I do not like marketing people/speech and the stream was a collossal waste of time.
Dear Mr. Foss: At this point of the game i could not care less about your schedule or responsibility. If there is a question about professions, i do NOT want to hear a couple of minutes about those until you have said so many words, that you have forgotten the initial question and have nothing usefull to say on the topic anyway.
Whether the new dungeon will really be awesome, remains to be seen. I expect it to be a buggy mess, that needs 2 fixes at least until we can finally play it without the game interfering.
And the rewards? Knowing Cryptic and the drop rates, the rewards will most likely NOT be worth the time. I am only gratefull, that the whole undermountin rewards are so underwhelming, that i only need 1000 seals to get the stuff i need for one char there.
It would have been really nice, if you had made the stream like this:
-Answer questions from the forum in the first 30 minutes, while Julia scouts the chat for additional ones, then answered those in the rest of time. And please ANSWER them and not just tell us what great things are coming ect. blabla.
OK, rant over.
I normally enjoy the streams a lot (even though there are seldom a lot of usefull informations in them). And the various guests Julia normally has in them. I like having a face to the stick horse man and it was always nice seeing Patrick, Jules or Vincent in the stream and that made them always very enjoyable.
And i enjoyed undermountain so far, it has beautifull zones and the first 20 something expeditions were very refreshing. The new vanity pets are very cute (at least those i have seen with other chars, i only got one from ~40 expeditions).
One final thought about double RAD: If you want to compensate players for the trouble getting to 100k in the last weeks, it might be a good idea to double the refining limit during this event too.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master
darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
The thing is that even with all the problems they can still save the game.
If they fix the scaling, major bugs, and give players good rewards in every dungeon, we will be bussy with the new dungeon and old rewarding dungeons and they will earn time to adress the rest of the things.
But I doubt they can give us good rewards for the time invested in dungeons that we did 10000 times.
What impacted me most is hearing that scaling is focused on PvP.... that sounds silly. Really surprised me. In a bad form.
I wholeheartedly agree with Foss that group content, i.e. 5-man dungeons should never be soloed and should never take just 10-15 minutes to complete. 30 min is a sweet spot, but personally I'm fine with 40-50 min runs like when Dungeon Delves was still a thing .. (speaking of which... maybe reintroduce the hourly system). But there must be SOME incentive to run the dungeons - maybe have a Delves hour again for an increased CHANCE of non-scaled level appropriate ultra-rare loot. I'm fine with the idea of scaling and he was right when he said it has been around in the game for quite some time anyway. And don't mind the new feat and power system at all.
But what I found really alarming was the question about hard caps and scaling when Foss said he didn't understand the question! Good grief, man, you are talking about taking a look at the bigger picture and tackling the big issues causing dissatisfaction among the player base and you genuinely don't understand the core issue that is having to double-cap your stats at level 80 in order to play lvl 70 content? Capped stats should be capped when downscaled. Make capping harder at lvl 80, by all means (the stats on the new gear are already making ME's and even levelling areas like Sharandar just super easy again because I can accumulate insane numbers of ArmPen), but the stream provided no real answers to players who feel punished for trying to improve their gear/enchants etc.
I love this game and continue to play, but I don't think they are very adept at managing their customer messaging very well. In the business world, this would be called being "internally focused". I agree with some people here they kept talking about what they wanted to achieve and what they like and what they want to "fix", not about their customer-driven vision for the game and how they are going to make changes for the players behalf to close the gap between our expectations and reality. This kind of experience would never fly in the business world. I expected them to start with polling data or some other form of the "voice of the customer", and get into more discussion of tweaking game design not just "fixes". I think they need an experience manager, a customer advocate, and someone with experience managing messaging in turn-around situations. They also need a better visionary speaker. Last thing you ever want it a developer talking live with people about what bugs they are working on without some more context and engagement on the arc of the customer experience.
