Back on January 24th I made a very specific warning regarding Mod 16. Now, I cannot quote myself here, as the NDA still covers that, but I was comparing certain aspects of Mod 16 to Mod 6.
I really hope I will not be able to say "I told you so".
It's okay. Some of us remember Mod 6 well. Between January 2015 and April 7 we warned them until we were blue in the face, "DON'T DO THIS!" We all know how that turned out. I don't call Mod 6 "Hubris" for nothing.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
> @adinosii said: > Back on January 24th I made a very specific warning regarding Mod 16. Now, I cannot quote myself here, as the NDA still covers that, but I was comparing certain aspects of Mod 16 to Mod 6. > > I really hope I will not be able to say "I told you so".
Any time you are going to compare something to how mod 6 was and the similarities, this is NOT a good thing.
I have a feeling it is going to be a " I told you so".
> @micky1p00 said: > So let me get this straight, after almost 6 years in the game, thousands of hours, millions of AD: > > Anything I've learned about the game is worthless because there is no build difference. No real stat choice. > > All my finished campaigns are meaningless - Anyone saw those boons, meaningless and will probably get scaled too. > > My high rank enchants, not only devalued each couple of mods due to some decisions, now completely worthless, they scale to rank 8s. > > Rotation? Hold mouse button, spam encounters of CD repeat. Oh wait, click that Tab button, to get CA, which I already should have anyway. > > > We warned years ago that solving the lack of people in leveling queues by forcing high level players into leveling RQ will only create issues and discontent. Now this looks like a fallout from that old mistake, and a 'cheap' solution for lack of challenging content - There is a conceptual mistake: Challenging content should come with progress, not at the expense of one. > > The game became Carpentry simulator - The nails nailed into coffins so well...
Goddamit. I do agree with this 101%.
You guys screwed up the game. Talking about new players? And who exactly will recommend this AFK-simulator after launch of m16?
(SLOW CLAP)
You did this, you totally did this. Messed up the game so much people are actually leaving.
This is nuts I honestly cannot understand the chain of thought behind this. I have never known such pig headed behaviour from devs. 99.9% of the community do not want such aggressive scaling as it makes the content artificially difficult and way too long. You are going to lose a huge chunk of your player base and new players are never going to carry on through zones with such aggressive scaling
I could live with scaling in zones since I have all my boons and do not have to go through this tripe but scaling in dungeons is out of order. Have you devs actually played through CRL, CoDG and TonG the scaling is way too aggressive
So, uh, why aren't Mod14 and Mod13, the most recent endgame campaigns, unscaled? Or even "less scaled" since they're a special case of being L70 campaigns with the level cap upgrade?
And am I reading this correctly - Mod16, 17, and 18 will be unscaled until Mod19, at which point Mod16, which is the *only* L71-80 content, will take a massive jump *up* in difficulty?
When Undermountain launches, the most recent campaigns will be Undermountain and Acq inc. Ravenloft falls outside the range of the two most recent campaigns and therefore has been moved to the challenge campaign section.
Just like how EE didn't get put into the challenge campaigns, neither will Undermountain as it is considered part of the core leveling progress which doesn't get moved into the challenge campaigns.
How can you count aqc inc its a campaign you start at level 15. Yes it is mode recent but there is no content that is difficult. Also Acq inc is scaled so that kind of throws that argument out the window
One more thing: this kind of behaviour is super weird guys.
I was often criticising the approach to certain things you had but now I'm disgusted. The amount of HAMSTER is waaaaaaaaay to high. We did respect you and always got nothing in return. The lack of transparency is shocking for me.
1
adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
Ah, well..on the positive side I know one person who really loves the changes - my wife. I mean, less time spent in the game means more time to spend with her, right?
I am not giving up on the game, but I am going to completely shelve 15 of my characters. The one remaining character I will take to level 80 and focus on that content, 3 expeditions per day and the occasional LoMM - at most I will do the 3 weekly Challenge Campaign quests, but that's it ... otherwise I am not touching the scaling areas.
