As for the final question, that seems more like a question for players. At any given point there is something not being worked on, which some segment of the player base wants to be our focus, due to not being able to work on everything all the time. What communication does help with that type of situation?
An accessible high-level roadmap of what is being worked on for the next ~2-3 releases (at least in general terms, like many companies do).
Commentary on why certain items are being prioritized to help players have shared context with developers
A list of items that are on the horizon, not yet on the production schedule but may be up for addition in the future
All of these would need to be kept relatively up-to-date in order for them to work.
One thing I'd like to ask: do the dev team have 'class champions' for each class that can talk knowledgeably within your discussions?
We don't have anyone specifically dedicated to being a given class guru, but we know who plays which classes the most and who plays live the most. You'll often hear someone say "Who knows a lot about " and people can point that person to the most knowledgeable sources. There are lots of time where someone approaches specific people to ask about a given class, or how a change would work for that class, or what the problems are with that class. So we do have people who have class specific knowledge that are good resources. There are also a couple of people who have a very strong knowledge base of all of the classes as a whole and their relation/relative effectiveness to one another.
@noworries#8859 Moving that timeline up so that early builds are available for testing for more than 1 week before a major release would do a lot to help align the development cycle with this philosophy.
It always comes down to time. Imagine an update that comes out once a year, the size of one of our normal updates, but there was months of internal testing and polish followed by months of player play testing and iterations. It could be a flawless update which would be wonderful, but one update a year wouldn't be enough to satisfy the community. Thus begins the battle of time/output. There is also the schedules of getting the product ready for release on the different platforms and lockdown dates where things can no longer change.
I do think we could do better with the public testing time and resolve more issues. It has a habit of getting hectic. The threads can blow up into 20 pages or more quickly and it can be tough to track down what is/isn't happening from some reports. Even with refinement some people posted very concise bugs on the threads and because I was tracking down other issues it could take a little while to get to those and get them fixed. At the same time if you look at the list of issues with the system day one of public testing and where it was when it went live, it shows how well public testing can work. With anything else I think we are getting better with it over time and improving how we approach it each time it comes around.
I don't disagree, I appreciate that it's difficult to balance timeline and testing vs. frequency.
But in my opinion, looking back on 2017 we probably had a bit too much rush-to-release which very likely created rework / bugfixing overhead. Some additional time on preview would have likely saved effort overall (and prevented some exploit-y sadness). And yes, refining changes were handled better than others.
To be clear, I'm not saying everything is bad. And I'm not saying there isn't an effort being put forward. I just think there's a lot of room to grow, and it's often good to be mindful and retrospective this time of year hah
Thank you for engaging with us on this thread, I really appreciate the candor and depth of your responses!
There are hundreds of threads, thousands of post, in numerous sub forums. And although it doesn't necessarily seem like it, it takes a good amount of time to read through those and create a proper response. With the pacing of our schedules it is very hard for developers to find the extra time to have lots of interaction on the forums. Due to the technical nature of the responses to class/powers questions those are either going to be responded to by a dev or nitocris83 will bring it to a dev/s to get the information and formulate a response. Both of which take up development time. In general, a dev response to a thread shouldn't be expected as there is no way we could try to cover that many topics. That is not to say there aren't plenty of threads deserving of responses, as of course there are.
We certainly have quieter periods where we are in the midst of developing a module and are simply heads down getting it done. And then when we are into the testing phases and preview phases, we tend to have a bit more flexibility in our time and are discussing things on the forums more. It is tough to be looking at all the work you need/want to get done for the next update and then pop out of that for an hour here or there to both catch up on the forums and write up some responses.
Also sometimes there just isn't a response. Most players don't want to hear "We realize that the Trickster Rogue class is under-performing on live, but currently have no changes or plans in the works". We can have something on our radar and be having some conversations in the office about different aspects and what changes to make while not having come to any conclusions or set aside time for the work. Typically when we present any response to the forums we want to do so with information and clarifications. This is extra apparent in the case of TR balance because we haven't gotten to it as quickly as we'd like to, and certainly not as quickly as players would have liked us to.
As for the final question, that seems more like a question for players. At any given point there is something not being worked on, which some segment of the player base wants to be our focus, due to not being able to work on everything all the time. What communication does help with that type of situation?
I want to be clear here, and I don’t want to come across as rude. I truly appreciate the time you are taking to address our questions and concerns here. Thank you!
I do understand that your time is limited and you can’t address every thread. That is why you have a community manager to help sort through a lot of the noise. The TR concerns haven’t been an isolated thread here or there. We’ve had numerous threads, including several recently- the latest with over 100 responses.
And please understand that we have been asking-begging for ANY news. Telling us the TR Rework is on the back burner might not be the answer we want- especially considering the recent work on SWs, but it is something. It tells us that you care enough to be straight up with us. The total lack of communication at all, tells us that you don’t respect the TR community enough to do anything but ignore us. That is worse than bad news, IMHO. We have even said- over multiple threads- that we’d rather have bad news than no news. Also, ignored.
A little conciliation can go a long way. You all can get a lot of mileage out of recognizing to the community that you realize you said to us almost a year ago on the live stream that TRs were at the top of your list. Saying to us now that it hasn’t happened “as quickly as you hoped” kinda doesn’t do the community justice. It’s not like an extra half hour wait to get the oil changed, you know?
As for the last part, what else can the player base do, but post on the official forums? The TR community has posted dozens of times, with hundreds and probably thousands of individual comments regarding this issue. The player base is doing all they can. Be honest and straight up with us, and that amount of consideration will be much more greatly appreciated than being completely ignored.