Foss, did you go to EA and learn how to poison the game? if i own and founder of game i created, i wouldnt hire you, i made a list of all EA and any programmers that turn games ugly are on my blacklist not to hire.
a man i would hire is "Blackbeard" one of programmer for eq2 from launch to Feydwar Expansion before he was forced to leave due he doesnt believe in micromanagments, i dont know his name. he did very well, his last project was Crushbone Keep. love his texture of the dungeon and questline story he made. he was very prolific social player and collect feedbacks from players. it been awhile any programmers get into the game and meet players in ages.
This was the first Neverwinter stream that I've watched, and I was interested to hear what they were doing about the scaling in level 70 dungeons.
The good part was that they acknowledged that there is a problem - Foss was very clear on that point. What was more concerning was that I wasn't entirely sure that the developers and the players agree what that problem is. The final question on caps i.e. if you're capped at level 80 for armour penetration, shouldn't you also be capped at level 70 after scaling was one which didn't appear to be well understood - and is the primary issue that players have...
There was also an acknowledgment - which was very surprising to hear - that they agree that perhaps they did try to implement too many changes in one go. Normally developers never admit something like that.
I guess overall I don't mind that the overall design direction to scale older content so that it is challenging - provided that it is done in an appropriate way. I also don't mind that the dungeons or trials take longer - provided that they are possible to be completed with team working in a random group, and, that the rewards are appropriate.
I'm not sure 45 minutes to complete an old dungeon for a gem that I could get from Wanderer's Fortune or some old piece of equipment that is converted to 150 refinement points are sufficient rewards. If the dungeons are intended to take longer going forwards, then they should look at the AD rewards offered. The rewards for your first random run maybe just about enough, but the repeat bonus is definitely too low.
Once the scaling issue has been resolved, I'd be interested to watch a stream on class changes and players' thoughts on these and hear from the developers on this.
I would not mind if dungeons would take 30 mins, but in this case I expect appropriate reward for this time. And I am sorry, right now I don't see a point to run them for that lousy rewards.
2
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
Im trying to figure out the people who who were asking for down scaling for pve?
There were people who didnt want solo dungeons, there were people who wanted to axe power sharing, there were people who wanted life-steal nerfed hard, there were people who wanted the buff multiplying craziness to stop, heck there were people who wanted more then just chult tigers at pets.. thought well, not sure they got exactly what they wanted there.
So the way they listen is to make stuff up, point fingers and then claim its our fault.
I dont remember any threads asking for every old content to be scaled back and long runs.
BTW, I clearly remember a dev thread somewhere, stating the overall timeframe for dungeons was around 20 mins..
Just because devs and designers come and go, doesnt mean some of us players havent been here for 3x as long.
Even if you can justify scaling in dungeons, I still think its a massive mistake to put scaling on open world and instanced pve areas.. allow players to go back and slaughter it.. its stupid to gate old content in such manner.. its boring, mundane, ridiculous and what not.
Anyways.. not really expecting changes really..
I find it ironic to say they are listening.. then close their listening thread moments after the stream was done.. just lol at them. This is normal par for the course tbh.. no matter who has been in charge.
Whatever.. like I said, I wasnt really expecting anything.. so not that disappointed myself.. you have to have expectations first !
I have definitely read posts about players wanting old areas and content to be relevant again though
1
greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,152Arc User
Relevant also included upgrading rewards given.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
Im trying to figure out the people who who were asking for down scaling for pve?
There were people who didnt want solo dungeons, there were people who wanted to axe power sharing, there were people who wanted life-steal nerfed hard, there were people who wanted the buff multiplying craziness to stop, heck there were people who wanted more then just chult tigers at pets.. thought well, not sure they got exactly what they wanted there.
So the way they listen is to make stuff up, point fingers and then claim its our fault.
I dont remember any threads asking for every old content to be scaled back and long runs.
BTW, I clearly remember a dev thread somewhere, stating the overall timeframe for dungeons was around 20 mins..
Just because devs and designers come and go, doesnt mean some of us players havent been here for 3x as long.
Even if you can justify scaling in dungeons, I still think its a massive mistake to put scaling on open world and instanced pve areas.. allow players to go back and slaughter it.. its stupid to gate old content in such manner.. its boring, mundane, ridiculous and what not.