Then, in a month or so I'll check how many of my friends are still left and re-evaluate the situation
Ah, well..on the positive side I know one person who really loves the changes - my wife. I mean, less time spent in the game means more time to spend with her, right?
I am not giving up on the game, but I am going to completely shelve 15 of my characters. The one remaining character I will take to level 80 and focus on that content, 3 expeditions per day and the occasional LoMM - at most I will do the 3 weekly Challenge Campaign quests, but that's it ... otherwise I am not touching the scaling areas.
Then, in a month or so I'll check how many of my friends are still left and re-evaluate the situation
I know how you feel. Yesterday I fixed something on the outside of the house and re-engineered a spark-plug sensor for a little car project of mine. Maybe I'll register the old 'Bird for the Ford show at Carlisle this year. I suppose one good thing about these changes is that I'll be accomplishing a lot more around the house.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Greetings Adventurers! A couple specific questions were brought up during today's stream:
How long will the enchant exchange duration last? The exact duration is still TBD but likely 1.5-2 months.
How is scaling looking? While we understand some players have concerns over scaling, we believe it is in an overall pretty good place. We do expect there to be some post-launch tweaks to scaling as the content gets played more frequently and we receive more specific feedback.
Will Preview be updated this week? Yes. Preview was updated last Friday and will receive another update this Friday, April 19. Preview Patch Notes will be posted on Friday.
This is a question i have been saving for awhile, but here goes. Do you guys even do playtests? as in grouping, 5-10 player dungeons, class sinergies? if so anywhere i can see these playtests?
Lardeson CW not Mage. Where's my fireball and my thunderbolt?
How much more specific does "a level 80 character levelled to 70 has lower stats than the same character had at level 70" have to be?
How much more specific does "the very low hard cap on stats in many areas is such that you cannot get better at that content because hitting the cap happens about 15 minutes after reaching level 70, so the fresh 70 in the Barovian Catchup Set and the maxed-out toon with R14s are experiencing the same difficulty" have to be?
There are multiple things happening at once which is obscuring some of the intents of the scaling.
The first is that current live players have been at endgame for years at level 70. Those players are far above what a fresh 70 would be as they are leveling up. The scaling of lower content is based around where players are likely to be gear wise in those levels. A current endgame 70 is going to see the biggest changes when scaled, but that will be a very rare case going forward with new level 70s.
Yes, scaling is implemented as a cap system. This means a cap is put in place on what the item level for a piece of gear can be in a given piece of scaled content. This does mean a level 70 and level 80 can be experiencing the same difficulty in a piece of scaled content.
The scaled campaigns are called Challenge Campaigns for the very reason that they are meant to be a given challenge to participate in even as you level up to other content. Dungeon Queues also have a set scale for each dungeon to maintain those at a given challenge level as well.
It is not entirely true that a fresh 70 in Vistani (or Undermountain) gear will be just as good as a higher level player in content. In Barovia the scaling is set to a higher level than what the fresh 70 has (enchants are scaled to rank 9 and gear is scaled down to an item level higher than either of those sets).
The scaling is setup so that a player exactly where they should be to do a piece of content for the first time, and a more leveled up player returning back are not at the same point (with the higher geared player being more powerful). However, if two players who have leveled up far enough past the scaling go back to a scaled zone, they have a high chance of ending up very comparable to each other.
The plan is that the most recent campaigns and the current hardest dungeons are not scaled. If we look at where we are now, the current plan is the next two campaigns (let's call them A and after undermountain will be unscaled. Then when a third new campaign is released ( C ), campaign A will move to the challenge campaigns section and become scaled. Lair of the Mad Mage is also unscaled and will remain unscaled until a new tier of dungeons is added at which point Lair of the Mad Mage will get moved down into the Advanced queue and become scaled.
There will always be a selection of the newest content that is unscaled and players can become as overgeared for as they wish. But the older content will be scaled to retain the challenge.
All of that said, scaling will likely have tweaks as we move forward to dial in the best place for the content, but the majority of the scaling is currently close to where we want it and won't be seeing large/drastic changes. And of course we will continue to fix any individual critters that are too powerful compared to where they should be, such as how the first encounters in Castle Never were when we first went to preview.
