We may also consider moving some of the daily bonus AD value into repeatable AD bonuses that come straight from the queue regardless of whether it was queued randomly.
If this goes through then the above needs to be a part of the change.
This is just my opinion and one I share with most of the people I run with. We like eToS. We hate eGWD, eCC. We would never want to be put in those dungeons just to get AD. That would remove any fun we have from our little farm groups.
You make statements about players feel as if they have to settle for being forced to run spiders for eternity. Well, no. We all hoped that at some point more dungeons would be added that we enjoyed. But no. That never happened.
It's nice that you think it's not great to run the same content. But that's what some people enjoy. It's funny that the entire game revolves around running the same content over and over and over and over. But when it comes to quick AD farming it's a problem.
It's nice that you'd like to mix it up. So would I. By MY choice. Not by your force.
You say this is to keep things simple. Maybe you (as gamemakers not you personally) should stop thinking simple and start thinking about what your player base wants. I for one can guarantee that I would never use a random queue feature. To think that someone would enjoy being forced to run content they don't like.
I see no reason why AD bonuses should be removed when selecting a a dungeon straight from the queue. I can live with having to run a dungeon and a skirm, and epic variations. But I will never leave my queue selections in the hands of Mr. Random.
This reeks of trying to find a way to get queues to pop on dungeons/skirms, that quite frankly, no one really wants to run or the queue might actually pop.
The only thing that makes any sense in this is the addition of bonus AD for certain roles to queue. I mean, let's call it what it is. It's a bribe to get players to queue as a certain class because there's not enough tank/clerics anymore. But it's still a solid idea. The only good idea I saw here.
Also, the fact that the new, hardest content gets it's own AD reward just skews AD farming in the favor of end gamers. So again, this system shafts lower level players making it...a bad idea.
Sorry to say, if I queue into CN or GWD and the dps are all 8900 to 10k, I'm dropping group. Not because I don't think the group can beat the content but because I don't have 30 to 40 minutes for 1 dungeon. With the nerf to bondings and low gs that is what you are going to get.
Or worse case scenario (and not your intention) low gear score toons will get voted out of dungeons more often.
You also need to adjust tour dungeon run times: MSP is not getting completed in 30 min with a minimum gear score group (if completed at all).
In short: leave the quitter penalty out of the game or drastically reduce the penalty(5 minutes max)
I dont like the idea of your lumping in FBI/MSP/eventually Tomb into the epic dungeons qeue which, unless I misunderstood, ranges from malabog to endgame in one selection. Its going to be more frustrating than rewarding when this happens.
So there is no AD reward for ANY dungeon or smirmish completion if you manually qeue? You get an epic ring of sudden salvage and thats it at best? Are private qeues going to be blocked off from AD rewards too?
Also just to be clear, we are talking about the actual dungeon payout, right? not some sort of system built on top of that?
Since its going to happen no matter what, my 2 suggestions: First, Take your pre70 dungeons (theres a ton) and make an epic version of them. I dont see a reason this cant happen by just replacing the smush mobs with equivelants of like EGWD difficulty mobs or a little harder, maybe make a handful of these into inbetween dungeons. A gateway between fresh 70 and endgame. Increased variety, most of the community gets what theyve been wanting for years now, and old dungeons that are never run can actually see some attention.
My 2nd suggestion would be to divide up the random qeue choices a little more, or expanded maybe. So one thing could be implement your current idea, but with better rewards than described if endgame content gets involved in the qeue list. And have alternative random qeues so that you can qeue for dungeons that run in the different item level brakets, so the 7500 IL, and 8500 IL dungeons could be run randomly within a seperate qeueing, rewards could be lowered a little for these as theyre not hard.
This doesnt have to be a bad thing but I don't feel like it will have good feedback from most everyone because the only other ways to make AD are sell stuff, and weeklies unless you spend money on zen and convert.
This really doesn't sound like a very good update honestly. The leaver penalty for a start isn't going to go very well due to trolls etc. I know you mentioned various methods if a group is unable to complete but I feel trolls etc. will bypass these.
The main problem which is going to occur is group composition. As it stands certain classes can spec for different roles, whether its an SW being a healer instead of a DPS, this is going to severily compromise the queue system.
Just last week I did a Tomb of the Nine Gods run with 4 other people 14k+ item level, and the group failed. In effect that would be a leaver penalty due to bad group composition purely from people not knowing their own class, nevermind if a class is spec'd into a different role than intended.
Its bad enough that some classes underperform as it is, then added into it the changes to bonding runestones making them even weaker, (which is a seperate topic but with all the talk of underforming classes im surprised a nerf was what you decided upon).
This new queue system for high level content is going to flop, not because of the queue system itself, but because you haven't focused enough on the actually classes, the roles of characters (For example, if an SW has the final feat unlocked in the temptation path, they should automatically be rolled as a healer when public queueing but they aren't).
