You don't need to do all these changes. Far too complex.
Do this:
Leveling Queue - All Pre-70 content plus all Mod 1 & Mod 2 content Skirmish Queue - All Level 70 Skirmishes (with the possible exception of Illusionist's Gambit) Intermediate Queue - All Level 70 Dungeons between Mods 3-9 (KR, ESOT, ELOL, ETOS, EGWD, ECC, CN) Advanced Queue - All Level 70 Dungeons from Mod 10 on (FBI, MSP, TONG) but excluding Castle Ravenloft Raid/Trial Queue - All Level 70 content that requires more than 5 players (Tiamat, Demogorgon, Svardborg, Cradle)
Get rid of putting Castle Ravenloft in its own queue. People will not run it in the 3/1/1 format, and people will especially not solo random queue for it and expect to finish.
As far as RQ rewards, give a chest that grants the player a choice of RP, Rough AD, Dungeon Shards, something like that. That way, players can run the harder queues with their mains and get the big AD rewards, and players can run the easier queues with their alts and get the RP or Dungeon Shards rewards instead if they are already capped out on Rough AD. Plus it will help smaller guilds working on upgrading their Strongholds.
You don't need to do all these changes. Far too complex.
Do this:
Leveling Queue - All Pre-70 content plus all Mod 1 & Mod 2 content Skirmish Queue - All Level 70 Skirmishes (with the possible exception of Illusionist's Gambit) Intermediate Queue - All Level 70 Dungeons between Mods 3-9 (KR, ESOT, ELOL, ETOS, EGWD, ECC, CN) Advanced Queue - All Level 70 Dungeons from Mod 10 on (FBI, MSP, TONG) but excluding Castle Ravenloft Raid/Trial Queue - All Level 70 content that requires more than 5 players (Tiamat, Demogorgon, Svardborg, Cradle)
Get rid of putting Castle Ravenloft in its own queue. People will not run it in the 3/1/1 format, and people will especially not solo random queue for it and expect to finish.
As far as RQ rewards, give a chest that grants the player a choice of RP, Rough AD, Dungeon Shards, something like that. That way, players can run the harder queues with their mains and get the big AD rewards, and players can run the easier queues with their alts and get the RP or Dungeon Shards rewards instead if they are already capped out on Rough AD. Plus it will help smaller guilds working on upgrading their Strongholds.
I'm not thrilled about to the 100k cap but I see your point. Please don't make the random bonus an account thing, running a few randoms on my multiple characters is how I enjoy the game when I don't have time to do endgame content with my main.
We also made a major change to leaver penalty with this update. Leaver penalty will now be account wide, and logging onto second character while the first is in a public queue with leaver penalty active will now boot the first character and inflict leaver penalty.
While penalize the characters switching out of queue is to be commended, the account wide penalty is extreme. You mean of I get that dreadful, fix-timed, gold-bugged POM and leave the team, it will make all my avas penalized? NOT good, look into the most deserted queues and fix it (removing the timers would be a start).
Yes, if you abandon your team and leave them to take longer to finish the easy queue that you just don't like, you can't do something else QUEUED for 30 minutes.
Either suck it up and go run dailies/weeklies/stronghold stuff for 30 minutes, or stay and spend the 10 minutes it takes to lose at PoM because 3/5 of the players on your team decided not to help and make it take 6 minutes to win.
There are a few logical faults in this argument. The first one is, that you think, that the leaver is abandoning his party. For once, why should he leave? He can just stick around and wait for a vote kick, wasting even more time. Furthermore, some ppl leave, bc they dont want to carry a bunch of AFK freeloaders, so you will now get an account wide penalty, if you dont want to waste your time for them. Last but not least, some ppl will stop using random que with this new rules. As it is, I do random ques maybe once or twice a week. If I get a bad group or AFK 'players' I leave the group and switch chars. With this new rules I will not do random ques, period. Why should I? for a few thousand AD with the risk, to be held hostage by a group of min IL players, who hope, that I can carry them? This makes random que even less attractive for geared players.
#1: The leaver *is* abandoning his party, regardless of whether or not the party is worthy of abandonement. And sure, AFKers sitting doing nothing is a problem, but *right now* what they do is switch toons and requeue, then when they come back either they get the win without playing or the queue ended without a penalty for them so they requeue again. Forcing them to either play the queue *or* AFK, waiting, doing nothing, is an improvement on the current system. Because AFKing is boring and sucks, and will encourage them to contribute instead.
#2: If you don't want to AFK for 10 minutes or fight for six minutes, you get a 30 minute penalty. Seems fair. Also, it would be better if you get a penalty for the 10 minute AFK, too, but baby steps. STO has something like that - if you don't do some minimum activity for a minimum percentage of the time a queue runs compared to your party, you get marked as having not contributed and get no rewards. There's ONE queue where if you queue up with the very best DPSers in the game and they work hard at DPSing and you aren't very good, you can get the AFK penalty while trying to contribute, but that's super-rare and basically requires you to carefully build a group around the idea of them doing it to you.
#3: Some people will stop doing random queues because they can't abandon parties consequence-free? Good. That's *a good thing*. People who abandon parties that might be slow are bad, and if they stop doing that and their spaces are taken by harder-working and maybe-lower-geared people, that's a good change.
Personally, I don't mind carrying a party. The occasional run where *nobody* is being carried is a mad bonus.
Abandonment implies a duty to stay. There is no duty and I dont feel oblieged, to clear a dungeon for 4 ppl, who are AFK.
You currently regularly run with 4 AFKers in Random Epic Dungeon or Random Skirmish and have to either solo it or leave? That's *never* happened to me and I run both regularly, on tank, DPS, and heals. I *sometimes* see *one* leaver, almost always in PoM or Throne or FBI or MSP, and what they do is swap to a different toon and requeue.
You're complaining about a thing that does not happen.
6 minutes fight or 10 minutes AFK, sounds about right, if you are stuck in master of the hunt, but what about IG, MSP or FBI? You get a min IL group with bad gear and built. You can waste hours with them, even if you know, that they cant win it.
