What is with leveling dungeons?
quickbeam
Member Posts: 6 Arc User
I'm not trying to denounce the game as terrible, because as I said I'm mostly enjoying it. Why not let 70's join lower level dungeons by themselves and leave them out of the queues of folks who would actually like to experience the game? It just seems like a really bad way to introduce someone to a game, and hopefully it's not telling of things to come for me in later levels. Anyway, thanks for listening, and if someone could offer me an explanation as to why it's set up this way, I'd appreciate it. Bonus points if it's actually someone from the company.
Best Answer
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wintersmoke
Member Posts: 1,641 Arc User
.quickbeam#6209 said:Hey everyone. I haven't been playing long, and I'm just leveling my first character now. Overall I'm having a fun experience playing the game, and would like to continue checking it out, but dungeons have been a real turn off. I'm playing a healer, which I usually have great times with as supporting a party is very rewarding, yet every dungeon I unlock is as unchallenging and fun as running through a barren map. Instead of dynamic team combat, I'm met with more level 70's than anyone remotely within myself or the dungeon's level which only serves to test me on how fast I can run through the instance. I'd really love to appreciate these encounters instead of rushing through them so fast that I'm left barely remembering what went on or where I was.
I'm not trying to denounce the game as terrible, because as I said I'm mostly enjoying it. Why not let 70's join lower level dungeons by themselves and leave them out of the queues of folks who would actually like to experience the game? It just seems like a really bad way to introduce someone to a game, and hopefully it's not telling of things to come for me in later levels. Anyway, thanks for listening, and if someone could offer me an explanation as to why it's set up this way, I'd appreciate it. Bonus points if it's actually someone from the company.
The last mod introduced Random Queues, which can be explained by the tread linked below. Basically, the dungeons below level 70 were added to the Random Queue & an AD reward was added to encourage higher level players to help. There have been mixed results. The devs say that they are watching the situation, and will make adjustments accordingly. Welcome to that game, and try not to judge it by the dungeons alone. Good luck!
www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/10717384
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Answers
Everyone said it would be a HAMSTER experience and mostly it is
All players have the opportunity to join "queue groups" if they want to play with others at a specific character level or play style - but of course that does take a little more time and effort than just clicking on "join random queue" and for many players they are not willing to invest that extra time and effort.
I believe one of the stated purposes for going to random queue dungeons was to: "Incentivize helping players who are new to a queue to foster a positive environment", of course this tends not to happen when one or more party members abandon other party members...
My advice, run the dungeon in a manner you choose - one that you enjoy and you don't believe inconveniences other players too greatly but if someone takes off and leaves you behind it seems they aren't too concerned about you - so perhaps you shouldn't be too concerned about them when it comes to "inconveniencing" them.
If a player runs ahead and kills everything in their path feel free to enjoy the scenery and hopefully you will be able to run the next dungeon as a "party" and engage in more of the dungeon content on a subsequent run.
If a player runs ahead and doesn’t kill everything in their path you can either choose to engage them, or if you have the ability just try to out run them until you catch up with the other party member(s) (the bad guys usually follow) – then you will have your dynamic team combat, whether the other players want it or not, since the final gate usually cannot be opened until all players are assembled and are out of combat mode.
However, since mod 12b, most people do not want to touch Epic dungeon RQ (they don't want FBI, MSP). They just send the character to level dungeon for the quick AD. If they want to earn AD from dungeon, the game more or less force them to do that.
But the powers that be decided that forcing players to play together and not allowing them to pick which dungeons they want to run to earn AD would be a good thing and everyone would merrily get along.. must be wonderful to live in such a dream world.
Instead the random queue has become a source of dread for most players.
Will I get a dungeon I absolutely hate running.. again?
Will I get IG and be held hostage while the rest of the team decides to go for gold.. again?
Will my requirement meeting but obviously under geared character get FBI with other requirement meeting but obviously under geared players... again?
Will I have to waste my time either repeatedly failing a dungeon because the team refuses to give up or waste my time by abandoning it and getting a leaver penalty.. again?
So you see, the random queue system is an inconvenience to us all regardless of level.
Of course, it depends on which weeklies.
I only run 4 AD weeklies for my characters these days.
Dread Ring weeky: 3 minutes
Sharanader: 5 minutes
Portal: 5 minutes
Baphomet: 5 minutes
Each give 6750 AD (4500 + 50% AD bonus).
Solo: no need to wait for queue. No need to wait for people to go to the circle. No need to use the best gear.
I stopped running Levelling dungeons, I don't care how good the AD is, I've been called an HAMSTER for killing everything and an HAMSTER for running with pugs and letting them use their powers.
Even when I killed everything, I always stopped at each door and let them activate it, if there was another high level 70 in the group that was pointless so I would just keep an eye on the pug lagging behind just in case they needed help, but mini boss seals took priority, those I used to buy R5's, once I had those seals I could be more protective.
But pugs HAMSTER any way you play and I'm not a bloody mind reader, so HAMSTER them and HAMSTER the stupid system that gave me grief, I don't boot this game up just to get griefed.
It sure beats queuing for a random dungeon, then complaining about it, then going back to queue for another random dungeon only to repeat the process as far as I'm concerned, very commendable.