Content is gradually getting harder and harder, more so for classes that have been ignored and are falling behind, could you imagine a public Tomb of the Nine Gods with 3 warlocks 1 dc and 1 tank? Thats going to be hell, and in no way should it be encouraged.
This seems very poorly thought through with the current state of the game.
I am not sure if I got this right, but from what I understand selecting a specific number of dungeons to play is still a posibility but doesn't give bonus. Random ques is an extra feature, not the only way to go, right?
So something that I am seeing here with all the new changes from bonding runestones and augments to everything due to the new queue system. There is still a glaring flaw and situation that needs to be addressed. I understand how all and why all the initial changes are happening. And hopefully it will help most of the players get groups where they wouldn't have in other situations. But before addressing and overhauling how we get into the content...why can't we have combat overhauled completely?
From the time of the "old school" players who've been loyal and in this game running and playing content....to adapting for all the changes in the game. Many of the combat systems have been slowly placed with stop gaps in order to allow content to move forward. Bonding runestones huge bonuses to life steal have been issues since the game introduced them and didn't properly balance them. Now, it seems that bondings will be slowly placed on a par system to allow some type of balancing to exist. But not addressing the other glaring situation...that being the "one shot" to answer to life steal is still a debate I know that has been mentioned and properly beaten to dead in discussions. I'm bringing this up here because I can understand from all the concern that all the players here and those that never look at the forums will have and even mentioned..."If I run a random queue, how will I guarantee that I will be able to get through the content with random players that may or may not be able to run it."
Just because people are at the right ilevel does not mean that they know their class or set up for proper roles to finish content. I'm not saying people are bad at their class but in a casual process...you will have a huge problem with random queues. NO ONE wants to run a queue if they know they can't finish it with a group that may not be ready or geared properly for content. You will have no one utilizing even if the incentives and payoffs are decent. Most guilds will completely stay away from it and I know many people that will not join it for the fact that success isn't guaranteed. It's understand that it isn't though. but the situation is that if you want to properly give fighting chances in combat...there need to be a look at and give it a proper overhaul that allows better scaling then what we are currently seeing.
I feel that some of the concepts from Mod 12 in regards to getting your weekly limits and keep away from content till the next week if you want is fine. I understand that there is a lot that you all are doing to make it all work. But with other concepts that are glaringly not fixed or properly designed e.g. setup as a stop gap...they all need to be remedied. Currently in this game, there are many different things that still aren't fixed and I understand that you all as Cryptic need to prioritize and work on making sure things are functioning. But balancing out some of the concepts in the combat to giving it possibly an overhaul should be needed in order to not guarantee success but give a more fighting chance for all the community to have a chance...especially in the high level queues where people may be there unnecessarily in there for hours.
Just something to think about with all these different changes. It's all fine and good that you do all this and work on these things but you can't lose sight that your whole combat system is somewhat flawed and all needs to be looked at not just the bonding runestones/augments.
I know this has been mentioned before bit will Templocks be considered as a Healer class? I personally have been able to run 5 DPS through Castle Never being the solo healer for the group and completed it in the usual amount of time. If we were finally marked as healers then that would shift the support roles and allow more dungeons to be qued up. Maybe it could be optional to switch your class or make a healer requirement such as must have Soul Bonding active, must have a certain percentage of lifesteal required, or must have the Field Medic title unlocked. Having the title unlocked means you would have to fix that as well and I have personally been asking for that for almost year and had only just recently been noticed.
4
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
I am not sure if I got this right, but from what I understand selecting a specific number of dungeons to play is still a posibility but doesn't give bonus. Random ques is an extra feature, not the only way to go, right?
Not the only way to get in, but the only way to get bonus AD.
----------
I HATE this. It effectively undoes all the good you did with making it possible to use private queueing to make running stuff less stressful and kinder to lowbie players (by not forcing them into speedrunning when they're trying to play normally) and etc. It completely takes control away from the player.
It also means things like not being able to earn bonus AD from CTA skirmishes, which happens infrequently enough that it's just a nice bonus to be able to do when the option is there.
Plus all the other stuff about not being able to help someone get their bonus AD by running them through Lostmauth because they don't have MSP unlocked and don't want to, so they're not able to queue for epic dungeons and get an AD bonus. Can't haul their rears through Tiamat because SVA is not a priority.
I don't run EToS x2/day every day. I barely run queued content at all. When I do get dragged into a dungeon, it's a nice bonus. But this doesn't mean I'll run more content, or more varied content. It means I probably won't bother at all, because that uncertainty factor kills it for me. If I'm not in control of where I'm going, I DON'T WANT TO GO AT ALL.
I think "queue for random" would be fun for some people, but as an option, with an additional layer of rewards built in for playing along with the concept of queuing itself being a game of chance. I know you're saying the content remains accessible, but what's the point?