IG, you just solo it if they vote for gold. Any 14K+ toon with half a brain can solo IG Gold. FBI/MSP, someone ALWAYS abandons (removing the leaver penalty) or you hit 15min and a vote to abandon succeeds. I have *never* seen a complete-fail FBI/MSP run vote against abandoning, and if they really did, I would be OK with eating the 30min penalty. I *always* have 30min of stuff I can do that isn't queues.
Last, but not least, I think, that you dont really know, what I am talking about, regarding players incentive to run random ques. I play this game for 4 years and most of my friends, who did not stop playing it due to lack of interest or some of the changes, play for a similar time. We did earn ADs from leadership and farming CN. 10k AD is nice, but no incentive. You run random ques for the fun of it and maybe, to help out, not to waste your time. Our opinion might differ somehow, but you might be as hard working as you want and have a perfect build, but a 11k char cant contribute nearly as much as an 17k+ char with a similar experienced player. You might now some 11k tanks, who end as top DPS in a FBI run with 11-15k players and can solo Hati for 1/5th of the HP, I dont know them. The difference between 11 and 17k is huge, regardless of some useless boons and utility slots.
The *whole point* to running a random queue *for you* is a bunch of bonus AD and seals. The game gives you that as a reward for filling a spot in a party that needed a person of your role. If you don't want the bonus? Don't run it, that's great. You don't get into a run you don't want, and a party isn't stuck with you AFKing or leaving.
Right now, people queue with trash alts looking for easy queues, and swap toons to avoid runs that will take more than a few minutes. The proposed change encourages people to queue with mains, encourages people to remain in marginal runs, and *punishes* people who leave runs without trying - and if, as a side effect, it causes fewer people to give up on runs without trying? That seems like a plus to me.
I'd rather run with an 11K OP who can barely tank FBI than an 18K GF who swapped to a different toon and queued for a different dungeon instead of trying FBI, every single time.
No Dugeon Delve hour of any form please, I still remember, and hate, how it used to put ppl who do not posses "absolute freedom" IRL at an extreme disadvantage.
Also I would much appreaciate if we had the option to exclude one queue we would like to avoid in a RQ. I´d pick CoDG, since I don´t want to kill anything associated with the concept of "baby".
Dungeon Delves were fun back in the day. It is sad that those without "absolute freedom", as you put it, sought to impose this restriction. Even with a randomness component: If you can't have it, then nobody can?
The randomness component means that, proportional to the time you spend in the game, the more likely that you will be in a dungeon delve hour. For example, you could log on, and see that during the hour that you are on there is a Dungeon Delve event, and you join in. Furthermore, from a design perspective, a player might play just that bit longer to wait for one (good for the company, not so sure about the player, depending on your perspective). Lastly, should there not be a reward for a trade-off with time?
Completing a Dungeon Delve event would also encourage actual completion of the dungeon (you queue up in the hour, but you can still complete it past the hour to gain rewards); it would be more like a carrot, rather than the stick of a leaver penalty. This may also be counterproductive though if people are compelled to stay in a lost-cause dungeon, all things to consider.
No Dugeon Delve hour of any form please, I still remember, and hate, how it used to put ppl who do not posses "absolute freedom" IRL at an extreme disadvantage.
Also I would much appreaciate if we had the option to exclude one queue we would like to avoid in a RQ. I´d pick CoDG, since I don´t want to kill anything associated with the concept of "baby".
Dungeon Delves were fun back in the day. It is sad that those 'without absolute freedom' seek to impose this restriction. If you can't have it, then nobody can?
Especially since a very similar pattern is running sucessfully and without any complaints for some years now in the Well of Dragons - the hourly dragon run.
But dragon run is always the same, whereas DD switch dungeons. If I'm connected and want to do a dr, fine I'm going to WoD and wait for xx:45. I'd much prefer a chance to get on eGWD from a random queue than having to do eGWD this hour if you get my point of view.
We will see how the changes to AD turn out, I actually have to say I like that there will be less rAD income from dungeons as I currently feel like I "have to" do X amount of RQ every day to get the most of my Neverwinter experience. I also have to admit that I am making massive amounts of AD this way (compared to before the RQ went live), so the "nerf" is more like going back to mod 11 for me.
My issue is with how queues are sorted. If I log on with two friends we are 3 DPS. We now queue into Radnom: Leveling Queue - Will we get a low level dunogen because we perfectly match, being 3 ? - Will we get Malabogs Castle, with a perfect matching healer and tank ? Is MC even in that queue (it's lvl 68 content) - Will we get Dread Legion because group compsition doesn't matter ?
Now two more friends come online - we are 5 DPS (sorry it's what we like ;P playing) - We still match requirements for Dread Legion - can we queue for Random: Leveling Queue ? - We match requirements for all skrimishes - can we queue into Random: Intermediate / Advanced Queue ? - We match requirements for all trials - can we queue into Random: Intermediate / Advanced Queue ? - Where is Tiamat listed ? Apperently on preview you can't queue for Tiamat any longer at all. - Can we queue with more than 5 ?
Basically I don't understand the matchmaking / queue system - do I need to queue with tank + healer + 3 dps no matter the content ? How do you think it'll work out having 3 / 5 / 10 people raids mixed in the same queue.
The second thing I don't understand is leaver penalty. I solo queue and end up in CN. I am matched with Freddy the Freeloader, although I have him on my ignore list. I don't like him, so I decide to leave. - If I hit K and choose to abandon I get an account wide leaver penalty - If I change character and queue again I get an account wide leaver penalty - If I change character and do something not queue related I get ? What happens to the group ? - If I log out completely I get ? What happens to the group ? - If I take a VIP portal to another zone and do something not queue related, I get ? What happens to the group ? Currently this prevents the group from even kicking me, because I'm not in their instance any longer. (others have called it being held hostage) - If everybody takes a VIP portal and leaves the instance empty, what happens ? - If I afk for 5 minutes and get vote kicked out - I get ? - If I afk for 15 minutes and get auto-disconnected, I get ? Will I be removed from the instance as well or will the group still have to kick me - remember you can only do so once every 4 hours.
Please don't hate on me, these scenarios are fictional. I just want to point at potential inconsistencies in the queue design.