I quite like RQ Skirmishes but it still needs tweaking, the ugly band aid you have currently of removing Chult Skirmish just seems amateurish, am not saying that is the only tweak that queue needs but it is most definitely the one I think of most, unfortunately, it will also be the hardest, so am not expecting any fix until the Skirmsih environment itself changes to the extent where that fix is needed becomes considerably easier.
I think I made my opinion clear on Random Levelling Dungeons, I don't need to repeat myself.
RED should never have MSP and FBI in it, I know they've been power creeped to pre-nerf CN levels but if someone thinks a PUG eToS ready group or even a post-nerf CN PUG group can queue for either of those and complete them, let alone complete them in a reasonable time, reasonable being 1 hour in my opinion then they are smoking something.
Lastly, if you have ever complained about how bad PUGs can be whether it's on this forum or complained about in your guild/alliance/private channels even if it was just to give the impression you can play better than you are able I hope you will spare me your stories of that one time you PUGged FBI and did it in 20 minutes.
And by stories and not story I mean that "one time story" themes and variations of such stories AND you have complained about the uselesness of PUGs in general in whatever capacity.
If you are a PUG lover, pls feel free to spread the PUG love / PUG life.
Video just for PUG lovers:
> Why should the leveling dungeons be solely for the level 70 characters?
>
> Just to clear something up for you, there is no such thing as "levelling dungeons". The correct term in game is "random dungeon" and this often has normal placed before or in the middle it to differentiate it fully from "random epic dungeon".
Don’t you HAVE to complete Cloak Tower to get to another level of the game? Same holds true for most of those T1 dungeons, hence they are called leveling dungeons.
e.g. from Dev's statement regarding RQ.
Random Queues for Leveling Up
On to the last question! ‘How are leveling queues affected?’ Both Random: Skirmish and Random: Dungeon will be available for players below level 70. There are currently some rather poorly messaged experience bonuses at the end of leveling dungeons. Those XP bonuses have been moved into the random queue system.
Now, when a player completes a random skirmish or dungeon below level 70, instead of seals they will receive a large amount of XP. The XP will be clearly displayed in the random queue window. Overall the amount of experience points earned from dungeons and skirmishes has significantly risen as a result of these changes, especially for those players in the level 60-69 range.
I mentioned earlier that a player must be eligible for all of the queues in a random queue, however, there is in fact one exception: level. If a player is ineligible to queue for a certain queue in the random queue because they are too low level, they will still be able to queue. Basically, this means that even if you are level 30 and only have access to a limited subset of the dungeons in Random: Dungeon you will still be able to queue for a random dungeon.
This says so much more about the thought processes for some higher level players than anything I could have posted – as does this comment… Problem for whom exactly… higher level and level 70 players who are only in the those leveling dungeons for quick and easy astral diamonds instead of to actually run, enjoy and experience the content?
As for there being "no such thing as leveling dungeons" that doesn't appear to be a factual statement.
A lot of dungeons are required for level players to complete their quests trees... The Cloak Tower for instance is mandatory for completing the quest path Tower District Deed which awards the player one Symbol of Savaras and a Beginner’s Craftsman set. The Gray Wolf Den is required to complete the Vellosk Deed quest path which rewards the player with a Flawless Sapphire and two Symbols of Savaras. The Pirate King’s Retreat is mandatory to complete the Pirate’s of Skyhold Deed which rewards the player with another two Symbols of Savaras and a Lesser Power Armor kit…. And there are many more examples available in the quest log.
And not to put too fine a point on it but “Official Neverwinter Wiki” it lists: The Cloak Tower, Cragmire Crypts, the Gray Wolf Den, the Pirate King’s Retreat, the Frozen Heart. Spellplague Caverns, The Temple of the Spider, and the Caverns of Karrundax all as “leveling dungeons”…
“To enter a dungeon you must use the queue system. Leveling dungeons require 3 players and Epic dungeons require 5 players. All dungeons have a minimum level required, and epic dungeons have an item level requirement. Epic dungeons require 1 Tank, 1 Healer, and 3 DPS characters to queue if you join a public queue, private queues bypass this restriction.”
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Dungeon
Face facts, random dungeons are “leveling dungeons”, just because the developers decided to put a random feature on them instead of allowing people to pick and choose which dungeons they want to run does not change their designations.
Yes all of that content and those quest trees can be ignored and a player will still level up, but each one of those quests are required for any player attempting to play the content in the manner it was designed and complete their lists of quests on the quest trees, instead of just running content primarily for astral diamonds.
They already have dungeons that are for 70+ only, they are called epic dungeons. But because of how Cryptic has elected to do the epic dungeon queue you have folks who are 70th level that can't queue for the epic dungeons and if you block them from the leveling dungeons then they will not be able to queue at all.
That is why the one solution suggested over and over is to split the epic dungeons queue into one for the T1-2 and one for the T3 epic dungeons. This would at least allow more 70+ characters to use the epic queues.
2) Higher level characters should assist (slow the HAMSTER down) to help the levelers. Not bulldoze through the content and have the levelers pick up the drops.
3) Don't be a HAMSTER.