Lilia Drakon - PVE Executioner TR She Looked Lvl 18
"Whilst many players put forward ideas via these forums and often disagree with each other, they are more open to things put forward by the devs if:
a. they are given data that shows the change is valid b. they are given sufficient time to test the changes so that valid feedback has enough time to be incorporated in the update c. they know that the person who made the changes has the ability to make minor adjustments at a (reasonable) later date should anything unexpected occur"
Exactly what is needed to be done with PVP changes and Cc changes this mod (the pvp mod according to the devs ) ,,we are still waiting for any reply at all in the pvp changes preview forum section regarding our feedback
it was more like (devs ) here are the pvp CC changes guys and oh by the way you have 1 week to test it before it goes live ..with no chance to tweak or alter anything ..we hope you like it see you in another 6 mods ..
you guys completely changed how pvp CC works and gave us no input at all into the reasoning and design philosophy it seems more like randomly trying anything to shake things up and hope for the best
could you please have a Dev explain the pvp CC change design philosophy for pvp and why they feel there is too much control and stun locks etc thus implementing it .
and why you still allow broken items/boons to have piercing Cc control that go right thru CC and bypass your shinny new system you guys worked so hard on causing further frustration
thxs
Post edited by kalina311 on
3
gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
Many thanks for coming back on this. I've been playing NWO since it went live, but in the last two months I logged in only a few times and for a few minutes. I still keep an eye on the game but I feel that something is lost and is not coming back.
Let me explain a bit what I feel:
Neverwinter in the beginning was an exciting game. It was very "tridimensional". I came to NWO from a turn-based 2D MMO and it was really awesome to see how positioning mattered, how control and environment were important (throwing enemies off ledges), how you could beat a dungeon in different ways (I still remember how I tanked Malabog around a pillar with my HR). Damage was not killing you in a second and there was time to heal.
Now it's bidimensional again. Control is dead because all things that are even remotely dangerous are control immune. You don't need to dodge most of the time (every TONG run I did made me sad at the second boss when people told me to just hug the boss and do my damage rotation and the same happened when they told me to ignore runes on the ground in MSVA...). Positioning in most important battles (bosses) is trivial as there is only one boss. It just feels like the game I played before where gear and rotation where the only important thing....
I understand that, with a limited team, streamlining the game makes it easier to keep up with all the issues. But really now it's too streamlined. It's down to just painfully and slowly raising your stats in little chunks doing the same dungeon over and over.
There was a thrill in my veins when I got the last piece of my Royal Guard set. There was thrill when I dropped the Dead Dragon off-hand from Shatterspine. Now the best thing I can get is a refining stone and I need something like 90 of those to get to the end. It's as exciting as filling a bathtub with water using a glass.... That's why people want optimized runs, because it takes so much time to do anything that you don't want to lose it.
In the beginning of the game grinding was not so relevant, you had more time to enjoy alts (I was running six pretty good alts during mod5, now I can't cope with two), you had more time to help others and you had more time to try crazy stuff.
I like change, it's fun. I was one of the few people who loved mod6 because I had to rethink everything I was doing before. I did all the leveling from 60 to 70 in my templar armor just for the challenge of running with 22k hit points in a new world of pain But change should make the experience wider and more fun, not streamline everything into an endless grind for the next ludicrously small improvement....
Sorry for the rant... I still keep an eye on the game (looking forward to next mod!) and hope things will change for good (at least for me).
Post edited by gabrieldourden on
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
As for the final question, that seems more like a question for players. At any given point there is something not being worked on, which some segment of the player base wants to be our focus, due to not being able to work on everything all the time. What communication does help with that type of situation?
In addition to @dupeks points regarding external communication, I'd recommend shoring up some of your team's internal communication as well... There have been several examples recently of "two-steps-back" that probably could have been avoided had the person making a change or introducing something new taken a moment to run their ideas past the people working on larger updates or initiatives in that area
Bugtoberfest was simply awesome, and most of us really do see all the effort and energy you guys are putting into making the game truly better, but then we get Broken Sandy Pants which, even when fixed, still break the attempted repairs to PvP CC... In the PvP rework itself all CC was nerfed (despite the tiny PvP community's objections) with the exception of the most cheesy CC abilities for one class, which now dominates PvP... Owlbear Cub pet was subject to a hidden, undisclosed nerf designed to limit the already sad DPS on a niche build for what literally everyone agrees is the most neglected class in the game, and the nerf wasn't even included on the tooltip... Two event mounts have been released with non-functional or inconsistent Mount Insignia Bonuses/Slots...
The list could go on, but I don't want you to feel like your good deeds here are being punished... You deserve cookies, not getting yelled at... Please understand any criticism from me or anyone else (so far) in this thread is coming from a good place, meant to help
We all want the game to be successful, which means fun and rewarding for players and profitable for Cryptic, and the forums are loaded with ideas to those ends if you can sort through all the complaining and moaning... If it would be helpful, I'm sure many of us could help sift the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and organize and edit the discussions around what the community feels are the main issues in the game... We'd do that if there was some sort of signal from the dev team that we wouldn't just be yelling down a hole
Just a random question I had for the dev team, or any players who wanted to speak their mind. Why is there always so much resistance to change in the game? Everyone seems to want "balance", but they don't want the game to change. Is it because every change that is made must be a major undertaking? Is it because change generally is a massive 99% nerf or 300% buff?
Other games I have played loved changing just about every power in the game by 1-5% just about every major patch. These games probably have much larger development teams, or care more about fine-tuned balance, but Neverwinter seems to be on the opposite extreme. Why is there no change for months (or years) and then one massive overhaul that is left alone for another several months or years? Is it because players protest against nerfs or change so adamantly? Is it because it takes a ton of development time and testing to find that a power is used to much or too little?