If the goal of this innovation is "to prevent leaving dungeon if player don’t get the exact queue they wanted" maybe would be better to introduce penalty only for random queues? Problem of lagging instances isnt resolved yet. What woul you suggest to do if PREMADE party got in to extralagging instance? Introduce leaving penalty only for random queues, and let players in premade party to enter/leave dungeons wherever they want
I use to play 3 low-geared alts for daily AD. It takes me about 30 min of gametime each alt to do 2* little ToS and 2* MotH to get the approx daily 18k (with vip bonus and some prayers).
So basically if I understood correctly (i may have not, and hope so), I now won't be able to get AD for skirmishes as I didn't unlock any skirmish aside from MotH and Dread Legion (yes I only play my main, alts are for storage / daily AD). That alone decreases my daily alt revenu from 54k to 42k. Moreover, I if random queue for "Dungeons", i can now be put in a very long dungeon, increasing my gametime needed for each alt a lot.
I understand you want players to run the different dungeons. But why don't you look at the player's perspective? You have the possibility to earn the SAME amount of AD in a dungeon that is 2 times faster to complete. Why do you think everyone run little ToS and not the other levelling dungeons? Why people prefer MotH and not Dread Legion? Because it's FASTER, and I don't want to play my alts, i just want the ressources i can get from them in order to upgrade my main toon because getting BiS is expensive as hell.
Now I'll have less daily AD from alts, and this will potentially need more time to get them. Mod 12b is definitly a step back in alt-friendly game. Rank 14 enchants first, then this.
=> Why don't you just leave the actual rewards as it is, and just increase the amount of AD earned by a random queue? So that people that queue randomly know why they're doing this: They take risks (can be more difficult content, can take more time than initally thought), but they have higher rewards. On the other side, players and alts can still queue normally and get their AD.
In this system I'll certainly be more attracted by the random queue with my main. I'll certainly not random queuing ToNG because I don't have faith in players I don't know for the most difficult content. However, I may use it for epic dungeons for fun, not knowing what I'll run but knowing that I'll get more rewards. On the other side I can still get my AD for alts, same amount and same gametime.
I think I understand that the core motivation here is to get people running underplayed dungeons and to increase the number of tanks and healers running them.
However there are numerous issues that I can see:
Firstly, pvp. The game is divided into those that do & those that don't. Most players hate pvp, especially with the significant balancing issues that it currently has. Forcing them to run it will not improve player morale.
You say it's not an AD nerf but many players run 2 dungeons & maybe 2 skirmishes and are done - so 9-13.5k bonus AD but if they do this with these changes they will receive just 7k due to only being paid once. You absolutely cannot include PvP, Heroes Accord & T2 runs as compensation for being paid once per type. Adding it all up and presenting it as an AD increase is a complete misrepresentation of how it will turn out for most players.
Players can be roughly divided into 3 groups; serious & geared, casual & semi/geared, new & gearing up.
Serious & geared: they run the same dungeon many times and rely on salvage for income - making up to ~250k per day - the bonus is not a big deal for them so will continue as they are. Casual & semi/geared: they run a couple of dungeons & skirmishes and get a bit of salvage - making 15-30k per day New & gearing up: they stick to simple content, usually don't have VIP (AD bonus etc) and rely on others to carry them through content they barely qualify for - making 10-20k per day.
The proposed system will not impact the Serious players but will force Casuals and New into scenarios that will take longer to earn slightly more AD.
By the way, I hope you are not lumping T1, T2 & T3 dungeons together. They need to be separated.
Leaver penalty - you do understand what will happen if someone wishes to quit but doesn't want the penalty? They will troll the team until they are kicked. You have to allow people to leave without penalty or they will ruin the run by staying - we have seen this in Edemo and PvP, it will become endemic to all runs. (Please do not be in denial about this.)
Speaking as someone who rarely quits, let them leave! Not after 15 minutes, immediately! Or they will hang back at the campfire and go check their phone (etc) or will run around actively annoying others by pulling mobs onto everyone until they get what they want - kicked.
My suggestions are:
Keep the two bonus payments per type and have a hard cap of 25k bonus AD per day which players can reach via whichever content type suits them.
Divide Epic into T1, T2 & T3 classifications
Do not reinstate the leaver penalty - it hurts the rest of the team more than the one who wants to leave.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
minotaur2857Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,141Arc User
You need to allow people to say "NOT this dungeon please" when random queuing. There are several dungeons I simply will not do because they're buggy as hell for me. Penalising me for helping my team by quitting is not the way to go. Also you need to get much smarter in allowing people to queue for specific roles, if I queue for a dungeon with a GF built for DPS, I tend to get assigned as a tank which I'm not.
I like this personally. (mostly) this is how I tend to go about my runs I just que up for hte things I'd like to play en masse and see what I get.
