I'm calling HAMSTER already. You're using words with no weight at this point. I bet you all the money I've invested in this game (which is a considerable amount over the past 5 or 6 years of loyalty) that the next few "announcements" and "streams" concerning the new Mod are just going to be hype, propaganda, and how you care so much for the game and community but not really. Like ffs, is it any wonder people get the idea that NW is now a "pay up or give up" type of game. All the new stat changes, class changes, content "fixing", scaling BS, meta-whatnot? Hogwash. My GWF (Barbarian) has never been so depressing. I'd really hate to be a part of that group of people who think that you lot are killing the game on purpose...but that's what it feels like.
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dademon1982Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 21Arc User
Hey all,
A bit late to the party, but better late than never, right?
I can't add anything that hasn't been said here, by others in a way better than I could do myself. I haven't experienced too much issues firsthand because I'm being semi-disabled due to lower back pain since the week before mod 16 came live. The entire time I did read the forums and kept up-to-date via Reddit, Youtube and Discord. Memories to mod 6 come to mind, which almost drove me away (well, it did for a few weeks, but I came back), so I can Imagine what everyone has to go through.
Now that I can play for short bursts again, I have to say: All this negativity is also impacting my urge to play NW when I can sit for a few mins. I like the Undermountain bits (did 3 toons on preview, and nearly done with my main on live), but since everything else is pretty much broken it is hard to avoid negativity in-game as well.
Like others have said; I sincerely hope that this is the start of you guys starting to LISTEN to the community, instead of this just being damage control mode... AGAIN. We will need proof that stuff is being fixed, instead of just words, even though the apology is much appreciated.
dademon1982Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 21Arc User
Another thing I forgot, added as a separate post as I read in this topic that edited posts get deleted for some reason;
It might be a good time to start using our human skill to "learn and adapt" from the mistakes of the past. - Black Ice was a big issue in mod 3, yet it was revamped and implemented tenfold for mod 10 as voninblod. WHY? - The level cap increase in mod 6, brought a lot of issues of near unplayable dungeons due to godmode enemies, and here we are again in mod 16. WHY? - Let's not even talk about the numerous "balancing passes" between enchants and classes, which mostly lead to "flavor of the mod" builds.
Monitor what works and what does not. You can have gold with this game, but yet these repeats of mistakes puts both us players and you devs in a vicious circle.
The biggest thing they could do to gain any credibility is to restore the old classes and undo the scaling, otherwise it's just words. Just empty words.
I fully support new lvl cap because ist neccesary for Progress - the way it´s done is just wrong. A cap in Crit strikes? Why? If the enemies have crit resist say - 20 % I Need 120% crit to crit against all the time - so why there is a cap? With rank 80 it should be possible to reach 200% crit burt then I loosse alot of power or arm pen or other stats needed - there is no point to add These caps.
The next Problem I see is you need to form a Group. I Play in a Guild with People in different timezones - so when I´m on they have done their dailys and started to run Dungeons - I want to solo the Content especially if I´m geared for it. There are so many Single Players out there - its just wrong what you did.
The whole update you aimed for getting rid of BIS Players who don´t need to spend any Money for the game - but with those Players Dungeons and other Content for new Players are not doable - there is noone who can carry you - so no BIS Players mean other Players can´t finish stuff they leave also - atm there is no Point getting BIS - because there is no BIS anymore.
my 12 legendary companions (2 Chars) are completly useless? I grind for yearts to get where i am an I get no nothing? everything is nothing worth? Yes you tried to kill the BIS Players but you killed you whole game with it!
and what you also should do is: make Reports of every dungeon run so you can compare - what are thefastesrt dungeon runs - what group finishes the fastest what ILVL what Group composition - so you can see what class slow down a run - you can can update it to make it better. Also you can Count what powers how often are used in Dungeons - so you see if some powers only get used or if there is diversity. These Reports you should check all the time before making adjustements.
On XBOX: In our Guild many of the BIS Players reduced the time played alot and they are no on very often - that results in random Queues not popping or they are so weak they can´t complete it. Yesterday I joined a MSP at the second boss with my CW (17.6k buff dps mix) - the group was in for 1h 45 min - we finished in 2h 2 min. without my CW this Group would not be able to finish. In mod 16 they would be in for 2 hours to reach the first Boss - noone want to play like this! Come back to the Reports - check how many Dungeons can´t get finished and so on before you adjust anything.
Last: I´m not sure how it is on other plattforms - but on xbox there are many mature Players with Money - they have little time to play because of Family and real life stuff - There is NO WAY People want to sit in "NORMAL OLD" Dungeons for 2 Hours ore more. In our Guild if we want to run Ravenloft with new Players we plan it at the Weekend where everyone have enough time. If everything takes so much longer without the Chance to cut down the time by being BIS the game will losse all those Family Players and with them alot of Money - our Guild is almost maxed on Players an the majority is between age of 30 and 65 - you loose all of them!
There are so many massive issues here that I'm not sure I can coherently organize them. You took an intelligent, fun, sometimes complicated game and dumbed it down to the lowest common denominator. The appeal for me has always been playing around with feats, grabbing my friends, and saying "New test build, set sail for fail" and running content. Good job taking away what made NW unlike most mmorpg.
You took away buffs. Ok, fine. But taking away almost every buff in the game *is* scaling. Introducing a scaling system on top of taking away buffs is basically doubling down and there's no reason for it. When I started playing at launch on ps4, we didn't have all these buffs and guess what? Fun, challenging content.