Lol man seriously? what? i have forgotten the amount of mmos i've played but there's one i wont forget for its scaling system which was meant to help but new players and make the end game players see their efforts compensated. Not saying the name of the same on a different game forum ofc, but the scaling was simple; As a fresh player u unlocked dungeons, your gear was scaled depending on the dungeon, all dungeons ranked from tier 1-9+, this would help fresh players que for dungeons of their tier without being BiS and be able to compete. As for end gamers, you have a % reduction when going back to old dungeons, and this depended on the tier of each dungeon, this way u dint have capped stats, increasing ur stats were rewarding. Lets say you had 1k power, at tier 1, u had 50% cut short, thats 500 power, but if you reach 2k power, that will be 1k power, no cap, upgrades feel rewarding for endgamers. Tier 2 and further was the same but with lower % as the difficulty was higher, e.g. t2 40%, t3, 30% from t6 take 5% off instead, thats how it worked.
Lardeson CW not Mage. Where's my fireball and my thunderbolt?
dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
@noworries#8859 I've seen in forum and spoken to in game a dozen NDA-bound early testers... loyal, experienced and extremely knowledgeable NW players and theorycrafters...
(not random Trolls, not whining nay-sayers)
... People loyal to NW, people that chose NW over many other games. People that want you to succeed...
...tell you that you are making a mistake. Or, more accurately, several mistakes.
Who else are you listening to? Jesus is on vacation. Mohammad is in a phone conference. The Dali Lama is playing golf. These guys and gals are your prophets of truth. Why aren't you listening to them?
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
1
rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
What I don't understand is, if they want to make the challenge campaigns a challenge, then make a different instanced version of the level 70 campaign zones that is meant for only ones doing it. They did it with Mod6, so should be able to do it now too. This way level 80s that are just doing their weekly AD quests won't have to worry about being scaled.
So, uh, why aren't Mod14 and Mod13, the most recent endgame campaigns, unscaled? Or even "less scaled" since they're a special case of being L70 campaigns with the level cap upgrade?
And am I reading this correctly - Mod16, 17, and 18 will be unscaled until Mod19, at which point Mod16, which is the *only* L71-80 content, will take a massive jump *up* in difficulty?
When Undermountain launches, the most recent campaigns will be Undermountain and Acq inc. Ravenloft falls outside the range of the two most recent campaigns and therefore has been moved to the challenge campaign section.
Oh, so the *one* most recent campaign is left unscaled, not two. OK, gotcha.
Except.... Acquisitions Incorporated isn't a real campaign, never was. It's barely even "content". And it's *already scaled*. So you're saying the two most recent campaigns won't be scaled except it's only the one most recent campaign that won't be scaled and also it will be scaled?
It is not entirely true that a fresh 70 in Vistani (or Undermountain) gear will be just as good as a higher level player in content. In Barovia the scaling is set to a higher level than what the fresh 70 has (enchants are scaled to rank 9 and gear is scaled down to an item level higher than either of those sets).
A difference too small to be noticeable. That's the kind of equivocation I might expect from a politician. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but please don't insult my intelligence.
Your post was pretty blunt, so I'll respond in kind. This is going to go over like a lead balloon. No joke, @noworries#8859 -- come Tuesday, a lot of players are going to wind up with a very unpleasant and very infuriating shock. You're negating all feeling of progress in older content and it will NOT be received well. If you weren't around to experience the backlash during Mod 6, get ready because I predict you're about to.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
10
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
There are multiple things happening at once which is obscuring some of the intents of the scaling.
Downscaling will always remain the biggest mistake in game development (imo), so it is sad to see it repeated here. 1 of the player types in Bartle's Taxonomy is the achiever, they are motivated by progression. One of the ways to see progression is to see your character become better, to see stuff you struggled with before becomes easier. You have created a game achievers do not want to play.