There are many powers, feats, items, functions, mechanics, etc in the game that I could easily see getting something as small as a numerical change (for example a 5% increase to the existing effect) that would get them at least entertainably usable within the game, but often times these functions just remain untouched waiting for full blown reworks that take unknown amounts of development time to complete.
Wouldn't players become more accepting of nerfs or other changes if they knew that the change might be reversed or at least re-assessed every cycle with all the other unused/overpowered functions in the game? Even if only the top 1-3 over/under powered function were adjusted each cycle, it would be more than we have seen in the past, and even the smallest of changes can make a big impact eventually.
Nerfing a function by 1% each patch until it becomes unusable, and then buffing it by 1% each patch until it gets used again will tend towards balanced far more than the current, frozen state of the game. Not saying that is the best way to balance stuff out, but right now I think Neverwinter is at such a frozen extreme that it might be considered a valid tactic.
Imo it's because in this game more than others money is not easy to get, requires time, patience and you can lose a lot with a single nerf to an item you invested in with a little nerf (this game is a BiS competition). Grinding your character for one single thing is often very expensive (see enchants) therefore seeing an investment of let's say months lost because of a nerf can be pretty frustrating (see first bonding nerfs).
The neverending wish to be BiS makes it harder as it often forces you to invest in another thing rather than keep the said nerfed item (or even buffed item vs your normal item is an indirect nerf, see Vorpal ppl moaning when Lightning got buffed) and amplifies the frustration as it's almost like you lost "twice" your investment.
And more generally, people want benefic changes but hate making concessions.
To be honest, the biggest issue devs and mods are facing on the forums is the lack of communication. It's proven by the fact that people are so appreciative of post by @noworries#8859. I most definitely know that balancing a single class is hard, and balancing 2 classes or more with a relatively small dev team is a catastrophe waiting to happen, but we'd all appreciate to have more info on upcoming changes.
For instance, 2 things that interest me the most is - are we gonna get a level cap increase any time soon, and if so, are you holding the TR rework back until then? I mean, since we're gonna get more feats and powers and stuff, re-balancing TR, only to change it with new stuff, to have to rebalance it again doesn't sound like fun.
Also, a suggestion that would pretty much fix this entire problem - have a dev post on the preview feedback threads at least once a week. You don't even have to say what changes you're making, just acknowledge the fact that people are writing posts to try to help you, guys and girls.
(also, if you're not under non-disclosure agreement, when are we gonna get info on mod 13? this kind of info is what builds hype, and that's exactly what you want to do as much as you can)
As Yahtzee once said, "sharks are best tempted with meat, not pink wafer biscuits". We need the meaty info about upcoming changes, updates et cetera.
As well as: is it good that a capstone feat accounts for so much of the TR damage, and is such a go to choice for most players? And as you can guess with that line of discussion it becomes what would we change elsewhere to compensate for any adjustments to that feat/functionality. I think that is the main difference in viewpoints from the players and developers.
Hopefully this exact same conversation goes on around the OP as well, because the Justice tree is so dominant in OP builds that the class is basically a whole lot of cookies.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
In regards to what some other users have being saying about sacrificing new content for bug fixes and class reworks.
Really I think you're delaying the inevitable with focus more on cracking out new content. I think you'd find the community would appreciate MOD13 to come released with a SW AND TR rework with some of the old dungeons thrown in, I say old dungeons thrown in because that's not new content but is is something, than they would another grindy campaign to play through. Because ultimately, it doesn't matter how good the content you release is, it doesn't even matter how good the story/quest arc behind that is, players will still be sorely disappointed when the figure out that the class they really want to play the new MOD's content with is too broken or too underpowered to enjoy the content. Which in turn forces players into other classes and specific builds that make the content grindy. Cause face it, some people want a stealthy TR approach to the game, whilst others just want to GWF smash things. Catering to all players with a one size fits all approach to classes and playable content is and hasn't been working for the last 3 years and following the same formulae isn't going to fix that problem for you. Make room for the new by procedural bettering of the old. You will find players much more willing to stick around if they can do so in a manor that pleases them, and not your business model.
In regards to what some other users have being saying about sacrificing new content for bug fixes and class reworks.
Really I think you're delaying the inevitable with focus more on cracking out new content. I think you'd find the community would appreciate MOD13 to come released with a SW AND TR rework with some of the old dungeons thrown in, I say old dungeons thrown in because that's not new content but is is something, than they would another grindy campaign to play through. Because ultimately, it doesn't matter how good the content you release is, it doesn't even matter how good the story/quest arc behind that is, players will still be sorely disappointed when the figure out that the class they really want to play the new MOD's content with is too broken or too underpowered to enjoy the content. Which in turn forces players into other classes and specific builds that make the content grindy. Cause face it, some people want a stealthy TR approach to the game, whilst others just want to GWF smash things. Catering to all players with a one size fits all approach to classes and playable content is and hasn't been working for the last 3 years and following the same formulae isn't going to fix that problem for you. Make room for the new by procedural bettering of the old. You will find players much more willing to stick around if they can do so in a manor that pleases them, and not your business model.
They may be under contract with Wizards to put out the latest D&D module in Neverwinter form, on a regular schedule. They may just not be able to do what you ask.
In regards to what some other users have being saying about sacrificing new content for bug fixes and class reworks.
