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The Airing of Grievances (some Winter Fest 2016 feedback)

beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
edited January 2017 in Player Feedback (PC)
Not intending to go off on certain topics that have been dealt with to death, but I do have a few specifics to share for QoL improvements to the winter event in general.

Fishing for Campaign Treasures
Generally speaking, this was a really useful and welcome addition. Personally, I hadn't planned to spend my vacation on non-stop virtual ice-fishing and wasn't able to take advantage, but next year I'll know it exists. But there are a couple of sticking points. The entire concept was introduced with a sentence or two in a blog post which I'd guess 95% of players don't read anyway. This means that ~95% of players who fished one of these up immediately asked zone, alliance, or guild, "Hey does anyone know what I do with this treasure?" The connections between the treasures and Sirac of Suzail need to be made much clearer. There is nothing in-game to explain the new feature. His location is mostly obscured by a decorative banner if you are looking from "eye level" in the game, and the map marker for the merchant doesn't give a clue that he's a trader for those items. So while the endless questioning is exasperating, it is also somewhat understandable.

My other beef with this addition is the decision to make the 4 treasure types into inventory items (GRRRR) when they have zero reason to exist other than to exchange them in a shop for another type of currency. They are currency, period; treat them as such. Winter event fishing can now occupy at least 13 inventory slots even if you are trying to deal with fished-up items as quickly as possible (4 fishes, 4 campaign treasures, 3 bags, 2 marimos), and that is not counting the rod or any type of bait. And that's the primary reason I didn't decide to drop my existing game agenda to do more of it. The fish and campaign treasures also *always* have to be exchanged in specific multiples (2, 5, 10, etc.), and you are practically never going to come up even on everything, so players have to decide what they're going to try to store or throw away. This is really annoying design. NW events really put a strong emphasis on filling your bags with trash, and even the things that are useful but require time to deal with (gifts, marimo) or would be fun in smaller quantities (like fireworks) just become overwhelming, and this gets worse every year as the devs add features, since every added feature comes with multiple piles of junk. The tinfoil hat crowd would say it's intentional to overburden us and sell more inventory space, and even the most forgiving player says it's... inconsiderate, at least.

Changes to Sky Lanterns
I messed around with these for a while to be sure of how they work now, and I think I understand the design decision, but it's a case of destroying the village in order to save it. Previously, you could release a whole bunch of sky lanterns in rapid succession to make a really pretty display of them all floating up. But because they share animations with using gifts on a party member, players also used them for scamming. You can still use multiple sky lanterns, but only one animation can be in effect at a time, so as long as your first lantern can be seen floating up, no others will appear. This has basically ruined them, and even if you like iceworks and try to use them up in spectacular fashion, the lanterns can't be consumed at a reasonable rate... or you can use them, but they effectively do nothing and you don't really get to enjoy them, since watching one floating up is nothing at all like watching 10 or 20. I'd leave them in the store so they can be bought with lights, but take them out of the parcel/bag loot tables. There's no point in shoving them on us in multiples of 10, and it's even sort of cruel. (Note: In the first winter event, before the gifting was invented and fancy iceworks only came from buying them, I got together with friends so we could all release lanterns together and it was really beautiful and wondrous. Forcing us to treat all this stuff like garbage spoils it.)

Promo Companion Bonus
As an old hand, there is nothing I need to buy with lights to such a degree that I really feel burned by the present lack of functional bonus (whatever, I'll still have it next year), but I question the decision to make it +40% to lights, and the quantities shown on quests don't agree with that, and I don't really understand how it's meant to work (and maybe that's why it's broken). You can't grant us +40% of 1 or 2 lights, unless it rounds up to the closest even number. The companion is cute, but the math is strange. It might not be a terrible idea to add another bonus to it like you did with Grazilaxx as well.

BoP Items Added to Starlight Parcel Loot Table
The appeal of certain event items in gifts of past years isn't that they were hard to get in their native event (Water Horse, Blue-Ribbon Pig), since they were basically obtainable by just showing up enough times, but that the grindable ones were BoP and the winter gift drops were BoE and could be transferred or even sold to people who didn't want to wait. Staldorf and the Neverwinter Champion's Charger break this model. They'd be good additions as BoE prizes, but are outright terrible as BoP for anyone who is an active player. And nevermind that the mount has also flooded your customer service department with requests to delete it. If you get a bound Staldorf from a parcel, it's either useless because you already got one, or one of the reasons for participating in the Portobello event in the future is nullified. If these items were only obtainable as random drops (like CTA companions), it might make some sense, but they are participation rewards in their native events.