Sorry, one thing I forgot is the queue question about levels. - If I am lvl 63 I can queue for Random: Leveling Queue - If I am lvl 64 can I queue for Random: Leveling Queue, or do I have to unlock Sharandar first ? (Master of the Hunt) - If I am lvl 68 can I queue for Random: Leveling Queue, or do I have to unlock Sharandar first ? (Malabogs Castle) - If I am lvl 70 can I queue for Random: Leveling Queue, or do I have to unlock Dread Ring first ? (Dread Legion) - If I am lvl 70 can I queue for Random: Leveling Queue, or do I have to achieve a minimum Item Level first ? (Illusionist's Gambit)
It may sound trivial to some, but many new players got tricked by that - beeing left wondering how come, their gear score was too low to join a skrimish they could join before, just the moment they hit the respective level caps.
Unless they change it from what we have currently, all of the queues will enforce a maximum of 3 DPS, 1 tank (GF or OPP) and 1 healer (DC or OPD). They will not allow you to manipulate the queue by going in with a composition that doesn't qualify for every possible instance. The only exception being by level, where a having a person of a certain level can and will exclude content that they don't qualify for.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
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hypergorila2Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 73Arc User
You don't need to do all these changes. Far too complex.
Do this:
Leveling Queue - All Pre-70 content plus all Mod 1 & Mod 2 content Skirmish Queue - All Level 70 Skirmishes (with the possible exception of Illusionist's Gambit) Intermediate Queue - All Level 70 Dungeons between Mods 3-9 (KR, ESOT, ELOL, ETOS, EGWD, ECC, CN) Advanced Queue - All Level 70 Dungeons from Mod 10 on (FBI, MSP, TONG) but excluding Castle Ravenloft Raid/Trial Queue - All Level 70 content that requires more than 5 players (Tiamat, Demogorgon, Svardborg, Cradle)
Get rid of putting Castle Ravenloft in its own queue. People will not run it in the 3/1/1 format, and people will especially not solo random queue for it and expect to finish.
As far as RQ rewards, give a chest that grants the player a choice of RP, Rough AD, Dungeon Shards, something like that. That way, players can run the harder queues with their mains and get the big AD rewards, and players can run the easier queues with their alts and get the RP or Dungeon Shards rewards instead if they are already capped out on Rough AD. Plus it will help smaller guilds working on upgrading their Strongholds.
This is a great idea! But maybe instead of a chest, players would receive some type of voucher that would depend on the Queue Type and if it was repeating that Queue. This voucher then could then be traded by any of the things u mentioned before with some NPC (Rhix comes to mind).
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
I had posted about this before, but not seen a reply, so here I go again:
With Seals of the Brave taking over the role of Seals of the Protector, the weekly limit becomes an issue. I accumulate enough Protector seals to have a steady supply of rings to salvage. Now, if I get seals of the Brave instead, I will buy gear to salvage as well - I have already geared my secondary alts up with Primal gear, but I would most certainly run into the weekly limit if it kept unchanged.
Now, I can understand having a weekly limit on the new seals - but if we are going to get seals of the Brave from more sources, the weekly limit on those should be removed, or at least raised considerably
The seals of the protector are 1200 cap (earned, through many sources). I assume that when brave takes over that it will keep that cap, since (if i remember correctly) the previous seal was the same way.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
the 1200 cap is the inventory limit... I don't think there is a weekly limit. My concern is about the weekly limit on Seals of the Brave, not the inventory limit.
Currently the Seals of the brave, protector and adventurer have not been swapped around. I can confirm that the RD HEs still give protector seals in preview. The Developer said it wasn't time to change those over or something. My guess is that they are testing the new bolovia zone and dungeons before they adjust the rest of the game in preview. Once that happens we should know about the cap's. But i understand your point. If adventurer seals go away and protector takes their place, then RD HEs will get the brave seals ( i think ), and that can add up very very quickly if the cap is low.
This is not a typo. In the same manner that seals of the elements were phased out when seals of the brave were added, this update will see the addition of seals of the crown, thus seals of the protector will be phased out and seals of the brave will become more widely available.
Does this means we're going to see a Seals of the Brave vendor on PE, a replacement for the current Protector's one?
The seal vendor in PE will now stock seals of the brave goods, correct. Seals of the Protector will be phased out similar to how seal of the elements were phased out with the introduction of seals of the braves. At the same time the weekly limit will be lifted from seals of the brave. We plan to only have two endgame seals active at any time.
Please don't mix Dungeons, Skirmishes and Trials. As some other players mentioned, mixing dungeons, skirmishes and trials may have some unwanted side effects. Chances are very high that only skirmishes will plop because there are no specific roles needed for that content. Additionally, if I do queue for a dungeon (or skirmish), I do not want to play a trial, because it is a significantly different game experience.
In regards to "skirmishes only popping:" In order to queue as a group, you must still meet the strictest requirements for the random queue, so for instance, a group of 4 DPS cannot queue for a random intermediate queue just because they qualify for a skirmish. With that being said, it is possible that if you are a DPS queuing solo or primarily with 1 or 2 other DPS, that you may see skirmishes somewhat more often than dungeons or trials. We'll continue to monitor the stats after the changes, but we believe that the improved role bonuses combined with daily bonuses being account wide will encourage more players to run on needed roles.
In terms of the significantly different game experiences offered by skirmishes, dungeons and trials. We hear you, however, after attempting to organize the current content exclusively by queue category, and the negative reaction to those categories (and negative behavior that resulted) we are planning to try organizing by difficulty.
The reaction to the previous categories is understandable given the wide array of difficulties due to the fact that we do not currently enforce any sort of scaling on endgame content, and as a result, even intentional power increases (as opposed to unintentional power creep—which also happens) can go further than making the content more accessible, and into the realm of making content trivial. And once someone is used to a piece of content being trivial, they are generally unwilling to approach it in a way where failure is possible due to teammates they view as "under geared."
Long term, there are some improvements we would like to make to alleviate these issues, but as we are not planning to implement any changes immediately in that area, re-categorizing the queues is the best step we can make.