I guess my suggestion would be allowing us to tick 2 dungeons off the list to que for (2 is a random number) I acknowledge that the point is to open up the que so if you tick off much more than that it's not random but that way we can tick off the dungeons we know are suicide in a random group. fbi, msp, tong. these aren't things that you can likely succeed at without a preplanned group. Especially once this nerf goes live. heck cn might become a problem then.
it might be possible if the que was reconfigured to be 2 dps and 3 support for those dungeons. but with the nerf.. I still have doubts.
for a testing view point. as of yesterday I was a 12500 hr (pc toon). I had r10 bondings all purple artis a greater dread. and r9s azures on my pet for about 77 crit chance. My dps was lacking. one of my guildies was just a little higher il but had a perfect dread and r12 bondings and could more than double my dps. the result: if you throw me into a fbi I barely touch the dudes. the other HR actually would do their share of the damage.
that is why I am so adamant against the bonding nerf AND why this random que thing is a concern. if you had 3 dps like me with support that no longer could powershare effectively we aren't going to have a chance of success.
I random q even for cn and lets say I"m the best dps in the room (likely scenario) it's not a half hour run. it's a 45 minute run. especially if the support are also low level or under geared. so what happens when bondings are nerfed?
I hope this testing that is going on is NOT relying on top geared people because the majority of the players I see who arent' in guild runs are way under geared. those over geared people are needed to carry the rest sometimes lol. I personally prefer to be over geared but getting there is serious pain. I've spent about 260 on pc so far. (really unusual I don't normally spend much) because I wanted to get up to speed.. but daym it doesn't go that far. so I get the pain here. a large portion of that money was getting my r10 bondings. having them immediately nerfed is disheartening at best. especially when this has been my experience. most random teams struggle. Even with bondings.
I have a choice of playing in guild runs (easy peasy) alliance runs (a little more struggle) or flat out random runs. (who knows but often a LOT more struggle) About 50 % of the time I do choose random because it's more fun. but it won't be with the nerf i'm afraid.
The core issue for me is that Cryptic are trying to dictate how players enjoy the game, not helping players to enjoy playing it the way they want to.
By enforcing a rule of 'earnings can only be made by playing what we dictate' players are forced into scenarios they do not necessarily enjoy.
As @beckylunatic said, this undoes all of the good work done with introducing private queues.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
yeah. imo it should be BONUS ad. and you should still get your ad for whatever runs you do in private groups. this also discourages private runs anyway even ignoring the ad issue. people tend to organize their random dungeon guild runs around the abilities of the players. I don't know of a guild that allows you to pick and choose your run mates. so if you end up with 4 people who are 9 thousand running t2's are gonna be dicey.
that said I also like that there is a bonus for carrying a lowbie. there is some good stuff in there if you can get past the removal of certain freedoms (did I just say that?) lol
i'm a little more laissez faire on this because I don't tend to run dungeons for the rough ad. it's a nice bonus but it's not '/something I build into my day for that purpose. I run them for the possibility of big ticket items in the end chest and salvage. so I'm aware I'm not the audience here.
3
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
Also love the: "Want AD from dungeons run on an alt ?" - "Go finish SKT".... right.... going to happen.... And even if I buy the completion token, lets say at discount and it costs 1mil, it will take me what? A year to return that investment...
I've geared DC (slapped r12 and mashing buttons), for fun, and I can help out when there isn't one available... Now.. SKT on DC...
See here's the thing. Some players avoid elol because they can't handle the jumps (disability, dexterity, whatever) some avoid Cragmire's as the boss there is disproportionately hard compared to other T2's and you need a decent group etc.
Forcing these players to queue into dungeons they don't like or can't handle is a very bad idea.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
See here's the thing. Some players avoid elol because they can't handle the jumps (disability, dexterity, whatever) some avoid Cragmire's as the boss there is disproportionately hard compared to other T2's and you need a decent group etc.
Forcing these players to queue into dungeons they don't like or can't handle is a very bad idea.
I used to play pvp in uncharted a lot. they had a system where they gave you a vote on map. as well as game type. something like that might work. a vote for which tier dungeon if everyone is capable of all three and then a vote on a couple random dungeons. if some communication is allowed in the que before such a vote if someone can't run something it could be avoided.
you are really messing too much with things. i want to be able to earn my lousy amount of daily ads running the dungeon i enjoy the most in that given time. right now those are tomb and grey wolf. random queue are fun but should not be enforced to progress,
Moreover i/we dont have time to unlock all the content available in game on multiple characters.
5
jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
I REALLY hope this isn't a return to what we had before, get dc'd for whatever reason near the end of a PvP match come back, game is finished, you lost your win rewards and have to wait 30 minutes before you can try again for your conc shard.
How are you even going to be able to protect this from abuse? Folks will turn off their router, cry foul they got banned for 30 minutes and I really don't see how you are going to be able to detect an honest disconect from a dishonest one, in other words, you will end up punishing players to prevent dishonest players from trying to manipulate the queues.