Furthermore, it kills all immersion. When you are level 1 and you run into the rat and its a rough fight, it is all well and good, but the level 80 atropal destroying hero has no right to be challenged by a mere house pest. This is the problem created by level scaling, your character is stronger, it should kill the rat with a single glare. This exact same problem exists in single player games that try to do level scaling, for example, Oblivion.
It is even worse then that though, because it kills all incentive to progress, especially when level scaling is implemented poorly, like it is here. If there is ever a case where leveling up your character leads to old content you have already beat taking longer, you have a problem.
I know why it is added, it is added so that old players do not ruin the experience for new players, but the problem there is not the lack of level scaling, it is the ease of which you can achieve your goals and the fact that end game players are motivated to run low tier content in the first place. A level 80 character should not be running the same content as a level 50 character. If I wanted to run old content and have it challenge me, I would do it on an alt and on live that is exactly what I did.
The solution? Remove the incentive to run low tier content. Once you are level 70, remove the rewards from it, it is as simple as that. Make endgame much grindier, but make it a "good" grind, not an RNG grind, where you can actively track your progression. But you won't do that, because you need to create the illusion there are more players in the game than there actually are, by "forcing" old players onto new players. The problem with this is, it doesn't matter how you do it, it creates a bad experience. The old player do not want to be running easy content, but they feel compelled to because of the reward system you have created. This makes them frustrated and unpleasant to run with for the new players.
Social interactions of this particular type should not be forced in this manner, no matter how you spin it, it won't work positively. Putting level scaling in place isn't going to change that, they will continue to rage at the new player who doesn't know better.
I won't say much more about the matter, because I have said it before, both here and on the Beta forums and I know nothing will change. More is the pity.
rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
Until they find a better way to give us rAD, they will keep making the exact same mistakes. If only my internet did not have its issues with icy terrain I would be incentivized to run group content. But with how it is, it is the weekly AD quests for me. If they take longer then that means less time for me to run other content, but that seems to be what the devs wish us to do, so....
I can understand scaling dungeons, but why in the heck did they think entire campaign zones needed to be scaled? This just boggles the mind. Older zones should be a cakewalk.
They seem to have lost sight of the fact that character progression needs to be respected, not obliterated for the sake of new players.
so for those of us who are behind in campaigns, we will get scaled down and areas that were already too hard and I, for one, have finally been able to get a bit caught up to do Ravenloft, the area is going to be just as hard as it was before when I couldn't do it without help, but, it will actually be harder than before since I will be leveling up towards level 80........I have been reading about the changes, played on the preview shard, and watched videos of places as low as Sharandar and a higher level character attempting to finish a lower level campaign is getting killed numerous times, this is not the way I want to play any game, this is absurd to do this to players putting time and money into this game to get their characters to a point that they can comfortably do a campaign area without getting killed every few minutes.
this is exactly like mod 6, maybe even worse, I will give it a try when this goes live but if it's still this bad, it may be time to take a long break (but still log in to get the VIP keys, etc), this is disappointing to say the least. I am trying to stay optimistic but as we get closer that feeling is dwindling down quickly.
I have a question......how is this scaling going to work with events (CTAs) or lower level dungeons, where you might have a mix of level 80s down to level 6 or 7, and anything that sends you to older areas???
there is this game (that I'm not gonna say names because I don't know if it is allowed) it had their own version of downscale called "fair fight", in 4 months, the game went from 40k players to 4k, the developers never responded to players complaining about the down scaling and when they did, they said that it was supposed to be like that, so everyone stopped playing, because no matter how hard new content is, it will be worthless because of fair fight, after seem the disaster, they decided to remove Fair Fight from the game, but it was too late, the game was already dead.
All I'm getting from mod16 is a Dejavu, I REALLY don't want the same to happen to NW, I know you guys are always talking to us and we appreciate it - A LOT - ,but in this case you are just wrong, it will not work.
You have 3 choices here:
1) Delay mod 16; fix the scaling to realist numbers where our progression is not worthless.
2) Revamp all old campaigns; okay, you want they to be a new challenge? fine, but go the all the way and revamp ALL OF THEM, remove most of the Hamster time gating, make them like elemental evil, you go, do a few quests in the map, get whatever bad reward it has and done. All the "epic" dungeons that said campaign had, make it a leveling dungeon, because lets face it, Castle never now is "harder" but the rewards are still "hamster".