Anyways.. not really expecting changes really..
I find it ironic to say they are listening.. then close their listening thread moments after the stream was done.. just lol at them. This is normal par for the course tbh.. no matter who has been in charge.
Whatever.. like I said, I wasnt really expecting anything.. so not that disappointed myself.. you have to have expectations first !
I've personally never seen it myself either. Not that it matters, but my thought is this: I did this old content when it was end game and it was difficult. As a level 80, why in the world should it be difficult? If we're talking about progression, a level 80 should be so far beyond most of these old dungeons, because that's how leveling and progression games work. You get better gear, you get stronger, you don't need that old content anymore. There's no reason why a level 80 should go back to Malabog, except that they insist on linking rad with this old content. Why else would a level 80 be in level 12 dungeons?
I'm still on console in mod 15. They should make it a choice just like console has now. You should be able to choose your difficulty. Offer better rewards (like another thread said) for scaling down. Or hey, make a que system where the same level players get grouped together. Or do we not have the player base to make that happen? I just think it's such backwards thinking for max level players to want challenges in content from years ago. No. We want challenges NOW. Level 80 content. And make the rewards worth it. Look at CR and how no one ran it unless they needed one or two pieces of seal gear or got it was an expert que. CR is a great example of content that isn't worth the time for the rewards. Pulling an EMERALD off an end game boss is a joke.
Have these people ever mmorpg'ed in their lives?
1
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
I have definitely read posts about players wanting old areas and content to be relevant again though
This playerbase does not have the #s to support making everything scaled down, it just makes things harder to complete campaigns (not that you know boons are worth THAT much to bother with anymore)
But for years and years pc has only had enough players to basically support 2 mods worth of play time.. making IWD relevent again wont mean much when you dont have the playerbase to support it. Say you put rewards into every zone that makes it worth your time to grind there.. you will be splitting up a couple thousand players on the PC on 15 different zones? and probably 50% of those darn players will be in new zones/dungeons or instances.. you do the math.. its just not there.
Before scaling, getting groups to say do the weekly on Chult already was a pita (as was bavoria) because A, the only people who needed them was campaign people and B, there was no reward beyond that to do them. Scaling doesnt make either A or B different.
The amount of sheer people who play a game just to finish something difficult, well its pretty small, I never minded doing something difficult a few times.. but then I always went back just straight up farming, because this game needs AD and time = ad and ad = time.. if your not making AD, then , well you were pretty much going backwards.
There was plenty to do for players with a small alt army.. tons, even in old zones to farm in, weekly AD, guild mark farming, or mat farming for resale ect, campaign completions.. I never not once felt like I had nothing to do. While some of it may felt a bit stagnant, when I really got bored per se with one thing, I just dumped it for awhile for another thing.
its been like 3-4 years since that time frame to be honest,. since pcs has had that player population.
The moment they make a zone not give rewards out that merit its time, people just leave it, in droves (salvage nerf.. bavoria hunts, mob farming for hours and hours for some players , turned to zero time spent the next day)
So ya, you can say relevant.. what you really mean is rewarding.. and just scaling down areas, doesnt make any of them relevant.. not at all.. it just makes them longer, because none of them have rewards to just justify the time spent.
So after the patch the stats get a higher value then right now. But thats no solution for cap stats and progress. Capping to a point makes progress (after that point) unnecessary. So the core problem is the same as it is right now just at a higher level. All we said to you is that progress is something meaningfull to an MMO and to the game. You steal us so much when cap scaling is in place. On the other side, no scaling isnt the solution, cause old content where build for old environment with lower stat values at all. So i can understand that something must be done to our stat values when entering old zones or old dungeons. But not a scaling with a fix point you can not overcome. Its better to just do scaling on a percentage scale of the stats or flat -3000 value to all stats (that is the different of the base value for lvl 80 and lvl 70).
This solution was mentioned so often but you even do not explain why it is for YOU no solution. Ok in PVP it can make sense to have a fix point of stat values but that is the only area.