When they can't manipulate the queues, they'll come ehre with all sorts of proof I can;t honestly see how you will be able to tell the dishonest from the honest.
4
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
Frankly what is the incentive.. 3400 ad is a pittance, its nothing.. make it 12k ad.. then people will do a random dungeon..
there are many ways to make more then 3400 ad.. or whatever super low amount your stating again.. its useless..
What is this? I generally don't have the time, nor the desire, to play through the hardest content. So now i don't get to earn bonus AD anymore? I have a very small subset of dungeons i like to play and i'm not allowed anymore to make my own choices if i want to earn bonus AD?
What am i missing here? We are no longer allowed to play what we want?
However, as I mentioned the numbers are not yet final. We are going to keep watching this feedback thread, and even once the feature goes live, we're going to observe how you all play. This isn't a clandestine plan to dramatically reduce the amount of AD everyone is earning, so we'll definitely be adjusting the numbers so that this is a feature everyone can appreciate.
Except that's what you are doing - you are making it longer to complete (as different queues take different amounts of time). You are once again making it harder for alts - where is @mimicking#6533's promise about making the game alt friendly>
With the changes to refinement and the new levels, we need MORE AD in order to afford the upgrades. We have to run ONLY the Chult dungeon to get the new Enchantment Stones. So this is indeed a direct nerf to us.
Once again the devs are completely out of touch. No one has asked for these queue changes. Some of us actually run other dungeons for AD and for drops (outside of etos). This is going to drastically hit the player base who is going to need AD to deal with 2 new levels of enchants.
I think we are witnessing Cryptics annual "Bad Idea Week".
Last year's winner was "Dungeon Keys - let's make everyone spend a key and discover the stuff they previously rejected!" The year before it was "Mod 6 - lets' raise the level cap and remove all the dungeons!"
This year it's "Lets introduce really hard new dungeons then make everyone use augments!", Followed immediately by "and lets make them run all the stuff they hate!" Oh how the players are gonna love us this year...
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
k I missed the bit about having to have everything unlocked... so unless you have everything unlocked you don't get the bonus cash for decent dungeons that reward good stuff. why. that's sillytoes. you are forcing people who are at least capable of t1 to waste time running something with no good rewards. how is that gonna be a popular decision?
how about random dungeon by tier instead of by all the epics. so all the t1's all the t2's and all the t3's. that would be a little more fair and make a little more sense for the extra bonus carry proposal.
3
jumpingmorksMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 876Arc User
Comments
This is just my opinion and one I share with most of the people I run with. We like eToS. We hate eGWD, eCC. We would never want to be put in those dungeons just to get AD. That would remove any fun we have from our little farm groups.
You make statements about players feel as if they have to settle for being forced to run spiders for eternity. Well, no. We all hoped that at some point more dungeons would be added that we enjoyed. But no. That never happened.
It's nice that you think it's not great to run the same content. But that's what some people enjoy. It's funny that the entire game revolves around running the same content over and over and over and over. But when it comes to quick AD farming it's a problem.
It's nice that you'd like to mix it up. So would I. By MY choice. Not by your force.
You say this is to keep things simple. Maybe you (as gamemakers not you personally) should stop thinking simple and start thinking about what your player base wants. I for one can guarantee that I would never use a random queue feature. To think that someone would enjoy being forced to run content they don't like.
I see no reason why AD bonuses should be removed when selecting a a dungeon straight from the queue. I can live with having to run a dungeon and a skirm, and epic variations. But I will never leave my queue selections in the hands of Mr. Random.
This reeks of trying to find a way to get queues to pop on dungeons/skirms, that quite frankly, no one really wants to run or the queue might actually pop.
The only thing that makes any sense in this is the addition of bonus AD for certain roles to queue. I mean, let's call it what it is. It's a bribe to get players to queue as a certain class because there's not enough tank/clerics anymore. But it's still a solid idea. The only good idea I saw here.
Also, the fact that the new, hardest content gets it's own AD reward just skews AD farming in the favor of end gamers. So again, this system shafts lower level players making it...a bad idea.
Skirmish 2x2250
Dungeon 2x 4500
= 13500 AD
That's a drop of 13500-7000 = 6500 AD per day. Massive.
And that doesn't even take into account the reduction in salvage equipment.
Edit: slightly wrong numbers, fixed.
Sorry to say, if I queue into CN or GWD and the dps are all 8900 to 10k, I'm dropping group. Not because I don't think the group can beat the content but because I don't have 30 to 40 minutes for 1 dungeon. With the nerf to bondings and low gs that is what you are going to get.
Or worse case scenario (and not your intention) low gear score toons will get voted out of dungeons more often.
You also need to adjust tour dungeon run times: MSP is not getting completed in 30 min with a minimum gear score group (if completed at all).
In short: leave the quitter penalty out of the game or drastically reduce the penalty(5 minutes max)
I dont like the idea of your lumping in FBI/MSP/eventually Tomb into the epic dungeons qeue which, unless I misunderstood, ranges from malabog to endgame in one selection. Its going to be more frustrating than rewarding when this happens.