3) Remove down scaling from everything; This is my favorite, so what that I can brain dead solo tuern and a new player cant? the new player has something to get from it, I don't. This would encourage caring, but again, who cares? Tuern is a dead dungeon that we only do if we get it in the random queue or if you need the book for the campaign.
Secret option 4) watch your game die; read my example of the other game, it's the same mistake.
Option 5: Just adjust the scaling limit. "one level above the starting free gear that every player has and gets instantly on reaching L70, 5 levels below the previous cap" for THE MOST RECENT CONTENT is clearly too low.
Okay, sure, imagine you're "only" allowed to bring R13s to Barovia, fair. R12s to SKT and River District. R8s to Dread Ring and Sharandar. I can respect that.
The idea that you can only bring *starting L70 gear* (R8s) or lower to almost every L70 zone, with R9s-only for Ravenloft? That's.... too low. Every L70 player has a full, complete set of blue L70 Mod14 gear with R8s in every single slot, and green Mod 14 artifact weapons with R8s slotted. That's your baseline for what someone starting The Dread Ring for the very first time has. The idea that that's already *way over* the max cap for The Dread Ring is just nonsense. The idea that someone with twice their IL and 5 years of progress gets the same Dread Ring experience? Also nonsense.
I want to believe that it's because you're so busy with the release of the new module you haven't tested scaling well. You, personally take a little time to go play with an lvl 70 and set vistani and then with an lvl80 BiS and see the difference that ALL of us are telling you. I hope you guys are not so arrogant and proud to accept that you are making a mistake. If ALL of us who try the preview say so and most of the Beta Testers also warn you, don't you think it's because we could be right?
Yes, scaling is implemented as a cap system. This means a cap is put in place on what the item level for a piece of gear can be in a given piece of scaled content. This does mean a level 70 and level 80 can be experiencing the same difficulty in a piece of scaled content.
Hopefully I am missing something, does a scaling system gear-related means players have to switch to level 70 gear in order to achieve better performance (because of better bonuses)? In other words: will a "level 70 BiS gear" dps character be able to run chult quests and deal more damage in tomb of nine gods than a level 80 one with BiS level 80 gear? Sounds quite painful to me, not even mentioning gold/time cost in case I would like to run a level 70 dungeon with friends or run scaled campaign for stronghold quests and I don't want to be my bag in that case lol. I don't want this to end up with a nerf to hunt gear (as it will likely be) or to an overall buff of scaled areas' critters, just want to make an example on how the logic itselfs has major flaws as, like too many already stated, gear progression is not rewarded at all and even dissuaded in some cases. I strongly believe scaling is a good idea, if the purpose is providing a broader choose of playable contents instead of running expeditions/LoMM only, but balancing several aspects is strongly needed. About scaling, I personally enjoined more having it as an option in mod 15 with hardcore dungeon mode - wasn't that challenging tbh but a good start - and Tales of Old logic to increase reward as maps gets harder; compared to those I find mod16 scaling system a step behind. Overall hardcore mode in dungeons and Tales of Old are by far the best content released in last year: please take them as an example (for a post go-live patch) to make your "customers" happy again
Yes, scaling is implemented as a cap system. This means a cap is put in place on what the item level for a piece of gear can be in a given piece of scaled content. This does mean a level 70 and level 80 can be experiencing the same difficulty in a piece of scaled content.