1
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
shouldve put diminishing returns back instead..
I dont know the whole thing seems snakey to me.. no offense to you snakes out there of course.
It sounded like Foss quite literally was pointing his finger at the players as the reason/excuse for how big and bad M16 has been (YOU guys asked for these changes - all we did was GIVE you what YOU wanted). Doesn't sound like the devs perceive extended dungeon runs (60 minutes or more) as being a bad thing....NEWS FLASH - it's a bad thing.
The problem with what devs see/hear from players and what players are saying is all do to the fact that rarely do employees of the company play their game. When the company employees play the game they produce, the update and fixes are a bit better but you end up feeling like the bug/fixes are for the classes that the employees play. The issue is than do we want the devs to play the game or not? I would say yes but they cannot touch any class they play. That would be a fine line to draw IMO. This way the dev would understand the player side of game.
I have seen this type of response from a company over and over and over. We did ask for changes, removal/decrease in how buffs/power sharing work, changes to companion, class balancing, etc... we got what we asked for but not what we wanted. The devs heard ABC and we wanted XYZ. If the devs can take this game to LMNOP I would be happy as it would be the in middle of what they heard vs. what we actually wanted. Getting to LMNOP to where the game is now, it will take over a year if not two.
Why would anyone seriously think they would roll back to an earlier version? That's just silly. Of course that's off the table and anyone that would ask that in a serious way is off their rocker.
My personal nitpick, since that's clearly what this thread is about:
Immolation Spirits. OMG, Warlocks just HAMSTER those out and leave them all over the place. I can't imagine it doesn't contribute to lag at some point. If nothing else @mimicking#6533 - give us some immolation spirit pooper scoopers. I pointed these out in closed beta, and in open beta, and someone (@asterdahl maybe or @noworries#8859) even said they were looking into it...
For me 30 min is about the max I want to expect a run to take. I might play for a couple of hours at a time sometimes, but I want to be able to break at least every 30 min or so max if I want to, without having to leave a run to do it. Also in M15 quite often I'd run etos/elol/cn etc depending on if I just wanted a quick 5-10 min runaround etc. Everything now is taking way too long so I pretty much am just doing expeditions now and hoping things change in future.
I don't mind a run taking 30 minutes but if the run is taking 30 minuts it should reward me with appropriately. IMO instead of having all the various random Q's like we do now, simply make it one random Q that you can run 2x a day. It will reward 25K AD each time you run it. You may end up in lower dungeon, skirmish, an epic dungeon or trial. The dungeons that are open up to the player would depend on IL and level.
The end chest would have anywhere from 5-10K additional AD in it as well. The second chest, optional key, would be similar but with 10-15K.
Not sure if they would do this as many player may just run level 8/10 character through cloak tower for their daily AD. I know I probably would. LOL...
> @kvet said: > Why would anyone seriously think they would roll back to an earlier version? That's just silly. Of course that's off the table and anyone that would ask that in a serious way is off their rocker. > > My personal nitpick, since that's clearly what this thread is about: > > Immolation Spirits. OMG, Warlocks just <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> those out and leave them all over the place. I can't imagine it doesn't contribute to lag at some point. If nothing else @mimicking#6533 - give us some immolation spirit pooper scoopers. I pointed these out in closed beta, and in open beta, and someone (@asterdahl maybe or @noworries#8859) even said they were looking into it...
The thread was started to nitpick, but to get an honest opinion from playerbase.
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
OMG, Warlocks just HAMSTER those out and leave them all over the place. I can't imagine it doesn't contribute to lag at some point. If nothing else @mimicking#6533 - give us some immolation spirit pooper scoopers.
In more serious news, thanks for the feedback everybody. Obviously I can't comment much beyond that but I do appreciate the fairly civil and serious concerns being brought up here.