Consider BoA for Starlight Bag Goodies
I'm not really buying the "It's rude to sell a gift from a friend" excuse that was given for making items from bags bound, but I certainly understand that the cycle of giving gifts and exchanging stars and giving more gifts and etc. creates a veritable ton of stuff and being able to post it all for sale would be unbalanced. Still, a real friend understands the principle of "Thanks, but... I've already got one." It's a sad feeling to have to throw away a perfectly good epic mount that just happens to be a duplicate, or even something smaller like a CTA companion that you bound to yourself from a drop or purchase two years ago... but that your alt could actually have used. Likewise, people micromanaging giving gifts with their alts but only receiving on their main eat up a ton of everyone's time with all that party reformation and wouldn't "have to" (I feel a little snarky about it but I also get why it's done) if they could just transfer anything they wanted from their unplayed characters to the played ones. Because they can ALREADY manipulate the system to mostly do this by wasting a lot of time on it, the kinder thing to do would just be to build in the support in the first place. BoA lets players put items where they are wanted or useful, but doesn't flood the market too excessively.

Edit: Demons on Ice
Players are still instructed to obtain Winterkill Emblems from "Monsters on Ice" or killing goblins which are nowhere to be found, and many are not terribly swift to realize this event was replaced with demons. Tutorials and tooltips should be updated when you change how stuff works.

@nitocris83
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Neverwinter Census 2017

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Comments

  • silence1xsilence1x Member Posts: 1,503 Arc User
    +1 Becky. Very well said. Personally, I'd like to see ALL drops set to Bind to account from any event. I can't tell you how many times my HR ran the Dread Ring Skirmish and got GF gear and my GF got HR gear. Grrrr. . .
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  • rafaeldarafaelda Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 666 Arc User
    +1

    Plus:

    All drops that are BOP should be BOA till they where equipped...

    About "Monsters/Demons on ice" i would really like to see the demons go away and the old enemies come back, is really weird to find the demons there...
  • kreatyvekreatyve Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 10,545 Community Moderator
    +1, solid feedback, as always.
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  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    rafaelda said:


    All drops that are BOP should be BOA till they where equipped...

    That's already how BoA mounts and companions work under the systems we have for managing them. Once they stop being inventory items (equipped, to stable or companion slots), you can't move them around anymore. BoA artifacts become BtC if refined, and *probably* if equipped (admittedly not tested).

    I can't really see any of the other gift objects ruining game balance even if nothing in their behavior changes. Weapon skins don't bind if equipped, but are consumed on use. BtA belt items currently don't BtC when equipped, from the limited range I've ever tested, but I just don't see it being a big deal to use the same throne or doohickey on multiple alts, for all the pain in the backside it would be to move them around to no practical end.

    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

    Neverwinter Census 2017

    All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
  • btairbornebtairborne Member Posts: 352 Arc User
    Making all the drops BTA would be a bad business decision it seems to me. There is a reason it's limited.
  • urabaskurabask Member Posts: 2,923 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    IMO the main problem is still the scamming in gift parties. They need to put some dev hours into making it easier for pug gift parties to be organized and executed in such a way that people don't have to jump through hoops to make sure everyone is honest. They can leave the gift parties we have now for people that have a group of people they can trust but it just makes it a really frustrating event if you're doing it on your own.

    Making all the drops BTA would be a bad business decision it seems to me. There is a reason it's limited.

    I'd be surprised if preservation wards weren't the part of the festival that affected their bottom line the most and it doesn't even matter if they're bound.
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  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    Another grievance forgotten from the original list, Gift of Simril only stacks to 10 (Starlight Parcel to 99? 100? 999? dunno, never had that many at once). Because it is possible for these to take an unspeakably long time to process depending on what kind of groups you get into, and the event creates multiple bag-splosions already, it would be nice if Gifts weren't such inventory hogs just by themselves. Also, sometimes you just run out of time and patience and want to shove them in the bank for next year.
    Post edited by beckylunatic on
    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

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  • checkmatein3checkmatein3 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 525 Arc User
    +1

    I would also add capping instances at 20, instead of 35.
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  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,182 Arc User
    For me, in addition to what was mentioned, this is my list:

    1. giving gift is too slow.
    2. selling scarf has the stupid number slider. I can only choose 0 or 1 scarf and why would I sell 0?
    3. buying gift using star does not have the slider. Arrrg!!!
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited January 2017

    For me, in addition to what was mentioned, this is my list:
    1. giving gift is too slow.
    2. selling scarf has the stupid number slider. I can only choose 0 or 1 scarf and why would I sell 0?
    3. buying gift using star does not have the slider. Arrrg!!!