Aside from that, why should a stat capped level 80 find challenging content in content from YEARS ago? What is even the point? In other mmorpg, I could solo 25 man content from launch years later because it was irrelevant. The insistence on linking rad to old content is the only reason (other than campaign currency and a lack of substantial level 80 content or to help new players learn mechanics which now they can't do) level 80 toons are running Tia and Demo and Malabog.
You've made progression irrelevant. You've made years of gameplay irrelevant. You've neutered our toons and removed any kind of player customization. And the worst: it's crystal clear that no one from Cryptic has played this game the way the rest of us plebs do. You get free alpha and beta testing from dedicated players. So you don't play the game and you don't listen to people who actually do. This is the most tone deaf team I've ever encountered. I would be ashamed to attach this game to my professional resumé. And this fan service post just shows how unwilling you are to accept that your scaling system is broken. Console launch is in a little over a month. Most of my friends have moved on to other games. The ones that still play don't play with the regularity or previous time spent. We know what's coming.
Lastly, thank you to PC players. Console relies on you all for information and I know so many of us are so appreciative of everything that you do and put up with. It's glaringly obvious that players care more for this game than Cryptic does. Players from all over the world are the heart and soul of this game. It's an absolute shame how far the game had fallen.
Mr. Foss, your apology for some of the issues created by Mod 16 is appreciated. However, if you are truly looking to better listen to players, the development team must address the scaling issues. Scaling has been commented on more than any single issue I can remember since NW's initial launch, yet the development team still does not seem to grasp the gravity and magnitude of this issue.
As scaling exists now, progression and increased stats from upgrading enchantments is stopped at very low ranks in scaled zones. This breaks a fundamental mechanic of level and stat based adventure games, which is that as you level up upgrade your character's equipment, you become stronger. This is a critical flaw with the new scaling system that is not a "bug" but must be addressed.
So, understanding the development team's desire to make older content more difficult, there are several ways to approach fixing this issue.
1. Make all dungeons level 80 and remove capping, but keep IL scaling for power. This approach is likely the best. It does require adjusting creatures in the existing dungeons, but this has to be done a anyway to make them playable again. I also suggest only scaling power, as power is the measure directly related to damage. This way people don't go from having met the minimum stats to being reduced below the minimum stats in the older content, as is happening now. It also allows for character progression to continue.
2. Keep the scaling as it is now (not recommended) but allow for some smaller increases in stats due to each enchantments rank a over the capped rank value. While not as good of a method as 1, above, this at least allows for some minor sense of progression. A rank 6 bonding should never give the same stats as a rank 15 bonding in a dungeon. If it does, then it's actually better to use lower level enchants in the L70 content to avoid the additional IL scaling. Let's face it, that just makes no sense, ever!
3. Some other option that you think of that allows for some sort of progression and doesn't penalize players with scaling for having higher level enchantments.
The new level cap has made having any L70 content obsolete. People will typically spend only a week or two between L70 and L80. Therefore, the most obvious and best solution is 1 above, to make all current L70 content into L80 content.
No matter what, some sense of progression must be restored for NW to remain a viable world. Please take your own words to heart and consider the hundreds of player posts commenting on scaling and do something to truly address the core issues.
Bring it home Mr. Foss. This Stream will be PACKED with viewers.
Rest assured... it will go well if you talk about the current condition of the game and community and layout what you are going to do to fix the mess. Then.... you can get us excited about the Guild Love and future content coming in the next mod or two.
If you just plan to discuss the next MOD... expect another mess on your hands.
Mr. Foss, your apology for some of the issues created by Mod 16 is appreciated. However, if you are truly looking to better listen to players, the development team must address the scaling issues. Scaling has been commented on more than any single issue I can remember since NW's initial launch, yet the development team still does not seem to grasp the gravity and magnitude of this issue.
As scaling exists now, progression and increased stats from upgrading enchantments is stopped at very low ranks in scaled zones. This breaks a fundamental mechanic of level and stat based adventure games, which is that as you level up upgrade your character's equipment, you become stronger. This is a critical flaw with the new scaling system that is not a "bug" but must be addressed.
So, understanding the development team's desire to make older content more difficult, there are several ways to approach fixing this issue.
1. Make all dungeons level 80 and remove capping, but keep IL scaling for power. This approach is likely the best. It does require adjusting creatures in the existing dungeons, but this has to be done a anyway to make them playable again. I also suggest only scaling power, as power is the measure directly related to damage. This way people don't go from having met the minimum stats to being reduced below the minimum stats in the older content, as is happening now. It also allows for character progression to continue.
2. Keep the scaling as it is now (not recommended) but allow for some smaller increases in stats due to each enchantments rank a over the capped rank value. While not as good of a method as 1, above, this at least allows for some minor sense of progression. A rank 6 bonding should never give the same stats as a rank 15 bonding in a dungeon. If it does, then it's actually better to use lower level enchants in the L70 content to avoid the additional IL scaling. Let's face it, that just makes no sense, ever!
3. Some other option that you think of that allows for some sort of progression and doesn't penalize players with scaling for having higher level enchantments.
The new level cap has made having any L70 content obsolete. People will typically spend only a week or two between L70 and L80. Therefore, the most obvious and best solution is 1 above, to make all current L70 content into L80 content.
No matter what, some sense of progression must be restored for NW to remain a viable world. Please take your own words to heart and consider the hundreds of player posts commenting on scaling and do something to truly address the core issues.
