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M16 feels like playing a new game.
seridkalsenov
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 30 Arc User
I been in preview for 3 days I saw all the changes, the idea of M16 is awesome but how they implemented is Disappointing this is subject to change so don't get mad.
So my point here instead overhauling every thing in the game why not remasters the game?? What cryptic guys do right now is the same making a new game.
Why remaster?? Well there are things cryptic devs can do a-lot actually, better graphic, better server, better clients side prediction for high ping player 280-360ms or more but not over 500ms, unique stuff like flying mount cmon what's gryphon wings for in the game?? Or maybe dragon mount. Redesign the dungeon and bring the old dungeon back but adding more mechanic and special attacks on bosses.
Fps utility so player can adjust the game effect so it won't drop the fps too much.
Or maybe creative tool where player can design their own dungeon (this is nearly impossible but since we have a foundry so it can be used for that)
This is just a suggestion instead Scrapping everything in the game and changes everything but on the same game.
Obviously things right now can't happen but I hope in the future.
So my point here instead overhauling every thing in the game why not remasters the game?? What cryptic guys do right now is the same making a new game.
Why remaster?? Well there are things cryptic devs can do a-lot actually, better graphic, better server, better clients side prediction for high ping player 280-360ms or more but not over 500ms, unique stuff like flying mount cmon what's gryphon wings for in the game?? Or maybe dragon mount. Redesign the dungeon and bring the old dungeon back but adding more mechanic and special attacks on bosses.
Fps utility so player can adjust the game effect so it won't drop the fps too much.
Or maybe creative tool where player can design their own dungeon (this is nearly impossible but since we have a foundry so it can be used for that)
This is just a suggestion instead Scrapping everything in the game and changes everything but on the same game.
Obviously things right now can't happen but I hope in the future.
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One alternative would have been to shut everything down and release a new game called Neverwinter 2. In which case, we'd lose EVERYTHING and still get a buggy new game mess. This way we might get the bugs but at least we got to keep our stuff.
There will always be people who would have preferred the old game. Nothing wrong with that or them. Hell, there are still people playing DAOC or Everquest after all. But this does not mean that game would have been viable to run for Cryptic. If you don't like this game, look for a new one. There are always plenty of choices out there. But, for good or ill, this is the only Neverwinter Online.
NW2 would have been a much better idea than this. If I'm going to have to learn a new game, I'd rather do it on a more modern engine (without areas the one dev who understood left the company 5 years ago) with better graphics. Now MMOs take a LOOOOONG time to make and a huge investment (my "day job" is on one that is close to alpha and we started in earnest Jan 2013) so planning would have needed to start some time ago.
Maybe for you the problems were getting worse and worse, for me they weren't and the game was fine (my max IL over 16 chars all of which I play a bit is 15.8K and I mostly solo, never doing high end dungeons), effectively this release makes the game MUCH MUCH less fun to play and sets my progression back about 2 years.
2) NW2 might have been a better idea but as you've just pointed out, that takes a LOONG time to process and you'll need to start from zero customer base. And I suspect just as many people here would be upset that they'd "lose everything" as there has been doing it this way.
3) Maybe the game was fresh for you. But as I said, the DEVs would have the numbers in front of them and they'd have been dire if it would have pushed them to pull the pin like they have.
4) This release sets your progression back 2 years you say. If they went to NWN2, it would set your progression to ZERO since this game would be closed.
We have long desired new classes and new races. When new content comes out, it's often far too difficult for the majority of players yet trivial for a few (who then can run the content far faster than ever intended, making it harder for the devs to hand out really nice loot). We complain when power interactions break, or when the game lags in large fights. The current system carries substantial blame.
Module 16 redesigns key systems from the ground up to address all these issues. As with any major software redesign, there will be roadbumps. Some things will go wrong, probably laughably wrong in a few cases. Now, though, the game's underpinnings are redesigned to make it drastically easier for developers to repair broken things.
If you're used to melting bosses in one rotation, you'll be disappointed that you can't anymore (or if you can, that the devs can quickly correct the imbalance). But, if like me, you enjoy challenging battles that test your ability as a player, not only your ability to have the right gear and the right build, you'll find the new system satisfying - especially after the dev team has time to work out the bugs and build entirely new forms of content the redesign enables.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
As for the Encounters and feats you brought up. So what? Where does it say feats have to benefit the powers you have?