Hopefully I am missing something, does a scaling system gear-related means players have to switch to level 70 gear in order to achieve better performance (because of better bonuses)? In other words: will a "level 70 BiS gear" dps character be able to run chult quests and deal more damage in tomb of nine gods than a level 80 one with BiS level 80 gear? Sounds quite painful to me, not even mentioning gold/time cost in case I would like to run a level 70 dungeon with friends or run scaled campaign for stronghold quests and I don't want to be my bag in that case lol. I don't want this to end up with a nerf to hunt gear (as it will likely be) or to an overall buff of scaled areas' critters, just want to make an example on how the logic itselfs has major flaws as, like too many already stated, gear progression is not rewarded at all and even dissuaded in some cases. I strongly believe scaling is a good idea, if the purpose is providing a broader choose of playable contents instead of running expeditions/LoMM only, but balancing several aspects is strongly needed. About scaling, I personally enjoined more having it as an option in mod 15 with hardcore dungeon mode - wasn't that challenging tbh but a good start - and Tales of Old logic to increase reward as maps gets harder; compared to those I find mod16 scaling system a step behind. Overall hardcore mode in dungeons and Tales of Old are by far the best content released in last year: please take them as an example (for a post go-live patch) to make your "customers" happy again
hunt gear is going to be obsolete after one level in. all the gear is.
How is it possible that you do not understand that this situation is just "Intolerable" (Stokley Silverstream)?
Its laughable that you believe that players who have completed all of Omu and have Primal Gear and better from doing so with Rank 10-12 enchants should be made to play as if they are raw 70s who have been to Barovia to get the gear, but actually cannot complete the content in that zone.
Its equally laughable that you think having the same iL gear to run CR as you get for standing in Barovia is actually rewarding for experienced players.
Its even more ludicrous that you believe NEW players will tolerate getting to the end of the Level 80 campaign and then going to those zones and having their gear be MUCH WORSE than it is in Vanrakdoom where they earnt it.
But sure you keep telling yourself the community doesn't understand the objectives of scaling.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Comments
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
> Back on January 24th I made a very specific warning regarding Mod 16. Now, I cannot quote myself here, as the NDA still covers that, but I was comparing certain aspects of Mod 16 to Mod 6.
>
> I really hope I will not be able to say "I told you so".
Any time you are going to compare something to how mod 6 was and the similarities, this is NOT a good thing.
I have a feeling it is going to be a " I told you so".
> So let me get this straight, after almost 6 years in the game, thousands of hours, millions of AD:
>
> Anything I've learned about the game is worthless because there is no build difference. No real stat choice.
>
> All my finished campaigns are meaningless - Anyone saw those boons, meaningless and will probably get scaled too.
>
> My high rank enchants, not only devalued each couple of mods due to some decisions, now completely worthless, they scale to rank 8s.
>
> Rotation? Hold mouse button, spam encounters of CD repeat. Oh wait, click that Tab button, to get CA, which I already should have anyway.
>
>
> We warned years ago that solving the lack of people in leveling queues by forcing high level players into leveling RQ will only create issues and discontent. Now this looks like a fallout from that old mistake, and a 'cheap' solution for lack of challenging content - There is a conceptual mistake: Challenging content should come with progress, not at the expense of one.
>
> The game became Carpentry simulator - The nails nailed into coffins so well...
Goddamit. I do agree with this 101%.
You guys screwed up the game. Talking about new players? And who exactly will recommend this AFK-simulator after launch of m16?
(SLOW CLAP)
You did this, you totally did this. Messed up the game so much people are actually leaving.
I could live with scaling in zones since I have all my boons and do not have to go through this tripe but scaling in dungeons is out of order. Have you devs actually played through CRL, CoDG and TonG the scaling is way too aggressive
I was often criticising the approach to certain things you had but now I'm disgusted. The amount of HAMSTER is waaaaaaaaay to high. We did respect you and always got nothing in return. The lack of transparency is shocking for me.
I am not giving up on the game, but I am going to completely shelve 15 of my characters. The one remaining character I will take to level 80 and focus on that content, 3 expeditions per day and the occasional LoMM - at most I will do the 3 weekly Challenge Campaign quests, but that's it ... otherwise I am not touching the scaling areas.
Then, in a month or so I'll check how many of my friends are still left and re-evaluate the situation
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
I've seen in forum and spoken to in game a dozen NDA-bound early testers...
loyal, experienced and extremely knowledgeable NW players and theorycrafters...
(not random Trolls, not whining nay-sayers)
... People loyal to NW, people that chose NW over many other games. People that want you to succeed...
...tell you that you are making a mistake. Or, more accurately, several mistakes.