Talia (W)
Taragon (DC)
Tabbatha (OP)
Tanya (F)
Tasha (SW)
*Edited for typos
Quoted for truth. The Devs must understand this. They have done what no game in the history of D&D has ever done before, to my knowledge, since Gygax and Company first statted out the game wayyyyyyyy on back in the day: they have made the act of leveling up, the greatest, age old method of telling a player "you have made progress. You have gotten stronger. You have gotten better." to be something that actively punishes you, weakens you, and is to be avoided at all costs.
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kieranmtornMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 382Arc User
edited May 2019
Is there any point to this thread, other than to buy time and allow the community to vent. You have a major redesign of the game that is not popular with the players and is too late to change (and went ahead with it, despite poor reviews and ignored bugs on preview). All you can do is work through the bugs and hope this blows over, because the system redesign can't be undone.
For the love of all that's holy don't deploy this patch on console. I for one won't even log in on my main after release if you release this in it's current state, just to save it from this utter screw-up.
I guess I speak for the majority of player when I say; I refuse to keep playing this game as long as scaling is around. I'll log in to get my dailies keys because I don't want to wast my money, but actually playing? No, thanks.
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dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
Is there any point to this thread, other than to buy time and allow the community to vent?
That's the inference, based on past dev streams. We need action, not words. The only way Mr. Foss can answer your question "Yes" is if a definitive change is announced: Remove the cap Remove the scaling and/or Return the stats to 500:1
If no ACTION is announced, it's just more lip-service. Sound and Fury.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
@mimicking#6533 You have stolen so much from long term end game players. In a real life setting it would be like taking away our BMW and house in the Hamptons and having it replaced with a ford escort and a house trailer. I log in just to log out now and see no reason to even attempt to progress in the game when it will just be stolen away in mod 20 if the game survives that long.
2} The CC is out of control. I run a pure elven battle enchant and I spend a huge amount of time getting stunlocked in encounters. If im feeling it this bad with the highest source of CC resistance in the game its bad. I hear in alliance and NWLegit chat constantly of stunlocked to death. Maybe look into diminishing returns for CC on our characters?
I second this, the CCs gamewide are over the top right now. The CCs last way too long even with an elven battle enchantment and most enemies have lots of CC moves.
The worst example I've experienced so far was a cradle run, everyone spent half the elevator ride just laying prone on the floor, getting pushed over and over again, or getting grabbed.
It also doesn't help that at least 2 classes now have reported issues with some of their CC immunity frames not blocking most CCs anymore. These would be rogue and barbarian.
I will mention that CC diminishing returns is probably not the best route to take, it failed miserably when the devs tried to do that for PVP and even if it was successful it would have created new balance issues. I think the devs just need to reduce the CC duration for PVE enemies and give us more CC immunity frames.
-- PVP Rogue, --[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]-- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin) Ingame Handle: trgluestickz Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563 Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud Platform: PC
Boons could have been dealt with in a much simpler way unless no way to re-code. Like to get old boons from sharandar, dread ring, icewind dale, ect just making them less grindy. Rather than have to grind for weeks maybe get boons after 6 days if not just one day of quests. That way people could still play old story lines without having to spending so much time to advance.
Why more waiting ? Here's my current experience of the game as it stands. I log in.. I try to gather a few resonance whilst rubber-banding from one place to another (only during the runic), suffer the odd death due to lag and use a ton of potions to keep me alive as i don't like permanently holding shift in case a mob is actually next to me and the lag hasn't shown it to me yet. I do the 3 Mexp a day i'm allowed, generally soloing on 1 rune keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get disconnected during the run. I have that experience on 2 toons.. no way do I want to experience that across anymore. That is it.. not proving a fun game now at all in my opinion. Add to that the devaluing of all the 3 stat enchants on my TR so I can't sell them nor swap them for account bound single stats. I am trying to give you the chance to redeem yourselves........ but I only have so much patience and you now ask me to wait even longer for ??? for what and why I'm not quite sure.
Mimicking it maybe little hard to accept your word, it was 2nd time it turn back and slap us to reminding everyone for another Mod 6 experiences again. if i see Mod 6 3.0 version, that was it, it is over.
we all do love to level up, scaling isnt one. i also aware not wanting to leave other zones as ghost towns. when you add dragon areas to old zones, that was great, and we like to see another "closed-off" sections to be open for next tier adventure, but please mark the "gate as 80 lvl access only", so the lower levels wont get in by mistake. one, i am very confused, on campaign, Well of dragons set as level 26, but i am still seeing level 73 mobs.
Barovia seem to be successful content, but sorry to find out about others exploiting the hunt. i like the hunting format. i think and feel we should have new version of new hunts and types of item turn in scaled challenges, but Tales of the Olds seem catered only to extremist hardcore players.
please dont make another Mod 6 again. we all hate it. make another succesful module and well liked the most, then all will be forgiven. i want to see Waterdeep (huge 3-city districts) and Calimshan (city of thieves in faction guilds) with lot of roof-top quests, and new classes. please ask me about several ideas for Calimshan, i have list for it and story plots. "Calimshan: Song of the Sands" break into 3 module trilogy.
It sounds like you still don't understand why your scaling is fundamentally broken. The problem is that level 80 characters are weaker than level 70 characters in level 70 content.
Armor Penetration is one of the better ways to determine a character's overall dps. Higher Armor Pen (up to the cap) will mean more dps. For this analysis, we will only look at Armor Pen.