    1. Faster animation would be nice, but seems to me like an unlikely change request to act on. Just a feeling.
    2. Sounds like the bug from selling fish to the SoMI fishmonger. Should go away with a client restart. Annoying everywhere, not just with scarves.
    3. Would be very nice indeed.

    And I've though of another, because I always think of more feedback no matter how much I try to be organized in the first place. The Illusionist's Mask can now be refined to legendary and accepts both event and normal refinement to its max. The Beacon of Simril should also be possible to refine beyond epic with lumens. It is unnecessarily restrictive and irritating that you can't. It's not like it's some incredibly great and all-powerful item and you can't just go around allowing us to upgrade it for free. It's filler. The reason for not allowing it to be a feeder (infinite replacements) is sound, but the event refinement limitation is unfair. (And by the way, it's also poorly documented. "Is this artifact bugged because it won't accept more lumens?" is another one for the event FAQs for sure. Followed by rage/confusion that the questioner has a bazillion more lumens and nothing productive to do with them.)
    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

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    All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
  • qexoticqexotic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 841 Arc User

    Another grievance forgotten from the original list, Gift of Simril only stacks to 20 (

    It's worse than that. They only stack to 10 in my inventory :s

  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    qexotic said:

    Another grievance forgotten from the original list, Gift of Simril only stacks to 20 (

    It's worse than that. They only stack to 10 in my inventory :s
    Edited because I was undoubtedly wrong. I've been micromanaging to not have more than 10 at a time thus far this year.
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  • nitocris83nitocris83 Member, Cryptic Developer, Administrator Posts: 4,495 Cryptic Developer
    Thank you for the thorough write-up Becky! The in-game feedback will definitely get passed on (not waiting for the next community report because this is more valuable right now while it's still fresh).

    For the items concerning not enough details in blogs or other sources, I take on responsibility for this. I'm still getting a feel for how much information to put in blogs, especially for core content that has been present in the game before. It was an oversight on my part to not be more thorough in regards to new additions or mechanics and hopefully future content will have more clarifications or a link to a specific discussion thread that can answer new questions that come in.
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    Julia, thanks very much. I think a slightly expanded explanation of Sirac in a blog would only have helped a little bit, and the major issue is more with the complete lack of in-game guidance, which obviously isn't on you.

    But those of us who do read the blogs for information really do appreciate thorough explanations of changes to existing events. :)
    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

    Neverwinter Census 2017

    All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
  • ilmenirailmenira Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 269 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    i agree that fishing for campaign treasures was a good idea!
    and also agree that the information about it was a bit hidden.
    thank you for the winter festival! i've been here every year so far, and it's still fun! :-)

    and + to beckylunatic's feedback!
  • sorce#8115 sorce Member Posts: 1,009 Arc User
    The biggest pet peeves for me have always been the Gifts of Simril only stacking to 10 - PLEASE please change this to 99 at the very least (would prefer 999, but I'll take what I can get).

    Also, when you are receiving gifts, rather than having everything just drop all over the place (which is the cause of the lag once there is a million things everywhere), please can we have everything just fall into our bags directly? After someone releases the 4th or 5th gift, most graphics seem to die, making it hard to see where all the drops are and usually it becomes a rubberbanding monster.
  • icyclassicyclass Member Posts: 207 Arc User

    Also, when you are receiving gifts, rather than having everything just drop all over the place (which is the cause of the lag once there is a million things everywhere), please can we have everything just fall into our bags directly?

    I'm conflicted about this. The first time I was in a big gift party I was pleasantly surprised how fun it was to run around picking up the drops. But 3 years later I'm all for huddling in a corner to just get it over with.
  • pitshadepitshade Member Posts: 5,665 Arc User
    Definitely want to add my agreement to many of the items mentioned. Instance population of 35 is my pet peeve, but making items BtA (I'm guilty of swapping characters), having a slider for buying gifts, treasures as currency, more uniform and higher stacking and a return of the original monsters would be great changes!