So there is no AD reward for ANY dungeon or smirmish completion if you manually qeue? You get an epic ring of sudden salvage and thats it at best? Are private qeues going to be blocked off from AD rewards too?
Also just to be clear, we are talking about the actual dungeon payout, right? not some sort of system built on top of that?
Since its going to happen no matter what, my 2 suggestions: First, Take your pre70 dungeons (theres a ton) and make an epic version of them. I dont see a reason this cant happen by just replacing the smush mobs with equivelants of like EGWD difficulty mobs or a little harder, maybe make a handful of these into inbetween dungeons. A gateway between fresh 70 and endgame. Increased variety, most of the community gets what theyve been wanting for years now, and old dungeons that are never run can actually see some attention.
My 2nd suggestion would be to divide up the random qeue choices a little more, or expanded maybe. So one thing could be implement your current idea, but with better rewards than described if endgame content gets involved in the qeue list. And have alternative random qeues so that you can qeue for dungeons that run in the different item level brakets, so the 7500 IL, and 8500 IL dungeons could be run randomly within a seperate qeueing, rewards could be lowered a little for these as theyre not hard.
This doesnt have to be a bad thing but I don't feel like it will have good feedback from most everyone because the only other ways to make AD are sell stuff, and weeklies unless you spend money on zen and convert.
The main problem which is going to occur is group composition. As it stands certain classes can spec for different roles, whether its an SW being a healer instead of a DPS, this is going to severily compromise the queue system.
Just last week I did a Tomb of the Nine Gods run with 4 other people 14k+ item level, and the group failed. In effect that would be a leaver penalty due to bad group composition purely from people not knowing their own class, nevermind if a class is spec'd into a different role than intended.
Its bad enough that some classes underperform as it is, then added into it the changes to bonding runestones making them even weaker, (which is a seperate topic but with all the talk of underforming classes im surprised a nerf was what you decided upon).
This new queue system for high level content is going to flop, not because of the queue system itself, but because you haven't focused enough on the actually classes, the roles of characters (For example, if an SW has the final feat unlocked in the temptation path, they should automatically be rolled as a healer when public queueing but they aren't).
Content is gradually getting harder and harder, more so for classes that have been ignored and are falling behind, could you imagine a public Tomb of the Nine Gods with 3 warlocks 1 dc and 1 tank? Thats going to be hell, and in no way should it be encouraged.
This seems very poorly thought through with the current state of the game.
From the time of the "old school" players who've been loyal and in this game running and playing content....to adapting for all the changes in the game. Many of the combat systems have been slowly placed with stop gaps in order to allow content to move forward. Bonding runestones huge bonuses to life steal have been issues since the game introduced them and didn't properly balance them. Now, it seems that bondings will be slowly placed on a par system to allow some type of balancing to exist. But not addressing the other glaring situation...that being the "one shot" to answer to life steal is still a debate I know that has been mentioned and properly beaten to dead in discussions. I'm bringing this up here because I can understand from all the concern that all the players here and those that never look at the forums will have and even mentioned..."If I run a random queue, how will I guarantee that I will be able to get through the content with random players that may or may not be able to run it."
Just because people are at the right ilevel does not mean that they know their class or set up for proper roles to finish content. I'm not saying people are bad at their class but in a casual process...you will have a huge problem with random queues. NO ONE wants to run a queue if they know they can't finish it with a group that may not be ready or geared properly for content. You will have no one utilizing even if the incentives and payoffs are decent. Most guilds will completely stay away from it and I know many people that will not join it for the fact that success isn't guaranteed. It's understand that it isn't though. but the situation is that if you want to properly give fighting chances in combat...there need to be a look at and give it a proper overhaul that allows better scaling then what we are currently seeing.
I feel that some of the concepts from Mod 12 in regards to getting your weekly limits and keep away from content till the next week if you want is fine. I understand that there is a lot that you all are doing to make it all work. But with other concepts that are glaringly not fixed or properly designed e.g. setup as a stop gap...they all need to be remedied. Currently in this game, there are many different things that still aren't fixed and I understand that you all as Cryptic need to prioritize and work on making sure things are functioning. But balancing out some of the concepts in the combat to giving it possibly an overhaul should be needed in order to not guarantee success but give a more fighting chance for all the community to have a chance...especially in the high level queues where people may be there unnecessarily in there for hours.
Just something to think about with all these different changes. It's all fine and good that you do all this and work on these things but you can't lose sight that your whole combat system is somewhat flawed and all needs to be looked at not just the bonding runestones/augments.
Tacet
----------
I HATE this. It effectively undoes all the good you did with making it possible to use private queueing to make running stuff less stressful and kinder to lowbie players (by not forcing them into speedrunning when they're trying to play normally) and etc. It completely takes control away from the player.