The current issue with scaling is that as a level 80 player, we do less damage than a level 70 in level 70 content. This is true for both campaign zones and dungeons. That is clearly a problem. Any player that progresses should be able to feel the effects of their progression. Currently we are feeling the effects of a bad scaling system.
Example:
The Armor Penetration required for level 80 areas is 60,000 and for Lair of the Mad Mage is 66,000. My Armor Pen is at ~71,000. (I am over the cap because of a class feat for barbarians that gives a little damage boost for being over the cap).
When I go to Barovia (the highest zone for level 70 characters) my Armor Penetration drops down to ~44,000. Currently the required arm pen needed to completely shred an enemies defenses in Barovia is 54,000 (I might be wrong on this value, might be 51,000?).
With a level 70 copy of the same character my armor pen is 55,662 which is over the "cap" value to completely shred enemy resistances.
A person who is over the "cap" values for level 80 content should not be scaled to a value where they are under the "cap" for level 70 content. Rather than introducing challenge, this just makes old content frustrating and because no reward is being scaled, there is literally no reason to run level 70 content in its current state.
New players won't be impacted by this until they reach an IL in the new version of the game of about 15,000. That is when scaling will start to significantly impact their game-play. For reference: a 15,000 IL in neverwinter 2.0 is equivalent to an IL of about 13,500-14,000 in the live game.
What are you going to do or change in your scaling approach? Why my legendary rune, enchant and insignia are equal to a purple when you scale me down? Stats should be cap at the end of the scaling not at the source of stats. You create the perception that my better gear doesn’t mean anything. Why cap are so low? No one ever played those zone so low. Why the reward of dungeon was not adjusted? Do you think end game player want to run any dungeon with the actual reward ? Why did you lunch that mod ? You clearly knew about the bugs and customer feedback. Could you provide better choice in feat, since we only have 5 choices to make. And please add more option to all classes, we don’t want to be all the same. I invest a lot in my enchant. Millions. The weight of my enchant was significally reduce in mod 16. I have spend money on enchant. Why should spend more money in the game after that? You just devaluated my build, my effort and my money.
@mimicking#6533@nitocris83 No offense Mr. Foss but you know what I want to see? A Cryptic QUALITY ASSURANCE and testing Live Stream! And I am not the only one.
You know what I really want to see? I want to see 5 cryptic employees in a party doing a random queue of any level 70 dungeon or skirmish on level 71-80 characters. This should not take them more than 45 minutes right?
I would like to see the tanks point of view, the healers pov and one dps pov. NO GOD MODE! Play the game as we play it. To make it more fun you should use 5 random characters picked from the player base using the gear and set up that player has. (If you need help learning how to record and upload different POV's just ask. We have several community streamers that would probably love to help just to see this.)
I mean this should not be a problem because you do have a QA department right? They are testing content right? You don't even have to disrupt their testing, just screencap them and stream it. They do party content right? They must be using random queues right? They do stronghold content right? I am not asking for anything "EXTRA" You should be doing all of this anyway with folks dedicated to QA, so business as usual but just showing it being done... RIGHT?
You all better cross your fingers and hope you get FBI instead of anything else!
If they are able to complete the dungeon I want to see the rewards they get from the chest. I want to see the community reaction to those rewards during the stream.
If things are in such a good place then this should not be a problem right? I mean you thought it was good enough to release to us even after being warned in several threads on your own forums, not to mention reddit and discord. Now you are going to push to console. Show us it is ready.
Not up for random queue? No problem! Queue up as private and do Castle Ravenloft or Tomb of the Nine Gods or Cradle of the Death God. You know that content you were also warned about MONTHS AGO!
I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU!
Don't waste any more of our time with "we are working on it" or "we are aware". Show us that you play the game and are seeing what we are seeing on a daily basis! Demonstrate just how we are supposed to be doing this content in its current form.
So instead of sitting there talking to us in this QA stream on Tuesday for an hour and ignoring our questions and feedback spend that hour playing YOUR game the way YOU want it played. These changes are your vision after all aren't they?
If you can't complete the content then remove it from the random queue until it is bug free. Is that too much to ask? We can't even earn our daily AD because of these bugs and scaling. Show me that we are wrong.
I posted most of this in another thread, but I still want to see it. I want PROOF that you see the bugs we are reporting. I want proof that you are aware of our reports. I want proof that these things are being worked on. Tell me something like this is what you are going to surprise us with and I will be truly excited. Show me anything else and my response will be Meh whatever.
as summoner33 said, mod 16 didnt feel like rpg D&D, it felt more like casino online. since we pour out stacks of potions, health stones and revive scrolls like sands went everywhere in seconds and going broke, devs calling it "it's all good"?
news flash, It's all good is not that good. like AT&T's ads, Just ok is not Ok!
I have few main things to say. First, I'll just echo what others have said, scaling was a horrible idea, just look at other games that tried it, they all dropped it as it brings no enjoyment or feeling of accomplishing anything for the player. As for the new feats, they are a joke, you now have one and only one way to play classes, gone is all the personal touches the muli ways to play, all gone. That is just not fun. Heck as the way the game stands right now, new players who is who you are targeting and trying to get more of will not stay. They will try out a class, get killed by the simplest of enemies over and over till they just say well this is a waste of time, and delete the game.
Second if you truly want to gain back the trust of your players, then you should delay the release of mod 16 on the consoles till it is in a payable state, not this glitched broken mod you have right now.