Really I think you're delaying the inevitable with focus more on cracking out new content. I think you'd find the community would appreciate MOD13 to come released with a SW AND TR rework with some of the old dungeons thrown in, I say old dungeons thrown in because that's not new content but is is something, than they would another grindy campaign to play through. Because ultimately, it doesn't matter how good the content you release is, it doesn't even matter how good the story/quest arc behind that is, players will still be sorely disappointed when the figure out that the class they really want to play the new MOD's content with is too broken or too underpowered to enjoy the content. Which in turn forces players into other classes and specific builds that make the content grindy. Cause face it, some people want a stealthy TR approach to the game, whilst others just want to GWF smash things. Catering to all players with a one size fits all approach to classes and playable content is and hasn't been working for the last 3 years and following the same formulae isn't going to fix that problem for you. Make room for the new by procedural bettering of the old. You will find players much more willing to stick around if they can do so in a manor that pleases them, and not your business model.
They may be under contract with Wizards to put out the latest D&D module in Neverwinter form, on a regular schedule. They may just not be able to do what you ask.
To be honest, I'm completely fine with them releasing POLISHED content later than releasing HAMSTER sooner. What I want is some more information. Just give as a juicy slab o' meat to bite in until we get to the actual dinner table. You see, there's a risk with eating before dinner, yes, but if you don't, you're gonna die of starvation. And they're teetering on that edge.
No more "send nudes" around here. Just "send info".
Thanks for the reply Noworries. What you say does make sense but as someone who runs a TR you must have experienced for yourself the class discrimination that comes from others regarding your TR (assuming you like to pug).
This is part fact, part ignorance and part snobbery - meaning that a well geared, well built and very experienced TR can somewhat close the gap with a competent GWF/HR of equal IL but not enough to pose a challenge to them. This is exacerbated by the complexity of the rotation and the length of time it takes for damage buffs to build (in a fight) compared to others.
I don't want to assist in turning this interesting thread into a topic about class balance so staying on topic, I would say that the biggest causes of resistance to change are twofold:
1. depth of communication (including test data) 2. confidence that any issues that arise from changes are addressed in a timely fashion (weeks not months)
There is a firmly held belief among players (based on experience) that a change to a class will not be re-addressed for a very long time and this leads to them freaking out when they think something may not work.
Whilst many players put forward ideas via these forums and often disagree with each other, they are more open to things put forward by the devs if:
a. they are given data that shows the change is valid b. they are given sufficient time to test the changes so that valid feedback has enough time to be incorporated in the update c. they know that the person who made the changes has the ability to make minor adjustments at a (reasonable) later date should anything unexpected occur.
If these procedures are in place there will be less end user resistance.
One thing I'd like to ask: do the dev team have 'class champions' for each class that can talk knowledgeably within your discussions?
Disagree. Maybe it will be cheap from my side, i am not gona write whole stories or elaboration here but TR is not underpowered class atm compared to GWF, my TONG runs with TR are faster than runs with GWFs. Plase don't lie and learn to play TR properly. Not sure about HR class which need overview since he can come up with TRs and GWFs damage.
Thanks for the reply Noworries. What you say does make sense but as someone who runs a TR you must have experienced for yourself the class discrimination that comes from others regarding your TR (assuming you like to pug).
This is part fact, part ignorance and part snobbery - meaning that a well geared, well built and very experienced TR can somewhat close the gap with a competent GWF/HR of equal IL but not enough to pose a challenge to them. This is exacerbated by the complexity of the rotation and the length of time it takes for damage buffs to build (in a fight) compared to others.
I don't want to assist in turning this interesting thread into a topic about class balance so staying on topic, I would say that the biggest causes of resistance to change are twofold:
1. depth of communication (including test data) 2. confidence that any issues that arise from changes are addressed in a timely fashion (weeks not months)
There is a firmly held belief among players (based on experience) that a change to a class will not be re-addressed for a very long time and this leads to them freaking out when they think something may not work.
Whilst many players put forward ideas via these forums and often disagree with each other, they are more open to things put forward by the devs if:
a. they are given data that shows the change is valid b. they are given sufficient time to test the changes so that valid feedback has enough time to be incorporated in the update c. they know that the person who made the changes has the ability to make minor adjustments at a (reasonable) later date should anything unexpected occur.
If these procedures are in place there will be less end user resistance.
One thing I'd like to ask: do the dev team have 'class champions' for each class that can talk knowledgeably within your discussions?
Disagree. Maybe it will be cheap from my side, i am not gona write whole stories or elaboration here but TR is not underpowered class atm compared to GWF, my TONG runs with TR are faster than runs with GWFs. Plase don't lie and learn to play TR properly. Not sure about HR class which need overview since he can come up with TRs and GWFs damage.
Then you need to find better GWFs lol - and yes, if you are going to accuse someone of (a) lying & (b) not understanding a class, I think you should indeed elaborate.
There are far too many v. experienced players on this forum for you to get away with such baseless statements so if you're going to say something like that you need to supply facts and figures such as comparative item levels, random players or individuals (e.g. I know of one TR that can match the DPS of a typical (decent) GWF in T9G but I don't know any that can beat the best GWFs that I run with.
Also bear in mind that I run support in T9G (DC/OP) and my TR and GWF are of equal item level - as such I have no reason to lie.
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
As for the final question, that seems more like a question for players. At any given point there is something not being worked on, which some segment of the player base wants to be our focus, due to not being able to work on everything all the time. What communication does help with that type of situation?
Firstly this is not an attack or critism.
From my point of view many players quit the game in mid level due to no real content for mid level players. Granted they should be doing previous mod endgame dungeons, The problem here is that most of the last 3 mod's dungeons are worthless for mid level players to play. The last real content for mid level players was Castle Never.