10 to 30 minute content is the sweet spot of content in this game. Anything longer needs to have parts of it cut out to match this expectation. Anything beyond 30 minutes means that you need better rewards as well as guaranteed rewards because your pushing all of the casual players out of playing that content when you force people to play content longer than this time frame. Anyone who is asking for longer content is looking at content that on completion guaranteed at least 1 of the best items in the game on completion and had maybe 20 items that all players needed to get to be end game great. That isn't working in any game that the replay ability of the content requires you to run it in the 50 to 1000 range to get items/upgrades/gear. To do the longer content they need to have the content be open all of the time as to allow players to progress at their leisure. Else, you will see players move to other titles in the same realm. Those that are pushing for really long content don't have responsibility in normal lives and don't realize that the D&D franchise is in the 30 to 60 year old range. This is the family aged group and building content for people who have no jobs and can play 14 hours a day like a college student just doesn't appeal to the vast majority of this games player base.
Guild Leader: Under the Influence 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
Personally as soon as the stream started with "we are giving things for free" I switched it off. If you start like this, it means you have nothing of substance to tell the audience. I do not have the guts to take an hour of empty words in one go.
But based on later run through I admit I took everything wrong, pressed the poor developers into the corner and even tried to force them being unreasonable.
Yes, now I finally see. Buggy, lagging game with active system to mitigate any improvement or even directly punishing the player for levelling up - the only thing they should have done was to advertise this game stating its real target audience: the masochists.
And I guess it is no wonder that developers do not play this game - my best bet is they are forbidden to do so. I mean, if an employer cares for the mental health of his employees... it really makes sense.
It always impress me how fascinating is gaming industry. It is a place full of egomaniac individuals who thinks they know the best for the audience with zero understanding what audience really wants and ignoring any feedback no matter how much their "vision" falls...
Sorry not to nitpick but for people to express their thoughts
Oh, well in that case: I think, aside from obvious bugs - Cryptic was entirely on the right track with m16. I personally like that they trashed all the waste of code extra feats and powers that were only used by people that didn't know any better. Truth is, they could remove half of what's there NOW (as of m16) and hardly anyone would notice because there's STILL powers and feats that aren't worth using. I think they should have reduced the number of boons by half or even 2/3 and increased the magnitude of each one to make them more powerful (slot up to 10 instead of 5 for example).
Think about how D&D 5e is now - you only have a small handful of choices, but (for the most part) you can't really make a wrong choice because with fewer options, play is well balanced- just different choices that make you play a character differently. Compare that to Pathfinder 1e where you have thousands of choices, and the vast majority of options lead to non-viable characters, so hours of research is required before you even start. Some people love that and some hate it - I personally hate it (so much so that I gave up tabletop games when 3e came out and didn't start again until 5e - skipped pathfinder altogether). If you love that kind of game then D&D, and therefore Neverwinter, simply aren't your games.
All this complexity was pre-m16 Neverwinter, which was based on 4e - a deeply flawed version that was still trying to figure out how to appeal to a mass audience after 3e and PF devastated the game overall. Those flaws carried into NW and were persistent from the start of the game. M16 has gone a long way to finally rectifying those complexity flaws.
Are there tons of bugs, some that make certain classes or content unplayable? Sure there are, as we see Cryptic has acknowledged their mistakes and is working to correct things. However, I believe now just as strongly as I did when I first saw all the changes in store when closed beta began that this was absolutely the right direction for the overall good of the game.
I applaud @mimicking#6533 for the public apology - that's always good to see responsibility being taken for flaws. Bugs will happen, it's impossible to have a game this complex being worked on by such a relatively small team of developers (no matter how talented) and not end up with defects. That Cryptic has acknowledged the defects (both in their product, and in their process around interacting with players) is the first major step to setting things right, so my honest opinion is that Neverwinter is in a pretty good place right now (yes, despite the bugs, which will get sorted out in time).
What impacted me most is hearing that scaling is focused on PvP.... that sounds silly. Really surprised me. In a bad form.