While penalize the characters switching out of queue is to be commended, the account wide penalty is extreme. You mean of I get that dreadful, fix-timed, gold-bugged POM and leave the team, it will make all my avas penalized? NOT good, look into the most deserted queues and fix it (removing the timers would be a start).
Please submit bug reports if you run into any queues that become bugged and unable to complete. Additionally, if you run into these situations, please use the vote abandon option or if you have used yours for the day, suggest someone else do so. Likely at least one other player in your group will have access to vote abandon. If you vote abandon successfully, no leaver penalty will be added to any player.
So, someone lands in a random Dungeon or Skirmish and decides, "nope, not for me" Their current options include quitting and moving on to an alt, allowing the remaining players to call for reinforcements and carry on. The proposed change means that so doing, or D/Cing will result in an account wide half hour time out on the naughty step. Cos God forbid there's content you don't want to run.
So, do they run the content? Do they take the hit on the naughty step? Or just amble about the campfire waiting for the boot trigger to pull?
Random queues are not intended to be something that you queue for only wishing to participate in a subset of the included queues. It is not intended that you queue up, don't like the queue you arrive in, then leave. Obviously, we understand life happens, and you may need to abandon for legitimate reasons. In those cases, you may need to take the leaver penalty, but generally if something is pulling you away from the game, the penalty will likely be expired by the time you return.
In the current system, because the difficulty is so widespread in a given queue, it's understandable that in many cases, you would enter a queue and feel like you received the "short end of the stick." However, with the new organization, the difficulty of the content within each queue should be closer together, so please avoid queuing for a random queue if you do not feel you are prepared for all of the content contained therein.
No Dugeon Delve hour of any form please, I still remember, and hate, how it used to put ppl who do not posses "absolute freedom" IRL at an extreme disadvantage.
Also I would much appreaciate if we had the option to exclude one queue we would like to avoid in a RQ. I´d pick CoDG, since I don´t want to kill anything associated with the concept of "baby".
Dungeon Delves were fun back in the day. It is sad that those without "absolute freedom", as you put it, sought to impose this restriction. Even with a randomness component: If you can't have it, then nobody can?
The randomness component means that, proportional to the time you spend in the game, the more likely that you will be in a dungeon delve hour. For example, you could log on, and see that during the hour that you are on there is a Dungeon Delve event, and you join in. Furthermore, from a design perspective, a player might play just that bit longer to wait for one (good for the company, not so sure about the player, depending on your perspective). Lastly, should there not be a reward for a trade-off with time?
Completing a Dungeon Delve event would also encourage actual completion of the dungeon (you queue up in the hour, but you can still complete it past the hour to gain rewards); it would be more like a carrot, rather than the stick of a leaver penalty. This may also be counterproductive though if people are compelled to stay in a lost-cause dungeon, all things to consider.
There are more reasons why the Dungeon Delve event was abolished and I consider its removal the best descision throught all the developement history of this game. To name a few: 1. It caused huge spikes in server strain, resulting in very heavy unpleasant lag. 2. The parties who could squeeze the most runs into that hour got the most out of it. This made a very toxic elitist enviorement even more so. 3. Reintroducing the Dungeon Delve event(at random times or not) would greatly increase the new AD generated by etos salvage multirun teams for example, achieving the opposite of the intended result of the currently prepared changes.
The seal vendor in PE will now stock seals of the brave goods, correct. Seals of the Protector will be phased out similar to how seal of the elements were phased out with the introduction of seals of the braves. At the same time the weekly limit will be lifted from seals of the brave. We plan to only have two endgame seals active at any time.
Will primal gear be available to anyone who can earn seals?
On one hand, I don't mind since I can't get enough ToNG/CoDG runs to get even one piece of primal gear atm. But due to power creep, I currently can't trust that 11/12K toons are good because I've seen very good 8/9K players out-dps them. I'm afraid I will have to bump up my iLevel filter to 13K when deciding what the chances of completing a run is.
> @pterias said: > I like many of the changes here, especially the new brackets. I'm not sure about jamming dungeons, trials, and skirmishes together, but we'll see. I was not a fan of the RQs when they started, largely because of FBI/mSP being in the wrong place, but also because it was designed (intentionally or unintentionally) to make players run lots of alts through leveling dungeons every day. I like the principle of changing the RQ rewards to account-based, but now it's the other extreme: there's little-to-no point in running more than one character through queues per day. It seems like there must be some sort of middle ground? > > How about a character AND account system where each character can only get the full benefit once per day, but up to 2-4 different characters on the same account can do that? > > Or, you could keep it entirely account based, but allow two "first runs" per account, or you could have a degrading bonus for the 2nd (and maybe 3rd) run of each tier, then go down to the residual levels after that? This would give people the option to run different characters through them in a day, or just bunch up on one character. > > Also, as I said in the AD cap thread, the 100k refining cap AND the 1/tier/account/day AD rewards seem redundant. This new RQ schedule makes it pretty hard to even get to the 100k. Being more generous with the RQ AD wouldn't break anything, it would just make it a little easier to hit the cap. > > Other feedback: > - Illusionist's Gambit is a really annoying skirmish despite it being pretty fun. The problem is the Bronze/Silver/Gold thing and players having different goals. Personally, I'd like to get rid of the Bronze/Gold decision all together! IG is currently labeled "(Master)", I'd say create two skirmishes out of it: "Illusionist's Gambit" which is fixed as a Bronze run for the Leveling Queue, and "Illusionist's Gambit (Master)" which is fixed as a Gold run for Intermediate Queue. Either could be queued for normally as well. That would allow people to know what they're getting into without having to do a premade party. Also, no more trolling/counter-trolling. > > - Adding Seals of the Brave is a nice move, I wondered when they would be shifted out into lesser content. The 400 weekly cap on them should definitely be lifted though. > > - For TONG and CODG, I get the dilemma. I think most would prefer if they were moved up to the Expert Queue though. I certainly would. I know you'd like to keep the latest seals locked behind only the newest dungeon, but running TONG in particular with the required "roles" makes it even harder than running them outside of a queue. I think it's reasonable to get an extra bonus (new Seals) for running near latest content in a non-optimal way like that.