Even tough mid level players can do FBI or MSP this will take them 1-2 hours to do and there reward from the point of view of a mid level player is worthless.
Another thing you might want to look at is the worthless Item level you give to players in rank 20 guilds ... they basically get 1k item level that means nothing (pvp and utility) removing this will give players a better sense if a player is strong enough to run with them .
A player in a small guild with an item level of 15 k will not get in group because a player with 15.5k il get that spot(200 il from pvp and 500 il from mount speed for example). Even if 1k of that item level is worthless in PVE dungeons. As a mid level player in a small guild i get extremely agitated if i am told i am to low item level to do something by a player from a rank 20 guild with 1k higher il than me. that means the same item level for useful items in dungeons.
It feels(and i have discussed this with other players that agree some that moved on to Final fantasy) mid level players are being neglected in a major way and the gap between mid level and end game is growing. In the long run this will hurt end game too as they will have few and fewer players to do content with. as most mid level player will move to greener pastures. As i recently told a player from my point of view ther was NO NEW CONTENT in 2017 and this player a 14.8k player agreed with me. At some point most will just get tired of being carried through dungeons. then stop progressing then stop playing.
This is a lot. sorry for the rant just wanted people to know that this game does not only exist out of end game players
There are more than BIS players in this game RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ???? FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
As for the final question, that seems more like a question for players. At any given point there is something not being worked on, which some segment of the player base wants to be our focus, due to not being able to work on everything all the time. What communication does help with that type of situation?
Firstly this is not an attack or critism.
From my point of view many players quit the game in mid level due to no real content for mid level players. Granted they should be doing previous mod endgame dungeons, The problem here is that most of the last 3 mod's dungeons are worthless for mid level players to play. The last real content for mid level players was Castle Never.
Even tough mid level players can do FBI or MSP this will take them 1-2 hours to do and there reward from the point of view of a mid level player is worthless.
Another thing you might want to look at is the worthless Item level you give to players in rank 20 guilds ... they basically get 1k item level that means nothing (pvp and utility) removing this will give players a better sense if a player is strong enough to run with them .
A player in a small guild with an item level of 15 k will not get in group because a player with 15.5k il get that spot(200 il from pvp and 500 il from mount speed for example). Even if 1k of that item level is worthless in PVE dungeons. As a mid level player in a small guild i get extremely agitated if i am told i am to low item level to do something by a player from a rank 20 guild with 1k higher il than me. that means the same item level for useful items in dungeons.
It feels(and i have discussed this with other players that agree some that moved on to Final fantasy) mid level players are being neglected in a major way and the gap between mid level and end game is growing. In the long run this will hurt end game too as they will have few and fewer players to do content with. as most mid level player will move to greener pastures. As i recently told a player from my point of view ther was NO NEW CONTENT in 2017 and this player a 14.8k player agreed with me. At some point most will just get tired of being carried through dungeons. then stop progressing then stop playing.
This is a lot. sorry for the rant just wanted people to know that this game does not only exist out of end game players
Yeah, this is definitely a problem. I'm what could be considered a permanently mid-IL player, even though I've been playing since Mod 1, because I dislike guilds, don't play 4-6 hours a day, and like having more than one character. Everything seemed ok up until Mod 10 when they introduced T3 dungeons. I invested millions into my DC (into a spec I disliked) so I could actually play mSVA more than once a week, but then adding guild boons into IL torpedoed even that. It's been a downward spiral since then between HAMSTER T3 dungeon rewards, the bonding nerf, getting rid of AD from epic dungeons by locking it behind a nigh-unplayable ERQ (*eyeballs FBI and MSP*), and what I'll call TONG Darwinism ('survival of the BIS').
I've been grinding Winterfest because why not (I think my total take is probably approaching 3M AD), but overall my interest has been fading. I've more-or-less resigned myself to permanently being a Tier behind on dungeons for the foreseeable future. I'm torn between gutting my alts for my main (which isn't all that wanted in T3s regardless) or continue maintaining my alts, and having to even ponder that decision is disheartening. I'm spending more time on other games. I'm not even all that excited about Mod 13.
I dislike change for changes shake(sp?). Change must have some reasoning, unless you add something that wasn't available before. I'll give you that, there are changes that seem logical and they haven't made - they haven't for example added solo version ability yet for dungeons(with the players' companions I mean) and it is something I and others have been asking for a really long time now.
DoTA is a very bad example to bring up though, being pure PVP and all. Eveyone bringing it up is in the wrong game and should leave to play that one. There ARE other games that may not and SHOULD NOT be like DoTA. Their best bet is focusing to solo players and those grouping against PVE imo. That's their biggest problem that they try to do both PVE and PVP(which I absolutely hate as a gaming kind and one of the reasons I'm not playing STO much these days is that they keep increasing the PVP content and options, as opposed to PVE).
It would be nice if they could get the best of both worlds, but it is evident they can't. So follow on the difference(PVE instead of others doing PVP or both PVP and PVE, which are countless I might add, like SWTOR another one that's failing to realise where its player base could be, Marvel Heroes tried that too and look were it is now) and go PVE in my opinion.
Else we can always return to solo based games and leave the world of MMO to DoTA, LoL and Warcraft players, change or no change. At least we can mod our favourite solo based games to our liking.
one thing that I would like to see in protector's enclave would be a change to the instant where they should make it to where if your not doing anything but just sitting in protector's enclave and spamming epic stuff and not using lfg for it that your chats should get banned right away where you can not use chat tell 2 minutes is over same if you had to change instants to talk or I bet it would stop players from wanting to spam in zone ever again for how this would be helpful from people having to speak up after they get annoyed by this
I certainly respect @noworries#8859 as I think he really does try to view things from all angles as do most of the developers. I think the vast majority of players realized bonding and refinement needed the changes even if many couldn't admit it; still I think I think we see his comments earlier focus on Rogue, Warlock and Wizard as 3 particular classes that after some recent tweaks or nerfs they realize still perhaps require some adjustments.