It also means things like not being able to earn bonus AD from CTA skirmishes, which happens infrequently enough that it's just a nice bonus to be able to do when the option is there.
Plus all the other stuff about not being able to help someone get their bonus AD by running them through Lostmauth because they don't have MSP unlocked and don't want to, so they're not able to queue for epic dungeons and get an AD bonus. Can't haul their rears through Tiamat because SVA is not a priority.
I don't run EToS x2/day every day. I barely run queued content at all. When I do get dragged into a dungeon, it's a nice bonus. But this doesn't mean I'll run more content, or more varied content. It means I probably won't bother at all, because that uncertainty factor kills it for me. If I'm not in control of where I'm going, I DON'T WANT TO GO AT ALL.
I think "queue for random" would be fun for some people, but as an option, with an additional layer of rewards built in for playing along with the concept of queuing itself being a game of chance. I know you're saying the content remains accessible, but what's the point?
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
If the goal of this innovation is "to prevent leaving dungeon if player don’t get the exact queue they wanted" maybe would be better to introduce penalty only for random queues? Problem of lagging instances isnt resolved yet. What woul you suggest to do if PREMADE party got in to extralagging instance?
Introduce leaving penalty only for random queues, and let players in premade party to enter/leave dungeons wherever they want
So basically if I understood correctly (i may have not, and hope so), I now won't be able to get AD for skirmishes as I didn't unlock any skirmish aside from MotH and Dread Legion (yes I only play my main, alts are for storage / daily AD). That alone decreases my daily alt revenu from 54k to 42k.
Moreover, I if random queue for "Dungeons", i can now be put in a very long dungeon, increasing my gametime needed for each alt a lot.
I understand you want players to run the different dungeons. But why don't you look at the player's perspective? You have the possibility to earn the SAME amount of AD in a dungeon that is 2 times faster to complete. Why do you think everyone run little ToS and not the other levelling dungeons? Why people prefer MotH and not Dread Legion? Because it's FASTER, and I don't want to play my alts, i just want the ressources i can get from them in order to upgrade my main toon because getting BiS is expensive as hell.
Now I'll have less daily AD from alts, and this will potentially need more time to get them. Mod 12b is definitly a step back in alt-friendly game. Rank 14 enchants first, then this.
=>
Why don't you just leave the actual rewards as it is, and just increase the amount of AD earned by a random queue? So that people that queue randomly know why they're doing this: They take risks (can be more difficult content, can take more time than initally thought), but they have higher rewards. On the other side, players and alts can still queue normally and get their AD.
In this system I'll certainly be more attracted by the random queue with my main. I'll certainly not random queuing ToNG because I don't have faith in players I don't know for the most difficult content. However, I may use it for epic dungeons for fun, not knowing what I'll run but knowing that I'll get more rewards. On the other side I can still get my AD for alts, same amount and same gametime.
However there are numerous issues that I can see:
Firstly, pvp. The game is divided into those that do & those that don't. Most players hate pvp, especially with the significant balancing issues that it currently has. Forcing them to run it will not improve player morale.
You say it's not an AD nerf but many players run 2 dungeons & maybe 2 skirmishes and are done - so 9-13.5k bonus AD but if they do this with these changes they will receive just 7k due to only being paid once. You absolutely cannot include PvP, Heroes Accord & T2 runs as compensation for being paid once per type. Adding it all up and presenting it as an AD increase is a complete misrepresentation of how it will turn out for most players.
Players can be roughly divided into 3 groups; serious & geared, casual & semi/geared, new & gearing up.
Serious & geared: they run the same dungeon many times and rely on salvage for income - making up to ~250k per day - the bonus is not a big deal for them so will continue as they are.
Casual & semi/geared: they run a couple of dungeons & skirmishes and get a bit of salvage - making 15-30k per day
New & gearing up: they stick to simple content, usually don't have VIP (AD bonus etc) and rely on others to carry them through content they barely qualify for - making 10-20k per day.
The proposed system will not impact the Serious players but will force Casuals and New into scenarios that will take longer to earn slightly more AD.
By the way, I hope you are not lumping T1, T2 & T3 dungeons together. They need to be separated.
Leaver penalty - you do understand what will happen if someone wishes to quit but doesn't want the penalty? They will troll the team until they are kicked. You have to allow people to leave without penalty or they will ruin the run by staying - we have seen this in Edemo and PvP, it will become endemic to all runs. (Please do not be in denial about this.)
Speaking as someone who rarely quits, let them leave! Not after 15 minutes, immediately! Or they will hang back at the campfire and go check their phone (etc) or will run around actively annoying others by pulling mobs onto everyone until they get what they want - kicked.
My suggestions are:
Keep the two bonus payments per type and have a hard cap of 25k bonus AD per day which players can reach via whichever content type suits them.