My hero! Great ideas man! IG solution is brilliant
I have had a chance to look at this further. In summary there are really two things being done. 1. Making the tiers work better for random q 2. Changing the AD amounts awarded and aligning it with the account-wide refinement.
Improving Tier sorting: I think you are making this too complicated. Yes, Epic Trials and Random Dungeons are under used, but that is for other reasons imho. Just mixing them in will not improve player experience. I think at this stage the best thing you can do is to make the following changes. 0. Change the random dungeon algorythm that in a 5 man party you do not get 2 of the same DPS class allocated. 1. Create a new Expert Q. In this place FBI, MSP, TONG, CODG. For this random q have a higher IL requirement (13k) and lift the restrictions on 3 "DPS", 1 tank, 1 heal. These categories do not really describe functions terribly well. Is a templock really a DPS? Instead match players into a group based on the classes that were in a group. It will still be very very hard to finish cradle like this so perhaps an epic trial q that allows 10 to q that includes msva, master demo and cradle should be an option. That would look the normal epic trial q look very sparse though so you could throw those together or put them in with the dungeons. 2. Add Merchant Prince's Folly into the skirmish q and split the q for IG into the different levels, excluding the gold level from random q. Do some work on POM and Throne to make improve the experience of playing them, perhaps shortening the timer slightly 3. Reconsider the rewards for Hero's Accord. While getting extra seals is nice it does not outweigh the issue of not being able to chose replacements if someone has to drop (or rage quits). Castle Ravenloft only is sensible, but it should be also carry a serious AD reward also.
Changing AD amounts. Firstly - the account limits are problematic as they devalue the character slots we have bought (I still have some waiting for that new class that hasn't come!) and create an incentive to create multi-accounts where people spend less. Bots who auto-create accounts are put in a better position. 1. You are offering 8k for what is ca 10 min content, 12k for 20 min content and 15k for 30 mins content over the first 3 runs on one account. Is your intention really to have people play a maximum of one hour farming AD? Because the drop off to the second runs is just too extreme to put up with random q, so q will also pop less. 2. The total of 35k plus salvage does not compare favourly to what we get atm running 4 "levelling" dungeons which would take, if very unlucky 40 minutes max with no chance of failure. Even if you take 2 runs of levelling and 2 runs of skirmish you are not far behind and that only takes a standard account with no zen spent. In short it is a serious and extreme reduction in the available AD. Far more than I think is required to get the AD economy in line. 3. That said, I am very happy that the AD rewards correspond to the degree of difficulty. I have always thought the harder the content the more AD rewards is an obvious way of doing it. You can apply this to the current structure
Levelling dungeon 8k
Skirmish 10k
Random Epic 12k
Epic Trial 12k
Experienced 16k
Hero's accord 20k
I am still in favour of awarding these amounts for the first TWO runs. If you cannot do that, how about the repeat bonus becomes half of the original on the first run, and then half again?
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therealprotexMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 526Arc User
Random queues are not intended to be something that you queue for only wishing to participate in a subset of the included queues. It is not intended that you queue up, don't like the queue you arrive in, then leave. Obviously, we understand life happens, and you may need to abandon for legitimate reasons. In those cases, you may need to take the leaver penalty, but generally if something is pulling you away from the game, the penalty will likely be expired by the time you return.
In the current system, because the difficulty is so widespread in a given queue, it's understandable that in many cases, you would enter a queue and feel like you received the "short end of the stick." However, with the new organization, the difficulty of the content within each queue should be closer together, so please avoid queuing for a random queue if you do not feel you are prepared for all of the content contained therein.
The problem is, what random queues are intended to be and what players expect them to be does not match at all. Fact is, while from "your" side all dungeons/skirmishes/trials in one categorie are intended to be "the same", there ARE dungeons/skirmishes/trials that are despised by (not few) players. And these players will likely look for every possible loophole to avoid these queues. No matter what your intentions are.
Start an experiment: create an additional random queue categorie and move (M)SVA, PoM, Throne, (M)SP and FBI from their current queues in the new one. Bring it live and watch how many players chose this special queue. My guess is, it will be very close to 0%. This should tell you that your intentions - as good as they may be - go into the wrong direction.
Listen to the players. In their current state these dungeons/skirmishes/trials are much less fun as others. So either give players the opportunity to avoid them or increase their "fun factor" to match others. And keep in mind that a big part of the "fun factor" is the time factor that such a dungeon/skirmish/trial takes. I have yet to see a player switching chars when he ends up in Master of the Hunt for example...
The RQ changes will cut a lot deeper into AD generation than the 100k account refine limit will: * No bonus runs for alts(Running multiple low-gear alts through the levelling RQ was boring but very rewarding) * The trials queue is dubious in the sense that you could very easily not be able to complete it with a PUG. So the number of reliable completeable queues goes down from 3 to 2.
This cutback in AD generation could be even more massive than Cryptic foresees.
But I do agree something needs to be done with the AD balance.
the primary problem as i see it of MSP MSVA FBI is the difference in difficulty between the minimum IL required to access, and the minimum IL to properly play it. None of these are now required to run to complete a campaign task, and only needed to complete that one quest for a lousy blood ruby reward (by the time you get to those blood ruby is meh). the difficulty of MSP MSVA FBI TONG and CODG require forming a competent premade group to play. Imho, you should have these listed under private queue tab as a reward earner and not in a public tab. IG separate the same way. IG in RQ make one sequence to bronze and then auto 'leave'. Private rewards for completing IG gold level only. And please update the companion gear rewards. Giving a choice of gear like the 'elven' rewards may be nice as well. POM. Hate this one to my core. Needs some serious rework. Even with a competent group, getting gold is tough, having new players who just turned 70 run this and kiss gold goodbye. please consider the requests posted on POM, and raise the required IL minimum to 10k. Thank you. Give players a choice of earnings at the conclusion of the RQ in addition to the base rewards, as was posted. like additional rAD, RP, seals, good gear, etc. For MSP MSVA FBI TONG and CODG make it worthwhile. for example: 10k rAD (to 40k in CODG), or 20k RP (to 50k in CODG), 1000 seals, random elite gear. Basically the time it takes away from normal adventuring should be compensated. Since TONG took me 20 tries on last boss and 2 hours of play, i think those rewards should be considerable for RQ.