Finally and I say this with all due respect, no matter what you say or how you justify the choices that were made, in the end how the devs move forward with this will determine how your company is viewed going forward. If you continue to push changes that the player base loathes then that will be the perception of your company. And it will effect not only NW but any other game they produce.
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dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
@mimicking#6533@nitocris83 No offense Mr. Foss but you know what I want to see? A Cryptic QUALITY ASSURANCE and testing Live Stream! And I am not the only one.
You know what I really want to see? I want to see 5 cryptic employees in a party doing a random queue of any level 70 dungeon or skirmish on level 71-80 characters. This should not take them more than 45 minutes right?
I would like to see the tanks point of view, the healers pov and one dps pov. NO GOD MODE! Play the game as we play it. To make it more fun you should use 5 random characters picked from the player base using the gear and set up that player has. (If you need help learning how to record and upload different POV's just ask. We have several community streamers that would probably love to help just to see this.)
I mean this should not be a problem because you do have a QA department right? They are testing content right? You don't even have to disrupt their testing, just screencap them and stream it. They do party content right? They must be using random queues right? They do stronghold content right? I am not asking for anything "EXTRA" You should be doing all of this anyway with folks dedicated to QA, so business as usual but just showing it being done... RIGHT?
This is a great idea. I would pay real money to see that.
Skip the Q and A (meaningless without any reversal announcements). Stream Cryptic devs live running CR, ToNG, mSP and low-level quests on your lvl 80 toons. No God Mode. Live. You say this is "right where we want it"? Fine. Prove it. Play it for us to see.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
@mimicking#6533@nitocris83 No offense Mr. Foss but you know what I want to see? A Cryptic QUALITY ASSURANCE and testing Live Stream! And I am not the only one.
You know what I really want to see? I want to see 5 cryptic employees in a party doing a random queue of any level 70 dungeon or skirmish on level 71-80 characters. This should not take them more than 45 minutes right?
I would like to see the tanks point of view, the healers pov and one dps pov. NO GOD MODE! Play the game as we play it. To make it more fun you should use 5 random characters picked from the player base using the gear and set up that player has. (If you need help learning how to record and upload different POV's just ask. We have several community streamers that would probably love to help just to see this.)
I mean this should not be a problem because you do have a QA department right? They are testing content right? You don't even have to disrupt their testing, just screencap them and stream it. They do party content right? They must be using random queues right? They do stronghold content right? I am not asking for anything "EXTRA" You should be doing all of this anyway with folks dedicated to QA, so business as usual but just showing it being done... RIGHT?
This is a great idea. I would pay real money to see that.
Skip the Q and A (meaningless without any reversal announcements). Stream Cryptic devs live running CR, ToNG, mSP and low-level quests on your lvl 80 toons. No God Mode. Live. You say this is "right where we want it"? Fine. Prove it. Play it for us to see.
And without the "perfect" companions/augments or "BIS" Mounts/Powers.. High Enchants are allowed
Can you help the community understand the specific intent behind scaling?
Specifically, do you want players to be able to continue to "get better" as they gear up, or do you want everyone past the max requirement ("cap") for a piece of content to all complete it equally well, or do you want to punish anyone above cap by making them less effective than a player geared within the expected level range?
Also, I appreciate what you've laid out here, but I strongly second mickyp00's feedback about process improvements. There's a clear lack of coordination and testing, and that's causing a lot of rework / problems for you. Can you try to get out ahead of this a little more? We want to see you succeed.
@mimicking#6533 I don't want to be a party pooper, but I have to thank you for making Vanguard Fighter extremely awesome 👍The only complaint I have about M16 so far is that the dev ( @asterdahl ?) seems to have forgot to implement a TAB-mechanic for said class.
adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
edited May 2019
There is a lot of negativity in this thread - maybe not surprising as many players feel they have been let down badly.
However, the fact that people are still here indicates that players have not given up and walked away - they feel there is still hope. So, what are the issues and what would we like to hear tomorrow?
Bugs. Far too many issues were allowed to go live....but you were warned. We told you during the closed playtest we did not feel this was ready for Preview. We told you during Preview this was not ready for Live. You went ahead. When bug reports started flowing in, some things were fixed, but it is quite clear than in many cases the "fixes" were not tested, becuse there were some example of patch notes describing "fixes" that actually did not work. To the players it looks as if you do not have any QC process whatsoever, or at least not a process that actually involves playtesting. I would love to hear how you are going to improve your internal QC processes to prevent future fiascos like this.
Scaling. The real issue with scaling is not the bugs (like the Pirate's Skyhold quest, where you are fighting mobs way above your level). No, the issue is that the very design is flawed. Your current implementation may punish people for progressing (if you level up you may see your stats go down significantly), and it makes progress through gear improvement less relevant - you are basically killing off a major motivation for playing for some people. Also, by scaling people so aggressively down that a lvl 80 in "end-game" gear is weaker than a level 70 in moderate gear, you are again taking away a good part of people's motivation to play. I would love to hear that you have realized your very design of scaling was flawed and you are going to rework it from scratch.
Reward/effort. You are making low-level content much harder to run, both through scaling (badly, as mentioned before), and by removing buff stacking (which is actually a good thing). However, the rewards don't change - so apart from the AD reward from random queues, there is really no reason for high-level players to run low-level content. I would love to hear which steps you are going to make the reward/effort ratio acceptable for all content.
