maze Engine's Final Boon, Displace Fate: When below 30% HP you gain 60% DR for 3s

All these effects only work under certain conditions, and/or you give up other things to gain something else, instead of giving straight stats that don't need meet any conditions to be active (Berserker's Rage gives up activating a daily for more power and Assassin's Covenant trades defensive stats for an offensive stat)

Idea (2/2): Encounter Sub Feats

So each encounter in NW has its own specialty, but what if we could add something extra to each encounter? Just like how Class Passives, and At-Wills have their own extra special features that come from the Main/Off-Hand why can't encounters have the same? With this in mind came about an idea for a new set of feats, but instead of being for the character they work for each encounter individually. You're given a set of different options and choose one from that set making each encounter more unique/specialized for your build.

A couple of examples of how this idea would work

(1/4) Anvil of Doom

Anvil's bleed now does 15% more dmg
or
Anvil now does 10% more dmg to controlled targets
or
Anvil now stuns for 1s
or
Anvil's bleed threshold is now increased by 15% causing targets to take bleed dmg at 65% instead of 50%

(2/4) Into the Fray

ITF now gives and extra 15% temp HP
or
ITF now gives 5% more dmg to group
or
ITF now gives 5% DR to group
or
ITF now gives an 10% run speed

(3/4) Restoring Strike

Restoring now has a HoT based on 10% of the amount HP healed from the encounter over 5s
or
Restoring now deals a DoT based on 10% of the amount HP healed from the encounter over 5s
or
Restoring now reduces your targets stamina regeneration by 15%
or
Restoring now deals a 5k AoE attack if your stamina or HP are full on use

(4/4) Battle Fury

Fury now increase run speed by 10%
or
Fury now grants teammates 50% of buff instead of 25%
or
Fury now gives an extra 5% dmg buff
or
Fury now gives an extra 10% action point buff

(Of course if this is implemented into the game many classes would need to get new feats since some feats add extra buffs to encounters)

I tried to add different encounters from different classes, but I only really play GF, and GWF sorry about that :P

Anyway I think making these suggestions the meta of the game would create much more diversity between builds of the same class, and between all classes as it would no longer be about which build is that best and who can stack the most power/def/arp etc... allowing people to try out different builds with boons/gear/insignias that fit some builds better than others because of the conditions that have to be met for those boons/gear/insignias to be activated making builds much more unique all while specializing the encounters to even further fit their build better making that much more unique. Well that's it for me bye!

~El Low Lite

Unknown · August 2016

This content has been removed.

kvet · August 2016

I think what you're suggesting is a lot more complex than you realize. Adding so many more options would invite a whole host of possible interaction issues and exploits. Besides, even with such a system in place, there would still be a particularly BiS builds just as there are now - the difference is just more and different power options.

Variety is good, for sure, don't get me wrong here. But simply adding sub-options wouldn't actually increase build variety much at the end of the day. I'm not sure that build variety is really as big of an issue as people make it out to be. The simple truth is that, unless you want to be BiS and most especially if you want to be top of the pile in PvP, there's no such thing as an unviable build. Yes, some builds are intrinsically less effective than others (much less in a few cases) but overall, if you are 3K+ IL (and it's solid gear rather that get-high-IL-quick sort of gear) and you're only running PvE content... Your actual build is almost completely irrelevant as long as you play to it's strengths. Just because one build may not be considered "the best" doesn't mean you have to do it, and it doesn't mean you'll be ineffective if you do.

Just as in the real world, diversity is a mindset and cultural thing. Structures can be put in place to promote it, but at the end of the day people have to choose to do something different. I don't want to make this political, so I'll bring this back to NW, ok? hehe IMO, all the necessary structures in Neverwinter are already in place for build diversity - the problem is that no one chooses to use them (sometimes for valid reasons, sometimes not). The M10 class changes went a long way to removing many of those valid reasons. It's up to players to choose the build they want. Some will choose to build their toons the way they feel is best, others will choose to copy build guides instead. It will be what it will be - but adding complexity isn't the answer here.

Unknown · August 2016

This content has been removed.

theguiido · August 2016

kvet said:
I think what you're suggesting is a lot more complex than you realize. Adding so many more options would invite a whole host of possible interaction issues and exploits. Besides, even with such a system in place, there would still be a particularly BiS builds just as there are now - the difference is just more and different power options.

Variety is good, for sure, don't get me wrong here. But simply adding sub-options wouldn't actually increase build variety much at the end of the day. I'm not sure that build variety is really as big of an issue as people make it out to be. The simple truth is that, unless you want to be BiS and most especially if you want to be top of the pile in PvP, there's no such thing as an unviable build. Yes, some builds are intrinsically less effective than others (much less in a few cases) but overall, if you are 3K+ IL (and it's solid gear rather that get-high-IL-quick sort of gear) and you're only running PvE content... Your actual build is almost completely irrelevant as long as you play to it's strengths. Just because one build may not be considered "the best" doesn't mean you have to do it, and it doesn't mean you'll be ineffective if you do.