In another thread within the forum there is a discussion about Control Wizard's - Control or Control Resistance powers having mostly been neglected for a long period of time. Some have identified it's likely because many end game mini bosses / bosses have so much resistance or control many try to focus their builds on damage; while a Wizard can do respectable to good damage it still comes no where close to a GWF or Warlock. Warlocks depending on Paragon or Feat path can also do considerable healing.
So my only question for the other thread would be why don't we see more Gear, Artifacts but far more importantly new Enchantments or Runestones that offer boost to Control or Control Resistance? Many Wizard's if their 'lucky' barely have both those powers with a value over 1000, I suspect there are some other skills or abilities for other classes that are similar.
I certainly respect @noworries#8859 as I think he really does try to view things from all angles as do most of the developers. I think the vast majority of players realized bonding and refinement needed the changes even if many couldn't admit it; still I think I think we see his comments earlier focus on Rogue, Warlock and Wizard as 3 particular classes that after some recent tweaks or nerfs they realize still perhaps require some adjustments.
In another thread within the forum there is a discussion about Control Wizard's - Control or Control Resistance powers having mostly been neglected for a long period of time. Some have identified it's likely because many end game mini bosses / bosses have so much resistance or control many try to focus their builds on damage; while a Wizard can do respectable to good damage it still comes no where close to a GWF or Warlock. Warlocks depending on Paragon or Feat path can also do considerable healing.
So my only question for the other thread would be why don't we see more Gear, Artifacts but far more importantly new Enchantments or Runestones that offer boost to Control or Control Resistance? Many Wizard's if their 'lucky' barely have both those powers with a value over 1000, I suspect there are some other skills or abilities for other classes that are similar.
I am one of those that constantly complain about CW's needing attention, but i have to say control is not a problem(i used to think it was) on my cw i can control most mobs (chult and somi included) and you are not supposed to control a BOSS. That would be like the perma bubble problem all over again. DPS on CW is however a masive problem a cw have no chance to out dps a GWF of same Item Level in tong for example and that is completely wrong in my opinion
There are more than BIS players in this game RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ???? FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
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kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
This got WAY off topic. I have chopped off the derailment. Please keep the thread on topic. Thanks!
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox 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!
From my point of view many players quit the game in mid level due to no real content for mid level players.
I have been playing for a few months, got a few toons to LV 70, which I feel you have to because power levels take a complete nose dive as soon at you hit 70 and you find some classes get mobbed and slaughtered passed 70 doing PVE.
Getting to the next tier is taking FOREVER. Its a grind, its not what you would call fun, and it really is kinda making me rethink my time in the game. I just spent my first real money on the gave with VIP but so far that seems a waste with no good return and frankly I HATE gambling/lockbox BS which I feel is dishonest with no transparancy of change.
I want to give you my money, I don't want to play PVP so I don't care what gear you have I just want to run the content with reasonable survivability with ZERO grind. Here, take my money!
Comments
- An accessible high-level roadmap of what is being worked on for the next ~2-3 releases (at least in general terms, like many companies do).
- Commentary on why certain items are being prioritized to help players have shared context with developers
- A list of items that are on the horizon, not yet on the production schedule but may be up for addition in the future
All of these would need to be kept relatively up-to-date in order for them to work.But in my opinion, looking back on 2017 we probably had a bit too much rush-to-release which very likely created rework / bugfixing overhead. Some additional time on preview would have likely saved effort overall (and prevented some exploit-y sadness). And yes, refining changes were handled better than others.
To be clear, I'm not saying everything is bad. And I'm not saying there isn't an effort being put forward. I just think there's a lot of room to grow, and it's often good to be mindful and retrospective this time of year hah
Thank you for engaging with us on this thread, I really appreciate the candor and depth of your responses!
I do understand that your time is limited and you can’t address every thread. That is why you have a community manager to help sort through a lot of the noise. The TR concerns haven’t been an isolated thread here or there. We’ve had numerous threads, including several recently- the latest with over 100 responses.
And please understand that we have been asking-begging for ANY news. Telling us the TR Rework is on the back burner might not be the answer we want- especially considering the recent work on SWs, but it is something. It tells us that you care enough to be straight up with us. The total lack of communication at all, tells us that you don’t respect the TR community enough to do anything but ignore us. That is worse than bad news, IMHO. We have even said- over multiple threads- that we’d rather have bad news than no news. Also, ignored.
A little conciliation can go a long way. You all can get a lot of mileage out of recognizing to the community that you realize you said to us almost a year ago on the live stream that TRs were at the top of your list. Saying to us now that it hasn’t happened “as quickly as you hoped” kinda doesn’t do the community justice. It’s not like an extra half hour wait to get the oil changed, you know?
As for the last part, what else can the player base do, but post on the official forums? The TR community has posted dozens of times, with hundreds and probably thousands of individual comments regarding this issue. The player base is doing all they can. Be honest and straight up with us, and that amount of consideration will be much more greatly appreciated than being completely ignored.