Crafting. You gave us a new crafting system in Mid 15, only to make crafting irrelevant in Mod 16. I would love to hear what you are going to do to make crafting relevant, by fixing the +1 quest issue and adding new recipes.
Boons. Instead of being a major goal to work towards, and a great motivation to finish older campaigns, boons are now much less relevant than they used to be and even the Master boons are of limited use. I would love to hear something about a plan to make boons relevant
Character creation and primary stats. I am really unhappy about removal of stat rolls and how ability bonuses are handled. I would love to hear you admit this was a total fiasco and will be reverted.
Feats. Those are a very mixed bag. They are decent for some classes/builds, but pretty much useless for others - often seem just piced at random, with little thought given to synergy or support for different playstyles. I would love to hear something about a planned overhaul to make them relevant and make the game feel less "dumbed down"
Community relations. You should really look at how some other similar companies handle communication with the community. The one I am most familiar with is CCP (Eve Online). You could learn a few things from them. I would love to hear of any plans to improve interaction with the player community and their involvement.
Comments
A bit late to the party, but better late than never, right?
I can't add anything that hasn't been said here, by others in a way better than I could do myself. I haven't experienced too much issues firsthand because I'm being semi-disabled due to lower back pain since the week before mod 16 came live. The entire time I did read the forums and kept up-to-date via Reddit, Youtube and Discord. Memories to mod 6 come to mind, which almost drove me away (well, it did for a few weeks, but I came back), so I can Imagine what everyone has to go through.
Now that I can play for short bursts again, I have to say:
All this negativity is also impacting my urge to play NW when I can sit for a few mins. I like the Undermountain bits (did 3 toons on preview, and nearly done with my main on live), but since everything else is pretty much broken it is hard to avoid negativity in-game as well.
Like others have said; I sincerely hope that this is the start of you guys starting to LISTEN to the community, instead of this just being damage control mode... AGAIN. We will need proof that stuff is being fixed, instead of just words, even though the apology is much appreciated.
Show us that you are sincere!
FateSpinners Guild Leader We are RECRUITING!!
It might be a good time to start using our human skill to "learn and adapt" from the mistakes of the past.
- Black Ice was a big issue in mod 3, yet it was revamped and implemented tenfold for mod 10 as voninblod. WHY?
- The level cap increase in mod 6, brought a lot of issues of near unplayable dungeons due to godmode enemies, and here we are again in mod 16. WHY?
- Let's not even talk about the numerous "balancing passes" between enchants and classes, which mostly lead to "flavor of the mod" builds.
Monitor what works and what does not. You can have gold with this game, but yet these repeats of mistakes puts both us players and you devs in a vicious circle.
FateSpinners Guild Leader We are RECRUITING!!
Not holding my breath.
The next Problem I see is you need to form a Group. I Play in a Guild with People in different timezones - so when I´m on they have done their dailys and started to run Dungeons - I want to solo the Content especially if I´m geared for it. There are so many Single Players out there - its just wrong what you did.
Next: Solution for scaling:
hard caps is the biggest mistake of all! remove it asap.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1248057/easy-solution-for-scaling
The whole update you aimed for getting rid of BIS Players who don´t need to spend any Money for the game - but with those Players Dungeons and other Content for new Players are not doable - there is noone who can carry you - so no BIS Players mean other Players can´t finish stuff they leave also - atm there is no Point getting BIS - because there is no BIS anymore.
my 12 legendary companions (2 Chars) are completly useless? I grind for yearts to get where i am an I get no nothing? everything is nothing worth? Yes you tried to kill the BIS Players but you killed you whole game with it!
and what you also should do is: make Reports of every dungeon run so you can compare - what are thefastesrt dungeon runs - what group finishes the fastest what ILVL what Group composition - so you can see what class slow down a run - you can can update it to make it better. Also you can Count what powers how often are used in Dungeons - so you see if some powers only get used or if there is diversity. These Reports you should check all the time before making adjustements.
On XBOX: In our Guild many of the BIS Players reduced the time played alot and they are no on very often - that results in random Queues not popping or they are so weak they can´t complete it. Yesterday I joined a MSP at the second boss with my CW (17.6k buff dps mix) - the group was in for 1h 45 min - we finished in 2h 2 min. without my CW this Group would not be able to finish. In mod 16 they would be in for 2 hours to reach the first Boss - noone want to play like this! Come back to the Reports - check how many Dungeons can´t get finished and so on before you adjust anything.
Last: I´m not sure how it is on other plattforms - but on xbox there are many mature Players with Money - they have little time to play because of Family and real life stuff - There is NO WAY People want to sit in "NORMAL OLD" Dungeons for 2 Hours ore more. In our Guild if we want to run Ravenloft with new Players we plan it at the Weekend where everyone have enough time.
If everything takes so much longer without the Chance to cut down the time by being BIS the game will losse all those Family Players and with them alot of Money - our Guild is almost maxed on Players an the majority is between age of 30 and 65 - you loose all of them!
Sorry for my english
You took away buffs. Ok, fine. But taking away almost every buff in the game *is* scaling. Introducing a scaling system on top of taking away buffs is basically doubling down and there's no reason for it. When I started playing at launch on ps4, we didn't have all these buffs and guess what? Fun, challenging content.
Aside from that, why should a stat capped level 80 find challenging content in content from YEARS ago? What is even the point? In other mmorpg, I could solo 25 man content from launch years later because it was irrelevant. The insistence on linking rad to old content is the only reason (other than campaign currency and a lack of substantial level 80 content or to help new players learn mechanics which now they can't do) level 80 toons are running Tia and Demo and Malabog.