Also some characters that were a great amount of fun before are now dull because the powers they used are now split between the two variants of the class.
My DPS GF is forced to pick between two feats for powers he doesn't have, and where before he was fast to play and powers recharged in a decent length of time, it's one encounter once in a blue moon and no room for the nerfed ITF (which used to recharge the other encounters faster) because I need another damaging encounter or I'm poking stuff largely ineffectually for 15 seconds. Most of his AoE that was so much fun solo with his lightning enchant has gone, and the many target AoE that proced the lightning is no longer there either.
Secondly, One of the constant complaints that I feel is not relevant is the split in some powers into different trees. If this was a brand new game, how the hell would you "know" that certain powers are meant to be in the same trees.
Your DPS GF was great to play for you because of the combo of feats and powers that you built. The FIGHTER class will require a complete rebuild and will in all likelyhood JUST NOT WORK THE SAME.
A valid complaint is that the new classes will be "more boring". However, once people work out how the new game works with party dynamics and a combat system that isn't a one shot kill maybe the "excitement" would actually come from beating content rather than "what I can dps in 60 seconds".
I'm not here to belittle the money or time you've spent. But unfortunately, we can't have it both ways. The game needs this Mod to survive. Otherwise, it was going to slowly dwindle and then one day in a year or less, it could have just shut down and then we'd not have the option to look for a new game or not.
Edit -
If the new system is just ZERO FUN for you, then unfortunately, the game has moved on. This mod is happening. Some numbers will be changed, some bits will morph. But the core of the mod, the slowing down of combat, the removal of various stats and powers, will be as is. If it turns out this was a huge charlie foxtrot then the devs chose badly and the game dies. But as many others have already pointed out, the game is in a bad place and was going to die if nothing was done.
There is no strategy to playing solo now with most classes I've tried, it's just hold the mouse button down and use the very occasional encounter while moving to avoid CA.
Also coming from CoH, I didn't see the fact that teams other than the holy trinity worked as a problem, I was used to that and unrestricted buff/debuff stacking, but where CoH's devs coped with that, the ones here seem unable to.
1) You didn't feel the game was in a bad place. And until a few months ago, neither did I. Only been playing for two years. LOVED the game when I first started. But over the last quarter year, it started getting stale, and pretty much after Christmas, I knew I was going to stop playing. And this was the same feeling felt with the rest of my circle of friends. We are all MMO vets, played in many games over the decades and this game was just getting more frustrating than fun. Our group has more than its share of "I prefer Solo'ing" players too btw.
2) Different people have different tolerences. However, I think that the DEVs, as low an opinion as we may have of them at times, would be the ones with a better overall view of what the actual figures and numbers for players are. I suspect that the game was in a much worse place than we thought. There is nothing else that I feel can explain the nuke that they are letting off with this Mod.
3) Ah, CoH. That was a game that didn't deserve to die.
4) The buffing and such in that game is NOTHING compared to the mess we have here. It really needed to be addressed. And while it didn't impact on you as a solo'er. Having the endgame meta be 4 buffers + GWF means the game is broke. As a specific example. You might be enjoying your TR or HR or GWF atm. That's great. Unfortunately, while it's OK for you as a solo'er and playing mid/endgame, at the endgame, 2 of those 3 classes are just not considered. So a change needed to be done. You might not think its needed. But it was.
5) I'm really liking the changes. The combat is way more tactical in my view. You have to consider which Enc or Daily to use. Rather than just spam them like now. And that keeps me more engaged than "how good are my twitch reflexes". If I wanted more action, I'd go back to Diablo 3.
6) In the end this could still be a dumpster fire. "Bugs Mr Rico, millions of them!!". But it didn't have a choice.
I can understand reducing (or removing) the buffs and debuffs but they appear to have done a lobotomy on the game with a sledge hammer approach (nothing new there I guess).
Why take away stat rolls - even if the stats don't make much difference to your play, the placebo would still be nice.
The new feats are massively underwhelming and restrictive, buff an at will and then be forced to use that at will, buff an encounter . . . . . the lack of imagination is disappointing.
The boons - if your IQ is higher than 12, you can pick your boons.
The paragons - again feels mediocre, split the 3 - 4 decent encounters etc. across two paragons. Wow great.