Yup. Many things in this game all over the history of the different modules were made in the sake of pvp. Some people want to pvp in NW, fine. While i think there are better games out there to do such thing, i truly am convinced that pvp shouldnt impact pve. They should be separate. They are making their player base furious and raging and leaving by scaling them with non sense CAPS so that a couple of dozen of players can pvp in a somewhat balanced environment. SMH. Seriously. All the fixes and changes made to classes in the idea of keeping pvp balanced or something like that is what he said.
Keep the damn CAPS in scaling for PvPers, not for us. Since at the end of the stream he didnt seem to understand the question asked about CAPS in scaling,I doubt its gonna happen.
They can give me all the CAPES (and certainly not CAPS) in the world, the fact that he said that scaling is focused on PvP made me lose it. I think he should just have not said that very line. And i would have still been relatively ok-ish. Now im just in a like "wtf seriously dude" mood.
> @kvet said: > Sorry not to nitpick but for people to express their thoughts > > Oh, well in that case: I think, aside from obvious bugs - Cryptic was entirely on the right track with m16. I personally like that they trashed all the waste of code extra feats and powers that were only used by people that didn't know any better. Truth is, they could remove half of what's there NOW (as of m16) and hardly anyone would notice because there's STILL powers and feats that aren't worth using. I think they should have reduced the number of boons by half or even 2/3 and increased the magnitude of each one to make them more powerful (slot up to 10 instead of 5 for example). > > Think about how D&D 5e is now - you only have a small handful of choices, but (for the most part) you can't really make a wrong choice because with fewer options, play is well balanced- just different choices that make you play a character differently. Compare that to Pathfinder 1e where you have thousands of choices, and the vast majority of options lead to non-viable characters, so hours of research is required before you even start. Some people love that and some hate it - I personally hate it (so much so that I gave up tabletop games when 3e came out and didn't start again until 5e - skipped pathfinder altogether). If you love that kind of game then D&D, and therefore Neverwinter, simply aren't your games. > > All this complexity was pre-m16 Neverwinter, which was based on 4e - a deeply flawed version that was still trying to figure out how to appeal to a mass audience after 3e and PF devastated the game overall. Those flaws carried into NW and were persistent from the start of the game. M16 has gone a long way to finally rectifying those complexity flaws. > > Are there tons of bugs, some that make certain classes or content unplayable? Sure there are, as we see Cryptic has acknowledged their mistakes and is working to correct things. However, I believe now just as strongly as I did when I first saw all the changes in store when closed beta began that this was absolutely the right direction for the overall good of the game. > > I applaud @mimicking#6533 for the public apology - that's always good to see responsibility being taken for flaws. Bugs will happen, it's impossible to have a game this complex being worked on by such a relatively small team of developers (no matter how talented) and not end up with defects. That Cryptic has acknowledged the defects (both in their product, and in their process around interacting with players) is the first major step to setting things right, so my honest opinion is that Neverwinter is in a pretty good place right now (yes, despite the bugs, which will get sorted out in time).
Thanks for your honest opinion. That is why I started the thread. I knew there would be bashing (expected as people are passionate about the game), but would also get thoughtful responses that the devs can look at for future streams.
In a mmo, everyone has a different agenda or thought on how the game should be. The devs have the unenviable position of trying to find a good common middle ground. Something I hope they do.
I was surprised that having announced they had about 40 questions, they only answered about 7 or 8 different questions and seemed to be scrabbling around for more questions? I appeciate and approve that they didnt want to come off topic and talk about things not directly related to mod 16, but it felt like they were avoiding certain queries.
For me there were only 2 questions that mattered, the scaling issue and the new playstyle.
Cudos on them for answering the scaling question, i didnt like their answer as i dont like scaling full stop and i dont have any interest in pvp, but at least i know where we stand on the subject now in that its here to stay and they think they can get it working properly.
The playstyle (fun) of the game now was avoided entirely from which i deduce they know theyve reduced the enjoyment level but felt they needed to as the only means to make the changed they wanted to, but clearly cant sit their and openly say theyve made the game less fun.