You've made progression irrelevant. You've made years of gameplay irrelevant. You've neutered our toons and removed any kind of player customization. And the worst: it's crystal clear that no one from Cryptic has played this game the way the rest of us plebs do. You get free alpha and beta testing from dedicated players. So you don't play the game and you don't listen to people who actually do. This is the most tone deaf team I've ever encountered. I would be ashamed to attach this game to my professional resumé. And this fan service post just shows how unwilling you are to accept that your scaling system is broken. Console launch is in a little over a month. Most of my friends have moved on to other games. The ones that still play don't play with the regularity or previous time spent. We know what's coming.
Lastly, thank you to PC players. Console relies on you all for information and I know so many of us are so appreciative of everything that you do and put up with. It's glaringly obvious that players care more for this game than Cryptic does. Players from all over the world are the heart and soul of this game. It's an absolute shame how far the game had fallen.
As scaling exists now, progression and increased stats from upgrading enchantments is stopped at very low ranks in scaled zones. This breaks a fundamental mechanic of level and stat based adventure games, which is that as you level up upgrade your character's equipment, you become stronger. This is a critical flaw with the new scaling system that is not a "bug" but must be addressed.
So, understanding the development team's desire to make older content more difficult, there are several ways to approach fixing this issue.
1. Make all dungeons level 80 and remove capping, but keep IL scaling for power. This approach is likely the best. It does require adjusting creatures in the existing dungeons, but this has to be done a anyway to make them playable again. I also suggest only scaling power, as power is the measure directly related to damage. This way people don't go from having met the minimum stats to being reduced below the minimum stats in the older content, as is happening now. It also allows for character progression to continue.
2. Keep the scaling as it is now (not recommended) but allow for some smaller increases in stats due to each enchantments rank a over the capped rank value. While not as good of a method as 1, above, this at least allows for some minor sense of progression. A rank 6 bonding should never give the same stats as a rank 15 bonding in a dungeon. If it does, then it's actually better to use lower level enchants in the L70 content to avoid the additional IL scaling. Let's face it, that just makes no sense, ever!
3. Some other option that you think of that allows for some sort of progression and doesn't penalize players with scaling for having higher level enchantments.
The new level cap has made having any L70 content obsolete. People will typically spend only a week or two between L70 and L80. Therefore, the most obvious and best solution is 1 above, to make all current L70 content into L80 content.
No matter what, some sense of progression must be restored for NW to remain a viable world. Please take your own words to heart and consider the hundreds of player posts commenting on scaling and do something to truly address the core issues.
Talia (W)
Taragon (DC)
Tabbatha (OP)
Tanya (F)
Tasha (SW)
*Edited for typos
Rest assured... it will go well if you talk about the current condition of the game and community and layout what you are going to do to fix the mess. Then.... you can get us excited about the Guild Love and future content coming in the next mod or two.
If you just plan to discuss the next MOD... expect another mess on your hands.
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I refuse to keep playing this game as long as scaling is around.
I'll log in to get my dailies keys because I don't want to wast my money, but actually playing? No, thanks.
The only way Mr. Foss can answer your question "Yes" is if a definitive change is announced:
Remove the cap
Remove the scaling
and/or
Return the stats to 500:1
If no ACTION is announced, it's just more lip-service.
Sound and Fury.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
The worst example I've experienced so far was a cradle run, everyone spent half the elevator ride just laying prone on the floor, getting pushed over and over again, or getting grabbed.
It also doesn't help that at least 2 classes now have reported issues with some of their CC immunity frames not blocking most CCs anymore. These would be rogue and barbarian.
I will mention that CC diminishing returns is probably not the best route to take, it failed miserably when the devs tried to do that for PVP and even if it was successful it would have created new balance issues. I think the devs just need to reduce the CC duration for PVE enemies and give us more CC immunity frames.
PVP Rogue,
--[----- "Your friendly neighborhood spawn of Satan." -----]--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Main Character: Hurricane Marigolds (Rogue WK & Assassin)
Ingame Handle: trgluestickz
Discord Name: Hurricane🌀Marigolds#2563
Guilds: She Looked LVL 18 & Essence of Aggression
Alliances: Imperium & Order of the Silent Shroud
Platform: PC
I log in.. I try to gather a few resonance whilst rubber-banding from one place to another (only during the runic), suffer the odd death due to lag and use a ton of potions to keep me alive as i don't like permanently holding shift in case a mob is actually next to me and the lag hasn't shown it to me yet. I do the 3 Mexp a day i'm allowed, generally soloing on 1 rune keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get disconnected during the run. I have that experience on 2 toons.. no way do I want to experience that across anymore. That is it.. not proving a fun game now at all in my opinion.
Add to that the devaluing of all the 3 stat enchants on my TR so I can't sell them nor swap them for account bound single stats.
I am trying to give you the chance to redeem yourselves........ but I only have so much patience and you now ask me to wait even longer for ??? for what and why I'm not quite sure.
Yours.. totally disillusioned
Cream/Beigeman
it maybe little hard to accept your word, it was 2nd time it turn back and slap us to reminding everyone for another Mod 6 experiences again. if i see Mod 6 3.0 version, that was it, it is over.
we all do love to level up, scaling isnt one.
i also aware not wanting to leave other zones as ghost towns. when you add dragon areas to old zones, that was great, and we like to see another "closed-off" sections to be open for next tier adventure, but please mark the "gate as 80 lvl access only", so the lower levels wont get in by mistake.
one, i am very confused, on campaign, Well of dragons set as level 26, but i am still seeing level 73 mobs.