In regards to "skirmishes only popping:" In order to queue as a group, you must still meet the strictest requirements for the random queue, so for instance, a group of 4 DPS cannot queue for a random intermediate queue just because they qualify for a skirmish. With that being said, it is possible that if you are a DPS queuing solo or primarily with 1 or 2 other DPS, that you may see skirmishes somewhat more often than dungeons or trials. We'll continue to monitor the stats after the changes, but we believe that the improved role bonuses combined with daily bonuses being account wide will encourage more players to run on needed roles.
...
The reaction to the previous categories is understandable given the wide array of difficulties due to the fact that we do not currently enforce any sort of scaling on endgame content, and as a result, even intentional power increases (as opposed to unintentional power creep—which also happens) can go further than making the content more accessible, and into the realm of making content trivial. And once someone is used to a piece of content being trivial, they are generally unwilling to approach it in a way where failure is possible due to teammates they view as "under geared."
I have 4 dps viable for all dungeons, a GF and a DC. If I am done with a skirmish in 5 minutes (DD) or might end up in another run witch takes 10 times more minutes (GF or DC), sure I will que up with my DC, bc of the role reward...
If you show me an successful skirmish run with 5 players with an IL of 50-600, I will agree, that it is just a point of view. Otherwise raise the min IL.
POM and Throne are getting a minimum IL of 9k from the Random Queue and unlike ETOS and ELOL people rarely ever manually queue for them, especially not with ungeared alts. While both of those skirmishes have issues regardless, the undergeared issue should stop. No reason to run those alts anyway and certainly not in the Intermediate Queue.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
I had to post this comment to get rid of the post I had started working on and then realized the argument I was going to make was fatally flawed, and yet the forums refuse to forget that I had started that post. Hopefully, the forums will now forget that abandoned post...
Comments
Do this:
Leveling Queue - All Pre-70 content plus all Mod 1 & Mod 2 content
Skirmish Queue - All Level 70 Skirmishes (with the possible exception of Illusionist's Gambit)
Intermediate Queue - All Level 70 Dungeons between Mods 3-9 (KR, ESOT, ELOL, ETOS, EGWD, ECC, CN)
Advanced Queue - All Level 70 Dungeons from Mod 10 on (FBI, MSP, TONG) but excluding Castle Ravenloft
Raid/Trial Queue - All Level 70 content that requires more than 5 players (Tiamat, Demogorgon, Svardborg, Cradle)
Get rid of putting Castle Ravenloft in its own queue. People will not run it in the 3/1/1 format, and people will especially not solo random queue for it and expect to finish.
As far as RQ rewards, give a chest that grants the player a choice of RP, Rough AD, Dungeon Shards, something like that. That way, players can run the harder queues with their mains and get the big AD rewards, and players can run the easier queues with their alts and get the RP or Dungeon Shards rewards instead if they are already capped out on Rough AD. Plus it will help smaller guilds working on upgrading their Strongholds.
You're complaining about a thing that does not happen. IG, you just solo it if they vote for gold. Any 14K+ toon with half a brain can solo IG Gold. FBI/MSP, someone ALWAYS abandons (removing the leaver penalty) or you hit 15min and a vote to abandon succeeds. I have *never* seen a complete-fail FBI/MSP run vote against abandoning, and if they really did, I would be OK with eating the 30min penalty. I *always* have 30min of stuff I can do that isn't queues.
The *whole point* to running a random queue *for you* is a bunch of bonus AD and seals. The game gives you that as a reward for filling a spot in a party that needed a person of your role. If you don't want the bonus? Don't run it, that's great. You don't get into a run you don't want, and a party isn't stuck with you AFKing or leaving.
Right now, people queue with trash alts looking for easy queues, and swap toons to avoid runs that will take more than a few minutes. The proposed change encourages people to queue with mains, encourages people to remain in marginal runs, and *punishes* people who leave runs without trying - and if, as a side effect, it causes fewer people to give up on runs without trying? That seems like a plus to me.
I'd rather run with an 11K OP who can barely tank FBI than an 18K GF who swapped to a different toon and queued for a different dungeon instead of trying FBI, every single time.
The randomness component means that, proportional to the time you spend in the game, the more likely that you will be in a dungeon delve hour. For example, you could log on, and see that during the hour that you are on there is a Dungeon Delve event, and you join in. Furthermore, from a design perspective, a player might play just that bit longer to wait for one (good for the company, not so sure about the player, depending on your perspective). Lastly, should there not be a reward for a trade-off with time?
Completing a Dungeon Delve event would also encourage actual completion of the dungeon (you queue up in the hour, but you can still complete it past the hour to gain rewards); it would be more like a carrot, rather than the stick of a leaver penalty. This may also be counterproductive though if people are compelled to stay in a lost-cause dungeon, all things to consider.
I'd much prefer a chance to get on eGWD from a random queue than having to do eGWD this hour if you get my point of view.
My issue is with how queues are sorted. If I log on with two friends we are 3 DPS. We now queue into Radnom: Leveling Queue
- Will we get a low level dunogen because we perfectly match, being 3 ?
- Will we get Malabogs Castle, with a perfect matching healer and tank ? Is MC even in that queue (it's lvl 68 content)
- Will we get Dread Legion because group compsition doesn't matter ?
Now two more friends come online - we are 5 DPS (sorry it's what we like ;P playing)
- We still match requirements for Dread Legion - can we queue for Random: Leveling Queue ?
- We match requirements for all skrimishes - can we queue into Random: Intermediate / Advanced Queue ?
- We match requirements for all trials - can we queue into Random: Intermediate / Advanced Queue ?
- Where is Tiamat listed ? Apperently on preview you can't queue for Tiamat any longer at all.
- Can we queue with more than 5 ?
Basically I don't understand the matchmaking / queue system - do I need to queue with tank + healer + 3 dps no matter the content ? How do you think it'll work out having 3 / 5 / 10 people raids mixed in the same queue.