I said when id taken all 8 classes through the undermountain on preview that id probably do the same on live just to take advantage of the enchant exchange before it goes. My view hasnt really changed, i wont run old dungeons scaled, ive done them all a thousand times, i used to be able to solo everything upto and including fbi and msp it isnt fun to make me do the same content over and over just slower. So my choice is walk away completely, or only come back briefly each time new content is released, ill await thursdays patch before deciding.
As far as dungeon runs go, If the average dungeon run is 30 minutes, it should be able to be completed in 15-20 minutes by an above average group. With the scaling the way it is (we'll see what happens), higher level players are being punished for being higher level. And this has been stated many times. "We seem to be punished for progressing with this new system." This is absolutely correct.
Varric the Cursed Dwarven cursed to be Tiefling CW Original Serenity Mostly Retired DC Tokarek Bearded Dwarven OP Tankadin JuiceHead Goofy Human GWF Member of H3llzWarriors and Limitless.
Comments
Dear Mr. Foss: At this point of the game i could not care less about your schedule or responsibility. If there is a question about professions, i do NOT want to hear a couple of minutes about those until you have said so many words, that you have forgotten the initial question and have nothing usefull to say on the topic anyway.
Whether the new dungeon will really be awesome, remains to be seen. I expect it to be a buggy mess, that needs 2 fixes at least until we can finally play it without the game interfering.
And the rewards? Knowing Cryptic and the drop rates, the rewards will most likely NOT be worth the time. I am only gratefull, that the whole undermountin rewards are so underwhelming, that i only need 1000 seals to get the stuff i need for one char there.
It would have been really nice, if you had made the stream like this:
-Answer questions from the forum in the first 30 minutes, while Julia scouts the chat for additional ones, then answered those in the rest of time. And please ANSWER them and not just tell us what great things are coming ect. blabla.
OK, rant over.
I normally enjoy the streams a lot (even though there are seldom a lot of usefull informations in them). And the various guests Julia normally has in them. I like having a face to the stick horse man and it was always nice seeing Patrick, Jules or Vincent in the stream and that made them always very enjoyable.
And i enjoyed undermountain so far, it has beautifull zones and the first 20 something expeditions were very refreshing. The new vanity pets are very cute (at least those i have seen with other chars, i only got one from ~40 expeditions).
One final thought about double RAD: If you want to compensate players for the trouble getting to 100k in the last weeks, it might be a good idea to double the refining limit during this event too.
If they fix the scaling, major bugs, and give players good rewards in every dungeon, we will be bussy with the new dungeon and old rewarding dungeons and they will earn time to adress the rest of the things.
But I doubt they can give us good rewards for the time invested in dungeons that we did 10000 times.
What impacted me most is hearing that scaling is focused on PvP.... that sounds silly. Really surprised me. In a bad form.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
I'm fine with the idea of scaling and he was right when he said it has been around in the game for quite some time anyway.
And don't mind the new feat and power system at all.
But what I found really alarming was the question about hard caps and scaling when Foss said he didn't understand the question! Good grief, man, you are talking about taking a look at the bigger picture and tackling the big issues causing dissatisfaction among the player base and you genuinely don't understand the core issue that is having to double-cap your stats at level 80 in order to play lvl 70 content? Capped stats should be capped when downscaled. Make capping harder at lvl 80, by all means (the stats on the new gear are already making ME's and even levelling areas like Sharandar just super easy again because I can accumulate insane numbers of ArmPen), but the stream provided no real answers to players who feel punished for trying to improve their gear/enchants etc.
a man i would hire is "Blackbeard" one of programmer for eq2 from launch to Feydwar Expansion before he was forced to leave due he doesnt believe in micromanagments, i dont know his name. he did very well, his last project was Crushbone Keep. love his texture of the dungeon and questline story he made. he was very prolific social player and collect feedbacks from players.
it been awhile any programmers get into the game and meet players in ages.
The good part was that they acknowledged that there is a problem - Foss was very clear on that point. What was more concerning was that I wasn't entirely sure that the developers and the players agree what that problem is. The final question on caps i.e. if you're capped at level 80 for armour penetration, shouldn't you also be capped at level 70 after scaling was one which didn't appear to be well understood - and is the primary issue that players have...