Barovia seem to be successful content, but sorry to find out about others exploiting the hunt. i like the hunting format. i think and feel we should have new version of new hunts and types of item turn in scaled challenges, but Tales of the Olds seem catered only to extremist hardcore players.
please dont make another Mod 6 again. we all hate it. make another succesful module and well liked the most, then all will be forgiven.
i want to see Waterdeep (huge 3-city districts) and Calimshan (city of thieves in faction guilds) with lot of roof-top quests, and new classes. please ask me about several ideas for Calimshan, i have list for it and story plots. "Calimshan: Song of the Sands" break into 3 module trilogy.
Here is an example that shows the problem.
What are you going to do or change in your scaling approach?
Why my legendary rune, enchant and insignia are equal to a purple when you scale me down? Stats should be cap at the end of the scaling not at the source of stats. You create the perception that my better gear doesn’t mean anything.
Why cap are so low? No one ever played those zone so low.
Why the reward of dungeon was not adjusted? Do you think end game player want to run any dungeon with the actual reward ?
Why did you lunch that mod ? You clearly knew about the bugs and customer feedback.
Could you provide better choice in feat, since we only have 5 choices to make. And please add more option to all classes, we don’t want to be all the same.
I invest a lot in my enchant. Millions. The weight of my enchant was significally reduce in mod 16. I have spend money on enchant. Why should spend more money in the game after that? You just devaluated my build, my effort and my money.
Thank you.
No offense Mr. Foss but you know what I want to see? A Cryptic QUALITY ASSURANCE and testing Live Stream! And I am not the only one.
You know what I really want to see? I want to see 5 cryptic employees in a party doing a random queue of any level 70 dungeon or skirmish on level 71-80 characters. This should not take them more than 45 minutes right?
I would like to see the tanks point of view, the healers pov and one dps pov. NO GOD MODE! Play the game as we play it. To make it more fun you should use 5 random characters picked from the player base using the gear and set up that player has. (If you need help learning how to record and upload different POV's just ask. We have several community streamers that would probably love to help just to see this.)
I mean this should not be a problem because you do have a QA department right? They are testing content right? You don't even have to disrupt their testing, just screencap them and stream it. They do party content right? They must be using random queues right? They do stronghold content right? I am not asking for anything "EXTRA" You should be doing all of this anyway with folks dedicated to QA, so business as usual but just showing it being done... RIGHT?
You all better cross your fingers and hope you get FBI instead of anything else!
If they are able to complete the dungeon I want to see the rewards they get from the chest. I want to see the community reaction to those rewards during the stream.
If things are in such a good place then this should not be a problem right? I mean you thought it was good enough to release to us even after being warned in several threads on your own forums, not to mention reddit and discord. Now you are going to push to console. Show us it is ready.
Not up for random queue? No problem! Queue up as private and do Castle Ravenloft or Tomb of the Nine Gods or Cradle of the Death God. You know that content you were also warned about MONTHS AGO!
I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU!
Don't waste any more of our time with "we are working on it" or "we are aware". Show us that you play the game and are seeing what we are seeing on a daily basis! Demonstrate just how we are supposed to be doing this content in its current form.
So instead of sitting there talking to us in this QA stream on Tuesday for an hour and ignoring our questions and feedback spend that hour playing YOUR game the way YOU want it played. These changes are your vision after all aren't they?
If you can't complete the content then remove it from the random queue until it is bug free. Is that too much to ask? We can't even earn our daily AD because of these bugs and scaling. Show me that we are wrong.
I posted most of this in another thread, but I still want to see it. I want PROOF that you see the bugs we are reporting. I want proof that you are aware of our reports. I want proof that these things are being worked on. Tell me something like this is what you are going to surprise us with and I will be truly excited. Show me anything else and my response will be Meh whatever.
news flash, It's all good is not that good. like AT&T's ads, Just ok is not Ok!
Second if you truly want to gain back the trust of your players, then you should delay the release of mod 16 on the consoles till it is in a payable state, not this glitched broken mod you have right now.
Finally and I say this with all due respect, no matter what you say or how you justify the choices that were made, in the end how the devs move forward with this will determine how your company is viewed going forward. If you continue to push changes that the player base loathes then that will be the perception of your company. And it will effect not only NW but any other game they produce.
I would pay real money to see that.
Skip the Q and A (meaningless without any reversal announcements).
Stream Cryptic devs live running CR, ToNG, mSP and low-level quests on your lvl 80 toons.
No God Mode. Live.
You say this is "right where we want it"?
Fine. Prove it.
Play it for us to see.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
High Enchants are allowed
If they would do it, it should be "fair"...
Afk about to buy a really large box with popcorn
Specifically, do you want players to be able to continue to "get better" as they gear up, or do you want everyone past the max requirement ("cap") for a piece of content to all complete it equally well, or do you want to punish anyone above cap by making them less effective than a player geared within the expected level range?
Also, I appreciate what you've laid out here, but I strongly second mickyp00's feedback about process improvements. There's a clear lack of coordination and testing, and that's causing a lot of rework / problems for you. Can you try to get out ahead of this a little more? We want to see you succeed.
However, the fact that people are still here indicates that players have not given up and walked away - they feel there is still hope. So, what are the issues and what would we like to hear tomorrow?