She Looked Lvl 18
Here is my Blog
@armadeonx said
"Whilst many players put forward ideas via these forums and often disagree with each other, they are more open to things put forward by the devs if:
a. they are given data that shows the change is valid
b. they are given sufficient time to test the changes so that valid feedback has enough time to be incorporated in the update
c. they know that the person who made the changes has the ability to make minor adjustments at a (reasonable) later date should anything unexpected occur"
Exactly what is needed to be done with PVP changes and Cc changes this mod (the pvp mod according to the devs ) ,,we are still waiting for any reply at all in the pvp changes preview forum section regarding our feedback
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1234304/official-feedback-thread-pvp-changes/p1
it was more like (devs ) here are the pvp CC changes guys and oh by the way you have 1 week to test it before it goes live ..with no chance to tweak or alter anything ..we hope you like it see you in another 6 mods ..
you guys completely changed how pvp CC works and gave us no input at all into the reasoning and design philosophy it seems more like randomly trying anything to shake things up and hope for the best
could you please have a Dev explain the pvp CC change design philosophy for pvp and why they feel there is too much control and stun locks etc thus implementing it .
and why you still allow broken items/boons to have piercing Cc control that go right thru CC and bypass your shinny new system you guys worked so hard on causing further frustration
thxs
Many thanks for coming back on this. I've been playing NWO since it went live, but in the last two months I logged in only a few times and for a few minutes. I still keep an eye on the game but I feel that something is lost and is not coming back.
Let me explain a bit what I feel:
Neverwinter in the beginning was an exciting game. It was very "tridimensional". I came to NWO from a turn-based 2D MMO and it was really awesome to see how positioning mattered, how control and environment were important (throwing enemies off ledges), how you could beat a dungeon in different ways (I still remember how I tanked Malabog around a pillar with my HR). Damage was not killing you in a second and there was time to heal.
Now it's bidimensional again. Control is dead because all things that are even remotely dangerous are control immune. You don't need to dodge most of the time (every TONG run I did made me sad at the second boss when people told me to just hug the boss and do my damage rotation and the same happened when they told me to ignore runes on the ground in MSVA...).
Positioning in most important battles (bosses) is trivial as there is only one boss. It just feels like the game I played before where gear and rotation where the only important thing....
I understand that, with a limited team, streamlining the game makes it easier to keep up with all the issues. But really now it's too streamlined. It's down to just painfully and slowly raising your stats in little chunks doing the same dungeon over and over.
There was a thrill in my veins when I got the last piece of my Royal Guard set. There was thrill when I dropped the Dead Dragon off-hand from Shatterspine. Now the best thing I can get is a refining stone and I need something like 90 of those to get to the end. It's as exciting as filling a bathtub with water using a glass.... That's why people want optimized runs, because it takes so much time to do anything that you don't want to lose it.
In the beginning of the game grinding was not so relevant, you had more time to enjoy alts (I was running six pretty good alts during mod5, now I can't cope with two), you had more time to help others and you had more time to try crazy stuff.
I like change, it's fun. I was one of the few people who loved mod6 because I had to rethink everything I was doing before. I did all the leveling from 60 to 70 in my templar armor just for the challenge of running with 22k hit points in a new world of pain
Sorry for the rant... I still keep an eye on the game (looking forward to next mod!) and hope things will change for good (at least for me).
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Bugtoberfest was simply awesome, and most of us really do see all the effort and energy you guys are putting into making the game truly better, but then we get Broken Sandy Pants which, even when fixed, still break the attempted repairs to PvP CC... In the PvP rework itself all CC was nerfed (despite the tiny PvP community's objections) with the exception of the most cheesy CC abilities for one class, which now dominates PvP... Owlbear Cub pet was subject to a hidden, undisclosed nerf designed to limit the already sad DPS on a niche build for what literally everyone agrees is the most neglected class in the game, and the nerf wasn't even included on the tooltip... Two event mounts have been released with non-functional or inconsistent Mount Insignia Bonuses/Slots...
The list could go on, but I don't want you to feel like your good deeds here are being punished... You deserve cookies, not getting yelled at... Please understand any criticism from me or anyone else (so far) in this thread is coming from a good place, meant to help
We all want the game to be successful, which means fun and rewarding for players and profitable for Cryptic, and the forums are loaded with ideas to those ends if you can sort through all the complaining and moaning... If it would be helpful, I'm sure many of us could help sift the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and organize and edit the discussions around what the community feels are the main issues in the game... We'd do that if there was some sort of signal from the dev team that we wouldn't just be yelling down a hole
Which brings us back to: Thanks again for all the great feedback @noworries#8859
The neverending wish to be BiS makes it harder as it often forces you to invest in another thing rather than keep the said nerfed item (or even buffed item vs your normal item is an indirect nerf, see Vorpal ppl moaning when Lightning got buffed) and amplifies the frustration as it's almost like you lost "twice" your investment.
And more generally, people want benefic changes but hate making concessions.
I most definitely know that balancing a single class is hard, and balancing 2 classes or more with a relatively small dev team is a catastrophe waiting to happen, but we'd all appreciate to have more info on upcoming changes.
For instance, 2 things that interest me the most is - are we gonna get a level cap increase any time soon, and if so, are you holding the TR rework back until then? I mean, since we're gonna get more feats and powers and stuff, re-balancing TR, only to change it with new stuff, to have to rebalance it again doesn't sound like fun.
Also, a suggestion that would pretty much fix this entire problem - have a dev post on the preview feedback threads at least once a week. You don't even have to say what changes you're making, just acknowledge the fact that people are writing posts to try to help you, guys and girls.
(also, if you're not under non-disclosure agreement, when are we gonna get info on mod 13? this kind of info is what builds hype, and that's exactly what you want to do as much as you can)
As Yahtzee once said, "sharks are best tempted with meat, not pink wafer biscuits". We need the meaty info about upcoming changes, updates et cetera.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
In regards to what some other users have being saying about sacrificing new content for bug fixes and class reworks.