Who else are you listening to?
Jesus is on vacation. Mohammad is in a phone conference. The Dali Lama is playing golf.
These guys and gals are your prophets of truth.
Why aren't you listening to them?
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
There is a pressure on Cryptic/NW to sell Zen/Zen Items to improve a character.
They incentivize players to upgrade with corresponding benefits and advantage.
The scaling will greatly diminish these incentives.
Cryptic will immediately notice the drop in sales. They will trace the reduction anomaly to Scaling.
Developers will be forced tweak or change this feature ( my guess within 6 months ).
On the other hand, class balance will not fix itself (it's been broken for about 5 years ).
There's no pressure for Cryptic to keep all classes balanced. The only reason they did the overhaul is because
The system + class mechanics are going off the scale.
The new system + class mechanics will not go off the scale, so it's up to the players to pressure the developers to
treat classes evenly.
As it is with Mod16 release, there's no class balance. And unlike scaling only some classes will be "shafted" while others will be
"elevated".
Except.... Acquisitions Incorporated isn't a real campaign, never was. It's barely even "content". And it's *already scaled*. So you're saying the two most recent campaigns won't be scaled except it's only the one most recent campaign that won't be scaled and also it will be scaled?
Your post was pretty blunt, so I'll respond in kind. This is going to go over like a lead balloon. No joke, @noworries#8859 -- come Tuesday, a lot of players are going to wind up with a very unpleasant and very infuriating shock. You're negating all feeling of progress in older content and it will NOT be received well. If you weren't around to experience the backlash during Mod 6, get ready because I predict you're about to.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Furthermore, it kills all immersion. When you are level 1 and you run into the rat and its a rough fight, it is all well and good, but the level 80 atropal destroying hero has no right to be challenged by a mere house pest. This is the problem created by level scaling, your character is stronger, it should kill the rat with a single glare. This exact same problem exists in single player games that try to do level scaling, for example, Oblivion.
It is even worse then that though, because it kills all incentive to progress, especially when level scaling is implemented poorly, like it is here. If there is ever a case where leveling up your character leads to old content you have already beat taking longer, you have a problem.
I know why it is added, it is added so that old players do not ruin the experience for new players, but the problem there is not the lack of level scaling, it is the ease of which you can achieve your goals and the fact that end game players are motivated to run low tier content in the first place. A level 80 character should not be running the same content as a level 50 character. If I wanted to run old content and have it challenge me, I would do it on an alt and on live that is exactly what I did.
The solution? Remove the incentive to run low tier content. Once you are level 70, remove the rewards from it, it is as simple as that. Make endgame much grindier, but make it a "good" grind, not an RNG grind, where you can actively track your progression. But you won't do that, because you need to create the illusion there are more players in the game than there actually are, by "forcing" old players onto new players. The problem with this is, it doesn't matter how you do it, it creates a bad experience. The old player do not want to be running easy content, but they feel compelled to because of the reward system you have created. This makes them frustrated and unpleasant to run with for the new players.
Social interactions of this particular type should not be forced in this manner, no matter how you spin it, it won't work positively. Putting level scaling in place isn't going to change that, they will continue to rage at the new player who doesn't know better.
I won't say much more about the matter, because I have said it before, both here and on the Beta forums and I know nothing will change. More is the pity.
They seem to have lost sight of the fact that character progression needs to be respected, not obliterated for the sake of new players.
this is exactly like mod 6, maybe even worse, I will give it a try when this goes live but if it's still this bad, it may be time to take a long break (but still log in to get the VIP keys, etc), this is disappointing to say the least. I am trying to stay optimistic but as we get closer that feeling is dwindling down quickly.
I have a question......how is this scaling going to work with events (CTAs) or lower level dungeons, where you might have a mix of level 80s down to level 6 or 7, and anything that sends you to older areas???
there is this game
(that I'm not gonna say names because I don't know if it is allowed)it had their own version of downscale called "fair fight", in 4 months, the game went from 40k players to 4k, the developers never responded to players complaining about the down scaling and when they did, they said that it was supposed to be like that, so everyone stopped playing, because no matter how hard new content is, it will be worthless because of fair fight, after seem the disaster, they decided to remove Fair Fight from the game, but it was too late, the game was already dead.All I'm getting from mod16 is a Dejavu, I REALLY don't want the same to happen to NW, I know you guys are always talking to us and we appreciate it - A LOT - ,but in this case you are just wrong, it will not work.