    I returned to the game in August and have been running character after character through Underdark and ME - on char #5 - and fighting more demons is not my idea of fun. Plus the Winterkill Emblem refers to the goblin tribe...
    "We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
  • sorce#8115 sorce Member Posts: 1,009 Arc User
    icyclass said:

    Also, when you are receiving gifts, rather than having everything just drop all over the place (which is the cause of the lag once there is a million things everywhere), please can we have everything just fall into our bags directly?

    I'm conflicted about this. The first time I was in a big gift party I was pleasantly surprised how fun it was to run around picking up the drops. But 3 years later I'm all for huddling in a corner to just get it over with.
    Look, I'm happy to compromise and have the Starlight bags spew out and you pick up, but all the rest of the HAMSTER needs to auto drop.
  • wylonuswylonus Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,376 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    also, allow to gather up items completely into overflow due to unexpected full bags after the gifts were exchanged.
    it is sad for trying to clear some items or moving items and those on the ground decayed.
  • urabaskurabask Member Posts: 2,923 Arc User

    icyclass said:

    Also, when you are receiving gifts, rather than having everything just drop all over the place (which is the cause of the lag once there is a million things everywhere), please can we have everything just fall into our bags directly?

    I'm conflicted about this. The first time I was in a big gift party I was pleasantly surprised how fun it was to run around picking up the drops. But 3 years later I'm all for huddling in a corner to just get it over with.
    Look, I'm happy to compromise and have the Starlight bags spew out and you pick up, but all the rest of the HAMSTER needs to auto drop.
    Personally I'd like to see Lumens changed so that they work like refinement stones (where they're worth more in the event artifact than other items). If they're going to clog bags they might as well be useful.
    I8r4ux9.jpg
  • wylonuswylonus Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,376 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    see my other ideas for Lumins in other topic.

    please check "Winter festival" about sarmils/starlight lumins.
  • dionchidionchi Member Posts: 913 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    Why are so many items "bound to person" or "bound to account" anyway? I understand Cryptic and Neverwinter want to protect the economy (not to mention be able to sell more stuff instead of having players selling them in the auction house) but to have so many of these items, particularly the Bound to Character items that could or should be Bound to Account so one character getting an item they cannot use or equip, will be able to trade it to another character in the same account who can use or equip the item, as someone already mentioned, is just nonsensical in my opinion.
    DD~
  • wylonuswylonus Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,376 Arc User
    devs seem to get this wrong on this winter festival, it was suppose to be "sharing" festival mood, and they made it character bounded, that not sharing at all.
  • minotaur2857minotaur2857 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,141 Arc User
    One of the most miserable changes made by the devs is capping the overflow bag at 100 items, this could use reversing. This impacts after a big gift party, you have to keep dropping useless stuff that arrives in 10s when you open your bags/parcels, and would also be a huge issue if lumens went straight to inventory as they should. There's enough you can't do with stuff in the overflow bag (like invoke) that you're going to clear it fast anyway. This would also help during 2xenchs when I'm opening 800 green leadership boxes per character.
  • konamerekonamere Member Posts: 23 Arc User
    I hope next year the gift giving will change so that people are not able to scam others. Only my second year but thinking about the gift parties just makes me miserable. I have a list of 27 names that people have reported as scammers. One guy has been lfg x10 for at least the last 6 hours and I have seen the same name lfg for many days now. Possible they are spending money for parcels but I doubt it.

    2 ideas to fix it

    1. Create an NPC that you target and use a gift. You get drops into your bags that equal what you would get in a party of 5 players.
    2. Target any player without having to party and use a gift. They get a gift and you get drops as above. I prefer this one because I could reward someone for answering questions in chat, just because I like their name or whatever criteria I set for giving.

    Either method would be better than the current party method and you don't have to worry about someone conveniently disconnecting or just leaving the party without using any gifts.
  • minotaur2857minotaur2857 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,141 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    Also for the love of all that's holy allow buying of gifts with stars more than one at a time. There are other places this type of change would be useful too.
  • andreask#1780 andreask Member Posts: 55 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    One thing I would like to suggest for the future: when making a party in the Simril area, the party leader would get an option to set up a gift sharing "procedure" defining the number of gifts. Each party member would then have to contribute the specific number of gifts before the sharing starts. When the last party member inserts the gifts, they can no longer be revoked and sharing (with the relevant effects) can begin. That way no scamming can occur, but I guess some programming is required.
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