Really I think you're delaying the inevitable with focus more on cracking out new content. I think you'd find the community would appreciate MOD13 to come released with a SW AND TR rework with some of the old dungeons thrown in, I say old dungeons thrown in because that's not new content but is is something, than they would another grindy campaign to play through. Because ultimately, it doesn't matter how good the content you release is, it doesn't even matter how good the story/quest arc behind that is, players will still be sorely disappointed when the figure out that the class they really want to play the new MOD's content with is too broken or too underpowered to enjoy the content. Which in turn forces players into other classes and specific builds that make the content grindy.
Cause face it, some people want a stealthy TR approach to the game, whilst others just want to GWF smash things. Catering to all players with a one size fits all approach to classes and playable content is and hasn't been working for the last 3 years and following the same formulae isn't going to fix that problem for you.
Make room for the new by procedural bettering of the old. You will find players much more willing to stick around if they can do so in a manor that pleases them, and not your business model.
No more "send nudes" around here. Just "send info".
There are far too many v. experienced players on this forum for you to get away with such baseless statements so if you're going to say something like that you need to supply facts and figures such as comparative item levels, random players or individuals (e.g. I know of one TR that can match the DPS of a typical (decent) GWF in T9G but I don't know any that can beat the best GWFs that I run with.
Also bear in mind that I run support in T9G (DC/OP) and my TR and GWF are of equal item level - as such I have no reason to lie.
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
Jk, Happy new year @noworries#8859
From my point of view many players quit the game in mid level due to no real content for mid level players. Granted they should be doing previous mod endgame dungeons, The problem here is that most of the last 3 mod's dungeons are worthless for mid level players to play. The last real content for mid level players was Castle Never.
Even tough mid level players can do FBI or MSP this will take them 1-2 hours to do and there reward from the point of view of a mid level player is worthless.
Another thing you might want to look at is the worthless Item level you give to players in rank 20 guilds ... they basically get 1k item level that means nothing (pvp and utility) removing this will give players a better sense if a player is strong enough to run with them .
A player in a small guild with an item level of 15 k will not get in group because a player with 15.5k il get that spot(200 il from pvp and 500 il from mount speed for example). Even if 1k of that item level is worthless in PVE dungeons. As a mid level player in a small guild i get extremely agitated if i am told i am to low item level to do something by a player from a rank 20 guild with 1k higher il than me. that means the same item level for useful items in dungeons.
It feels(and i have discussed this with other players that agree some that moved on to Final fantasy) mid level players are being neglected in a major way and the gap between mid level and end game is growing. In the long run this will hurt end game too as they will have few and fewer players to do content with. as most mid level player will move to greener pastures. As i recently told a player from my point of view ther was NO NEW CONTENT in 2017 and this player a 14.8k player agreed with me. At some point most will just get tired of being carried through dungeons. then stop progressing then stop playing.
This is a lot. sorry for the rant just wanted people to know that this game does not only exist out of end game players
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
I've been grinding Winterfest because why not (I think my total take is probably approaching 3M AD), but overall my interest has been fading. I've more-or-less resigned myself to permanently being a Tier behind on dungeons for the foreseeable future. I'm torn between gutting my alts for my main (which isn't all that wanted in T3s regardless) or continue maintaining my alts, and having to even ponder that decision is disheartening. I'm spending more time on other games. I'm not even all that excited about Mod 13.
I'm only here as I enjoy some of the content and its a hobby that I spend an hour or so on a day. It refreshes my mind for other things.
And as previously stated the journey to end game doesn't really teach you any tactics to survive the BIG hitting end game MOBS in FBI...
DoTA is a very bad example to bring up though, being pure PVP and all. Eveyone bringing it up is in the wrong game and should leave to play that one. There ARE other games that may not and SHOULD NOT be like DoTA. Their best bet is focusing to solo players and those grouping against PVE imo. That's their biggest problem that they try to do both PVE and PVP(which I absolutely hate as a gaming kind and one of the reasons I'm not playing STO much these days is that they keep increasing the PVP content and options, as opposed to PVE).
It would be nice if they could get the best of both worlds, but it is evident they can't. So follow on the difference(PVE instead of others doing PVP or both PVP and PVE, which are countless I might add, like SWTOR another one that's failing to realise where its player base could be, Marvel Heroes tried that too and look were it is now) and go PVE in my opinion.
Else we can always return to solo based games and leave the world of MMO to DoTA, LoL and Warcraft players, change or no change. At least we can mod our favourite solo based games to our liking.
In another thread within the forum there is a discussion about Control Wizard's - Control or Control Resistance powers having mostly been neglected for a long period of time. Some have identified it's likely because many end game mini bosses / bosses have so much resistance or control many try to focus their builds on damage; while a Wizard can do respectable to good damage it still comes no where close to a GWF or Warlock. Warlocks depending on Paragon or Feat path can also do considerable healing.
So my only question for the other thread would be why don't we see more Gear, Artifacts but far more importantly new Enchantments or Runestones that offer boost to Control or Control Resistance? Many Wizard's if their 'lucky' barely have both those powers with a value over 1000, I suspect there are some other skills or abilities for other classes that are similar.
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
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!
Getting to the next tier is taking FOREVER. Its a grind, its not what you would call fun, and it really is kinda making me rethink my time in the game. I just spent my first real money on the gave with VIP but so far that seems a waste with no good return and frankly I HATE gambling/lockbox BS which I feel is dishonest with no transparancy of change.
I want to give you my money, I don't want to play PVP so I don't care what gear you have I just want to run the content with reasonable survivability with ZERO grind. Here, take my money!