Just as in the real world, diversity is a mindset and cultural thing. Structures can be put in place to promote it, but at the end of the day people have to choose to do something different. I don't want to make this political, so I'll bring this back to NW, ok? hehe IMO, all the necessary structures in Neverwinter are already in place for build diversity - the problem is that no one chooses to use them (sometimes for valid reasons, sometimes not). The M10 class changes went a long way to removing many of those valid reasons. It's up to players to choose the build they want. Some will choose to build their toons the way they feel is best, others will choose to copy build guides instead. It will be what it will be - but adding complexity isn't the answer here.

The point of this discussion was to create a significance to your character. Although yes, this would help in "PvP" to most players minds, IMO it is just as important in PvE. Although, builds don't matter in PvE at 3k IL, knowing your character is different from the rest is the part we wanted to try and show. Boons, Feats, they just simply aren't enough, and players can inspect you and see what paragon path you chose and evaluate stat ratings to determine what your build is. But adding in some spice to your encounters would be very good. And although you mentioned, "Everyone will just run whats best" thats not the case here. You see, although you will run for whats the best overall for most people, these additional abilities to your encounters will make a lot more diversity making players choose with what they want. There can't be anything "the best" because each one is catered to the persons build they desire. Nothing about these powers will be broken either because they will only be unlocked once you would reach Level 70 on your character to unlock the "Special Encounter Abilities" Paragon. Additionally, these encounter abilities will not be "too OP" either. These are small minor upgrades to your encounter abilities, so the power creep wielded by players would remain relatively the same. If anything, you will see significant buffs to utility power, but like always it must be balanced out duration wise.

For example if I am running Battle Fury on a GWF, and the special encounter ability I have chosen was more run speed, the 10% additional run speed would only last the first 3 seconds of battle fury.

Heres another example: On my main "my GF" If I wanted to run the Into The Fray bonus ability, The temporary hitpoint's gained from that encounter buff would be increased by 10%, The damage from ITF (if I chose this one) would only be increased by 5% but only to yourself. Do you see where I am going with this?

Some of the abilities might seem better than others, but if you know what you're doing to increase the encounter abilities to go along with feats then there simply, logically, no way things would be better than others. Everything would balance out quite well and like I have stated, these are some great upgrades with minor boosts to your encounters to slowly rise power in players.

silver11 · August 2016

Will it be too difficult for them to implement? probably, but I like the ideas. I could see it being possible in a more watered down version with like two choices. I feel set bonuses should be like this, instead of the generic hp bonus or whatever you get. I remember collecting all the t2 sets for my characters and mix/ matching them for the best possible results. now its get the best stats, which is often on outdated gear. anyway good job.

meowinton · August 2016

kvet said:
Besides, even with such a system in place, there would still be a particularly BiS builds just as there are now - the difference is just more and different power options.

Of course BiS builds would still exist, but with ideas like this there would be more availble BiS builds instead of just being 1 or 2. An example is every HR and their mom in PvP is one build trapper...

meowinton · August 2016

silver11#9318 said:
Will it be too difficult for them to implement? probably, but I like the ideas.

Idk maybe but if they do it over time it should be easy it doesn't have to be these ideas exactly either but move toward this for the meta of the game

silver11#9318 said:
I could see it being possible in a more watered down version with like two choices.

Yeah I feel like if they did add it in it would probably be something will less options sad reality

beastofbone · August 2016

i agree i feel like doing small things to encourage divirsety would be amazing.

meowinton · August 2016

@strumslinger help us get the devs to take notice m8

fastrean3 · August 2016

I doubt they have resources to implement ur suggestions

fox · August 2016

<3 <3 I like the concept, it has the potential to really help diversify the play style, something very sorely needed in the game. All we ever see is more power and new armor which has not done much in making the game anymore interesting.

strumslinger · August 2016

I'm all for more options when it comes to builds, but we need to first focus on balancing the rest of the classes before implementing something like this.

Great idea though!

brun2000 · August 2016

I really like the idea of making changes to powers however you want, I have seen some games do this and it really works, you get a lot of build diversity. Most of them, if you look for a build it has at least 2 options for full PVP, full PVE and PVP/PVE, its really good.

cinder8000 · August 2016

Really like the idea on encounters and being able to customize those to suit a certain playstyle.

meowinton · January 2017

@nitocris83 new CM new try

ironzerg79 · January 2017

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Creating Diversity for NW

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