The second thing I don't understand is leaver penalty. I solo queue and end up in CN. I am matched with Freddy the Freeloader, although I have him on my ignore list. I don't like him, so I decide to leave.
- If I hit K and choose to abandon I get an account wide leaver penalty
- If I change character and queue again I get an account wide leaver penalty
- If I change character and do something not queue related I get ? What happens to the group ?
- If I log out completely I get ? What happens to the group ?
- If I take a VIP portal to another zone and do something not queue related, I get ? What happens to the group ? Currently this prevents the group from even kicking me, because I'm not in their instance any longer. (others have called it being held hostage)
- If everybody takes a VIP portal and leaves the instance empty, what happens ?
- If I afk for 5 minutes and get vote kicked out - I get ?
- If I afk for 15 minutes and get auto-disconnected, I get ? Will I be removed from the instance as well or will the group still have to kick me - remember you can only do so once every 4 hours.
Please don't hate on me, these scenarios are fictional. I just want to point at potential inconsistencies in the queue design.
- If I am lvl 63 I can queue for Random: Leveling Queue
- If I am lvl 64 can I queue for Random: Leveling Queue, or do I have to unlock Sharandar first ? (Master of the Hunt)
- If I am lvl 68 can I queue for Random: Leveling Queue, or do I have to unlock Sharandar first ? (Malabogs Castle)
- If I am lvl 70 can I queue for Random: Leveling Queue, or do I have to unlock Dread Ring first ? (Dread Legion)
- If I am lvl 70 can I queue for Random: Leveling Queue, or do I have to achieve a minimum Item Level first ? (Illusionist's Gambit)
It may sound trivial to some, but many new players got tricked by that - beeing left wondering how come, their gear score was too low to join a skrimish they could join before, just the moment they hit the respective level caps.
But maybe instead of a chest, players would receive some type of voucher that would depend on the Queue Type and if it was repeating that Queue. This voucher then could then be traded by any of the things u mentioned before with some NPC (Rhix comes to mind).
With Seals of the Brave taking over the role of Seals of the Protector, the weekly limit becomes an issue. I accumulate enough Protector seals to have a steady supply of rings to salvage. Now, if I get seals of the Brave instead, I will buy gear to salvage as well - I have already geared my secondary alts up with Primal gear, but I would most certainly run into the weekly limit if it kept unchanged.
Now, I can understand having a weekly limit on the new seals - but if we are going to get seals of the Brave from more sources, the weekly limit on those should be removed, or at least raised considerably
In terms of the significantly different game experiences offered by skirmishes, dungeons and trials. We hear you, however, after attempting to organize the current content exclusively by queue category, and the negative reaction to those categories (and negative behavior that resulted) we are planning to try organizing by difficulty.
The reaction to the previous categories is understandable given the wide array of difficulties due to the fact that we do not currently enforce any sort of scaling on endgame content, and as a result, even intentional power increases (as opposed to unintentional power creep—which also happens) can go further than making the content more accessible, and into the realm of making content trivial. And once someone is used to a piece of content being trivial, they are generally unwilling to approach it in a way where failure is possible due to teammates they view as "under geared."
Long term, there are some improvements we would like to make to alleviate these issues, but as we are not planning to implement any changes immediately in that area, re-categorizing the queues is the best step we can make. Please submit bug reports if you run into any queues that become bugged and unable to complete. Additionally, if you run into these situations, please use the vote abandon option or if you have used yours for the day, suggest someone else do so. Likely at least one other player in your group will have access to vote abandon. If you vote abandon successfully, no leaver penalty will be added to any player. Random queues are not intended to be something that you queue for only wishing to participate in a subset of the included queues. It is not intended that you queue up, don't like the queue you arrive in, then leave. Obviously, we understand life happens, and you may need to abandon for legitimate reasons. In those cases, you may need to take the leaver penalty, but generally if something is pulling you away from the game, the penalty will likely be expired by the time you return.
In the current system, because the difficulty is so widespread in a given queue, it's understandable that in many cases, you would enter a queue and feel like you received the "short end of the stick." However, with the new organization, the difficulty of the content within each queue should be closer together, so please avoid queuing for a random queue if you do not feel you are prepared for all of the content contained therein.
Fixed it for you, you forgot that the rest of your team will be afking for rewards.
1. It caused huge spikes in server strain, resulting in very heavy unpleasant lag.
2. The parties who could squeeze the most runs into that hour got the most out of it. This made a very toxic elitist enviorement even more so.
3. Reintroducing the Dungeon Delve event(at random times or not) would greatly increase the new AD generated by etos salvage multirun teams for example, achieving the opposite of the intended result of the currently prepared changes.
On one hand, I don't mind since I can't get enough ToNG/CoDG runs to get even one piece of primal gear atm. But due to power creep, I currently can't trust that 11/12K toons are good because I've seen very good 8/9K players out-dps them. I'm afraid I will have to bump up my iLevel filter to 13K when deciding what the chances of completing a run is.
> I like many of the changes here, especially the new brackets. I'm not sure about jamming dungeons, trials, and skirmishes together, but we'll see. I was not a fan of the RQs when they started, largely because of FBI/mSP being in the wrong place, but also because it was designed (intentionally or unintentionally) to make players run lots of alts through leveling dungeons every day. I like the principle of changing the RQ rewards to account-based, but now it's the other extreme: there's little-to-no point in running more than one character through queues per day. It seems like there must be some sort of middle ground?
>
> How about a character AND account system where each character can only get the full benefit once per day, but up to 2-4 different characters on the same account can do that?
>
> Or, you could keep it entirely account based, but allow two "first runs" per account, or you could have a degrading bonus for the 2nd (and maybe 3rd) run of each tier, then go down to the residual levels after that? This would give people the option to run different characters through them in a day, or just bunch up on one character.
>
> Also, as I said in the AD cap thread, the 100k refining cap AND the 1/tier/account/day AD rewards seem redundant. This new RQ schedule makes it pretty hard to even get to the 100k. Being more generous with the RQ AD wouldn't break anything, it would just make it a little easier to hit the cap.
