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The Airing of Grievances (some Winter Fest 2016 feedback)
beckylunatic
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
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
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
14
Comments
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...
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
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.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
I would also add capping instances at 20, instead of 35.
Guild--And the Imaginary Friends
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!!!
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.)
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
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.
But those of us who do read the blogs for information really do appreciate thorough explanations of changes to existing events.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
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!
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.
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...
it is sad for trying to clear some items or moving items and those on the ground decayed.
please check "Winter festival" about sarmils/starlight lumins.
Typically I am a pretty fastidious editor but I admit that when things get super hectic on my end I skip a couple editing steps (having someone else read and letting it sit for a couple hours and re-reading it so I'm not auto-completing in my head) so I can get faster turn-around from everyone I collaborate with.*
*Unless my boss is reading this. Then you didn't read what you thought you read >.>
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.