When playing GF it feels like there is only 3 or max 4 encounters I would ever use - maybe swap one encounter and one at will depending on single target or AOE (i.e. swap cleave for heavy strike). Only two decent dailies. The rest are garbage. ITF is so HAMSTER the only time I could imagine using it is in Tong when there are the long running parts. Why even leave it in there like that, its like we are being trolled by the Devs - remember this encounter that you loved, look what we have done to it bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha suck that old GF players . . . . .
There is literally no choice anymore.
Movement - why remove movement, how is that stuffing anything up. Just makes it take longer to get from A to B, super awesome decision that one.
And at the moment Preview isn't any more difficult, it is just slow, clunky and less enjoyable. Maybe need to wait for a few patches whilst things get tweaked. But if I can solo the hill climb in FBI easily, then the game isn't more challenging.
Sorry about this being so negative . . . .
Some people will not like it and leave, hopefully Cryptic will do a good enough job that most people stay. And remember, it is not necessarily the old players that is the major source of income, but the number of players rotating through the game all the time. What Cryptic need to do is to maintain or improve the rate of new players joining, and to improve or increase the amount of money each of them leave behind. The old veterans might be important for the game experience, but they probably do not put much money into game as they are 'done'.
There are several signs the current combat system has been stretched to the edge of what it can reasonably support. Examples like both versions of Orcus being one-rotated. Also the huge difference in dps between the top-end geared players and the average players, the dps difference between an entry-level player and a BiS player can be 1:10. That makes game tuning very hard - content that is a challenge to the (few in numbers) BiS crowd will annihilate a starting player just by looking at him. Also the binary(dead/alive) state of hp is a clear symptom of a combat system with problems.
Perhaps the biggest change is the slowing down of combat, which is necessary to make hp and hp management count again. This will make NW a lot 'slower' game than it was and change the character and fluidity of NW combat. It will probably immediately be perceived as a setback, but I think we'll get used to it. Give it a few weeks before jumping to any conclusions.
Good lord can even see fairies singing and trumpets opening the path to all the players coming to this game anxious to play it.
There was a group in CoH that is also present here (Repeat offenders network).
they had teams dedicated to playing with a full team of people all with the same exact powerset and doing pretty much all the content in the game.
The green machine was a team full of "healers", but also with massive recharge and (in combat) regen buffs.
Pinball wizards was a team full of kinetics characters (speeding up movement and recharge with one healing power also and the ability to grant CC immunity).
Buffing was much more out of control there and huge fun.
If you can't get on teams with your TR/HR then you're in the wrong guild.
What YOU call Fun does not always equal balance. Especially in this case. Fun for you maybe, but a nightmare to balance and a nightmare to introduce new stuff for. The "Buffing was much more out of control there and huge fun" is precisely what is wrong and is why we are getting mod 16.
I'm not endgame so I don't get on endgame teams. I'm referring to the ACKNOWLEDGED Meta where it is just 4 buffers and a GWF.
You are in a good spot atm where you ARE having fun. And can see fun all around. This is just from your perspective. In 12 months your perspective could change. The Devs are working on the big picture where they see the majority of the playerbase becoming jaded and tired. Unfortunate for the chunk of the playbase that is having fun right now but is needed for the game.
Frame rate, enhanced graphics, and flying around the maps is not on their agenda. This would require core changes, all they are doing is some simple things with menus and numbers in the database. A rebuild of the game engine at this point is impossible for Cryptic as they still cannot seem to find the staff needed to finish their new project Magic the Gathering MMO. Anyone wanting to apply, there is a career link at the top of that page.
As for ping rates and servers, I imagine PC is only alive to play test the consoles, where they get the bulk of their money. My nephew has PS4 and XB1, he spends money on them like water, but he plays war games like Call of Duty. Call of Duty uses match making where the PvP game is hosted by a player and you join from a list of micro-servers within a given ping rate. I can only assume this is their intended direction in the future as this places less of the load on their servers.
Meanwhile I would be concerned about Champions Online. It has about 10% the population of Neverwinter and no consoles. Last year they removed subscription from accounts. You are either lifetime or free, so they wait until the game ebbs to very few lifetime accounts and announce it closing. Probably won't happen until they get MtG off the ground to pay the bills. It will happen. Then they can probably drop the PC versions altogether.