>
> Other feedback:
> - Illusionist's Gambit is a really annoying skirmish despite it being pretty fun. The problem is the Bronze/Silver/Gold thing and players having different goals. Personally, I'd like to get rid of the Bronze/Gold decision all together! IG is currently labeled "(Master)", I'd say create two skirmishes out of it: "Illusionist's Gambit" which is fixed as a Bronze run for the Leveling Queue, and "Illusionist's Gambit (Master)" which is fixed as a Gold run for Intermediate Queue. Either could be queued for normally as well. That would allow people to know what they're getting into without having to do a premade party. Also, no more trolling/counter-trolling.
>
> - Adding Seals of the Brave is a nice move, I wondered when they would be shifted out into lesser content. The 400 weekly cap on them should definitely be lifted though.
>
> - For TONG and CODG, I get the dilemma. I think most would prefer if they were moved up to the Expert Queue though. I certainly would. I know you'd like to keep the latest seals locked behind only the newest dungeon, but running TONG in particular with the required "roles" makes it even harder than running them outside of a queue. I think it's reasonable to get an extra bonus (new Seals) for running near latest content in a non-optimal way like that.
My hero! Great ideas man! IG solution is brilliant
In summary there are really two things being done.
1. Making the tiers work better for random q
2. Changing the AD amounts awarded and aligning it with the account-wide refinement.
Improving Tier sorting:
I think you are making this too complicated. Yes, Epic Trials and Random Dungeons are under used, but that is for other reasons imho. Just mixing them in will not improve player experience.
I think at this stage the best thing you can do is to make the following changes.
0. Change the random dungeon algorythm that in a 5 man party you do not get 2 of the same DPS class allocated.
1. Create a new Expert Q. In this place FBI, MSP, TONG, CODG. For this random q have a higher IL requirement (13k) and lift the restrictions on 3 "DPS", 1 tank, 1 heal. These categories do not really describe functions terribly well. Is a templock really a DPS? Instead match players into a group based on the classes that were in a group. It will still be very very hard to finish cradle like this so perhaps an epic trial q that allows 10 to q that includes msva, master demo and cradle should be an option. That would look the normal epic trial q look very sparse though so you could throw those together or put them in with the dungeons.
2. Add Merchant Prince's Folly into the skirmish q and split the q for IG into the different levels, excluding the gold level from random q. Do some work on POM and Throne to make improve the experience of playing them, perhaps shortening the timer slightly
3. Reconsider the rewards for Hero's Accord. While getting extra seals is nice it does not outweigh the issue of not being able to chose replacements if someone has to drop (or rage quits). Castle Ravenloft only is sensible, but it should be also carry a serious AD reward also.
Changing AD amounts.
Firstly - the account limits are problematic as they devalue the character slots we have bought (I still have some waiting for that new class that hasn't come!) and create an incentive to create multi-accounts where people spend less. Bots who auto-create accounts are put in a better position.
1. You are offering 8k for what is ca 10 min content, 12k for 20 min content and 15k for 30 mins content over the first 3 runs on one account. Is your intention really to have people play a maximum of one hour farming AD? Because the drop off to the second runs is just too extreme to put up with random q, so q will also pop less.
2. The total of 35k plus salvage does not compare favourly to what we get atm running 4 "levelling" dungeons which would take, if very unlucky 40 minutes max with no chance of failure. Even if you take 2 runs of levelling and 2 runs of skirmish you are not far behind and that only takes a standard account with no zen spent. In short it is a serious and extreme reduction in the available AD. Far more than I think is required to get the AD economy in line.
3. That said, I am very happy that the AD rewards correspond to the degree of difficulty. I have always thought the harder the content the more AD rewards is an obvious way of doing it. You can apply this to the current structure
- Levelling dungeon 8k
- Skirmish 10k
- Random Epic 12k
- Epic Trial 12k
- Experienced 16k
- Hero's accord 20k
I am still in favour of awarding these amounts for the first TWO runs. If you cannot do that, how about the repeat bonus becomes half of the original on the first run, and then half again?Start an experiment: create an additional random queue categorie and move (M)SVA, PoM, Throne, (M)SP and FBI from their current queues in the new one. Bring it live and watch how many players chose this special queue. My guess is, it will be very close to 0%. This should tell you that your intentions - as good as they may be - go into the wrong direction.
Listen to the players. In their current state these dungeons/skirmishes/trials are much less fun as others. So either give players the opportunity to avoid them or increase their "fun factor" to match others. And keep in mind that a big part of the "fun factor" is the time factor that such a dungeon/skirmish/trial takes. I have yet to see a player switching chars when he ends up in Master of the Hunt for example...
* No bonus runs for alts(Running multiple low-gear alts through the levelling RQ was boring but very rewarding)
* The trials queue is dubious in the sense that you could very easily not be able to complete it with a PUG. So the number of reliable completeable queues goes down from 3 to 2.
This cutback in AD generation could be even more massive than Cryptic foresees.
But I do agree something needs to be done with the AD balance.
IG separate the same way. IG in RQ make one sequence to bronze and then auto 'leave'. Private rewards for completing IG gold level only. And please update the companion gear rewards. Giving a choice of gear like the 'elven' rewards may be nice as well.
POM. Hate this one to my core. Needs some serious rework. Even with a competent group, getting gold is tough, having new players who just turned 70 run this and kiss gold goodbye. please consider the requests posted on POM, and raise the required IL minimum to 10k. Thank you.
Give players a choice of earnings at the conclusion of the RQ in addition to the base rewards, as was posted. like additional rAD, RP, seals, good gear, etc. For MSP MSVA FBI TONG and CODG make it worthwhile. for example: 10k rAD (to 40k in CODG), or 20k RP (to 50k in CODG), 1000 seals, random elite gear. Basically the time it takes away from normal adventuring should be compensated. Since TONG took me 20 tries on last boss and 2 hours of play, i think those rewards should be considerable for RQ.
If you show me an successful skirmish run with 5 players with an IL of 50-600, I will agree, that it is just a point of view. Otherwise raise the min IL.