Divide Epic into T1, T2 & T3 classifications
Do not reinstate the leaver penalty - it hurts the rest of the team more than the one who wants to leave.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Taylor DC/DO & AC Buff/Debuff - Guild Gutbusters Brigade - PVE
I guess my suggestion would be allowing us to tick 2 dungeons off the list to que for (2 is a random number) I acknowledge that the point is to open up the que so if you tick off much more than that it's not random but that way we can tick off the dungeons we know are suicide in a random group. fbi, msp, tong. these aren't things that you can likely succeed at without a preplanned group. Especially once this nerf goes live. heck cn might become a problem then.
it might be possible if the que was reconfigured to be 2 dps and 3 support for those dungeons. but with the nerf.. I still have doubts.
for a testing view point. as of yesterday I was a 12500 hr (pc toon). I had r10 bondings all purple artis a greater dread. and r9s azures on my pet for about 77 crit chance. My dps was lacking. one of my guildies was just a little higher il but had a perfect dread and r12 bondings and could more than double my dps. the result: if you throw me into a fbi I barely touch the dudes. the other HR actually would do their share of the damage.
that is why I am so adamant against the bonding nerf AND why this random que thing is a concern. if you had 3 dps like me with support that no longer could powershare effectively we aren't going to have a chance of success.
I random q even for cn and lets say I"m the best dps in the room (likely scenario) it's not a half hour run. it's a 45 minute run. especially if the support are also low level or under geared. so what happens when bondings are nerfed?
I hope this testing that is going on is NOT relying on top geared people because the majority of the players I see who arent' in guild runs are way under geared. those over geared people are needed to carry the rest sometimes lol. I personally prefer to be over geared but getting there is serious pain. I've spent about 260 on pc so far. (really unusual I don't normally spend much) because I wanted to get up to speed.. but daym it doesn't go that far. so I get the pain here. a large portion of that money was getting my r10 bondings. having them immediately nerfed is disheartening at best. especially when this has been my experience. most random teams struggle. Even with bondings.
I have a choice of playing in guild runs (easy peasy) alliance runs (a little more struggle) or flat out random runs. (who knows but often a LOT more struggle) About 50 % of the time I do choose random because it's more fun. but it won't be with the nerf i'm afraid.
By enforcing a rule of 'earnings can only be made by playing what we dictate' players are forced into scenarios they do not necessarily enjoy.
As @beckylunatic said, this undoes all of the good work done with introducing private queues.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
that said I also like that there is a bonus for carrying a lowbie. there is some good stuff in there if you can get past the removal of certain freedoms (did I just say that?) lol
i'm a little more laissez faire on this because I don't tend to run dungeons for the rough ad. it's a nice bonus but it's not '/something I build into my day for that purpose. I run them for the possibility of big ticket items in the end chest and salvage. so I'm aware I'm not the audience here.
I've geared DC (slapped r12 and mashing buttons), for fun, and I can help out when there isn't one available... Now.. SKT on DC...
Forcing these players to queue into dungeons they don't like or can't handle is a very bad idea.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
i want to be able to earn my lousy amount of daily ads running the dungeon i enjoy the most in that given time.
right now those are tomb and grey wolf.
random queue are fun but should not be enforced to progress,
Moreover i/we dont have time to unlock all the content available in game on multiple characters.
How are you even going to be able to protect this from abuse? Folks will turn off their router, cry foul they got banned for 30 minutes and I really don't see how you are going to be able to detect an honest disconect from a dishonest one, in other words, you will end up punishing players to prevent dishonest players from trying to manipulate the queues.
When they can't manipulate the queues, they'll come ehre with all sorts of proof I can;t honestly see how you will be able to tell the dishonest from the honest.
there are many ways to make more then 3400 ad.. or whatever super low amount your stating again.. its useless..
why are you guys so afraid to give awards out.
I have a very small subset of dungeons i like to play and i'm not allowed anymore to make my own choices if i want to earn bonus AD?
What am i missing here? We are no longer allowed to play what we want?
With the changes to refinement and the new levels, we need MORE AD in order to afford the upgrades. We have to run ONLY the Chult dungeon to get the new Enchantment Stones. So this is indeed a direct nerf to us.
Once again the devs are completely out of touch. No one has asked for these queue changes. Some of us actually run other dungeons for AD and for drops (outside of etos). This is going to drastically hit the player base who is going to need AD to deal with 2 new levels of enchants.
Last year's winner was "Dungeon Keys - let's make everyone spend a key and discover the stuff they previously rejected!"
The year before it was "Mod 6 - lets' raise the level cap and remove all the dungeons!"
This year it's "Lets introduce really hard new dungeons then make everyone use augments!", Followed immediately by "and lets make them run all the stuff they hate!" Oh how the players are gonna love us this year...
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
how about random dungeon by tier instead of by all the epics. so all the t1's all the t2's and all the t3's. that would be a little more fair and make a little more sense for the extra bonus carry proposal.