You have 3 choices here:
1) Delay mod 16; fix the scaling to realist numbers where our progression is not worthless.
2) Revamp all old campaigns; okay, you want they to be a new challenge? fine, but go the all the way and revamp ALL OF THEM, remove most of the Hamster time gating, make them like elemental evil, you go, do a few quests in the map, get whatever bad reward it has and done. All the "epic" dungeons that said campaign had, make it a leveling dungeon, because lets face it, Castle never now is "harder" but the rewards are still "hamster".
3) Remove down scaling from everything; This is my favorite, so what that I can brain dead solo tuern and a new player cant? the new player has something to get from it, I don't. This would encourage caring, but again, who cares? Tuern is a dead dungeon that we only do if we get it in the random queue or if you need the book for the campaign.
Secret option 4) watch your game die; read my example of the other game, it's the same mistake.
Okay, sure, imagine you're "only" allowed to bring R13s to Barovia, fair. R12s to SKT and River District. R8s to Dread Ring and Sharandar. I can respect that.
The idea that you can only bring *starting L70 gear* (R8s) or lower to almost every L70 zone, with R9s-only for Ravenloft? That's.... too low. Every L70 player has a full, complete set of blue L70 Mod14 gear with R8s in every single slot, and green Mod 14 artifact weapons with R8s slotted. That's your baseline for what someone starting The Dread Ring for the very first time has. The idea that that's already *way over* the max cap for The Dread Ring is just nonsense. The idea that someone with twice their IL and 5 years of progress gets the same Dread Ring experience? Also nonsense.
Yule (Barb): 72k : Siren (TR): 78k : Torun (DC): 73k : Siren OP (OP): 76k : Siren SW (SW): 78k : Modern (F): 80k : Cherry1 (CW) : 68k Siren HR (HR): 78k
I want to believe that it's because you're so busy with the release of the new module you haven't tested scaling well. You, personally take a little time to go play with an lvl 70 and set vistani and then with an lvl80 BiS and see the difference that ALL of us are telling you. I hope you guys are not so arrogant and proud to accept that you are making a mistake. If ALL of us who try the preview say so and most of the Beta Testers also warn you, don't you think it's because we could be right?
I don't want this to end up with a nerf to hunt gear (as it will likely be) or to an overall buff of scaled areas' critters, just want to make an example on how the logic itselfs has major flaws as, like too many already stated, gear progression is not rewarded at all and even dissuaded in some cases.
I strongly believe scaling is a good idea, if the purpose is providing a broader choose of playable contents instead of running expeditions/LoMM only, but balancing several aspects is strongly needed. About scaling, I personally enjoined more having it as an option in mod 15 with hardcore dungeon mode - wasn't that challenging tbh but a good start - and Tales of Old logic to increase reward as maps gets harder; compared to those I find mod16 scaling system a step behind. Overall hardcore mode in dungeons and Tales of Old are by far the best content released in last year: please take them as an example (for a post go-live patch) to make your "customers" happy again
How is it possible that you do not understand that this situation is just "Intolerable" (Stokley Silverstream)?
Its laughable that you believe that players who have completed all of Omu and have Primal Gear and better from doing so with Rank 10-12 enchants should be made to play as if they are raw 70s who have been to Barovia to get the gear, but actually cannot complete the content in that zone.
Its equally laughable that you think having the same iL gear to run CR as you get for standing in Barovia is actually rewarding for experienced players.
Its even more ludicrous that you believe NEW players will tolerate getting to the end of the Level 80 campaign and then going to those zones and having their gear be MUCH WORSE than it is in Vanrakdoom where they earnt it.
But sure you keep telling yourself the community doesn't understand the objectives of scaling.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.