There was also an acknowledgment - which was very surprising to hear - that they agree that perhaps they did try to implement too many changes in one go. Normally developers never admit something like that.
I guess overall I don't mind that the overall design direction to scale older content so that it is challenging - provided that it is done in an appropriate way. I also don't mind that the dungeons or trials take longer - provided that they are possible to be completed with team working in a random group, and, that the rewards are appropriate.
I'm not sure 45 minutes to complete an old dungeon for a gem that I could get from Wanderer's Fortune or some old piece of equipment that is converted to 150 refinement points are sufficient rewards. If the dungeons are intended to take longer going forwards, then they should look at the AD rewards offered. The rewards for your first random run maybe just about enough, but the repeat bonus is definitely too low.
Once the scaling issue has been resolved, I'd be interested to watch a stream on class changes and players' thoughts on these and hear from the developers on this.
There were people who didnt want solo dungeons, there were people who wanted to axe power sharing, there were people who wanted life-steal nerfed hard, there were people who wanted the buff multiplying craziness to stop, heck there were people who wanted more then just chult tigers at pets.. thought well, not sure they got exactly what they wanted there.
So the way they listen is to make stuff up, point fingers and then claim its our fault.
I dont remember any threads asking for every old content to be scaled back and long runs.
BTW, I clearly remember a dev thread somewhere, stating the overall timeframe for dungeons was around 20 mins..
Just because devs and designers come and go, doesnt mean some of us players havent been here for 3x as long.
Even if you can justify scaling in dungeons, I still think its a massive mistake to put scaling on open world and instanced pve areas.. allow players to go back and slaughter it.. its stupid to gate old content in such manner.. its boring, mundane, ridiculous and what not.
Anyways.. not really expecting changes really..
I find it ironic to say they are listening.. then close their listening thread moments after the stream was done.. just lol at them. This is normal par for the course tbh.. no matter who has been in charge.
Whatever.. like I said, I wasnt really expecting anything.. so not that disappointed myself.. you have to have expectations first !
I'm still on console in mod 15. They should make it a choice just like console has now. You should be able to choose your difficulty. Offer better rewards (like another thread said) for scaling down. Or hey, make a que system where the same level players get grouped together. Or do we not have the player base to make that happen? I just think it's such backwards thinking for max level players to want challenges in content from years ago. No. We want challenges NOW. Level 80 content. And make the rewards worth it. Look at CR and how no one ran it unless they needed one or two pieces of seal gear or got it was an expert que. CR is a great example of content that isn't worth the time for the rewards. Pulling an EMERALD off an end game boss is a joke.
Have these people ever mmorpg'ed in their lives?
But for years and years pc has only had enough players to basically support 2 mods worth of play time.. making IWD relevent again wont mean much when you dont have the playerbase to support it. Say you put rewards into every zone that makes it worth your time to grind there.. you will be splitting up a couple thousand players on the PC on 15 different zones? and probably 50% of those darn players will be in new zones/dungeons or instances.. you do the math.. its just not there.
Before scaling, getting groups to say do the weekly on Chult already was a pita (as was bavoria) because A, the only people who needed them was campaign people and B, there was no reward beyond that to do them. Scaling doesnt make either A or B different.
The amount of sheer people who play a game just to finish something difficult, well its pretty small, I never minded doing something difficult a few times.. but then I always went back just straight up farming, because this game needs AD and time = ad and ad = time.. if your not making AD, then , well you were pretty much going backwards.
There was plenty to do for players with a small alt army.. tons, even in old zones to farm in, weekly AD, guild mark farming, or mat farming for resale ect, campaign completions.. I never not once felt like I had nothing to do. While some of it may felt a bit stagnant, when I really got bored per se with one thing, I just dumped it for awhile for another thing.
its been like 3-4 years since that time frame to be honest,. since pcs has had that player population.
The moment they make a zone not give rewards out that merit its time, people just leave it, in droves (salvage nerf.. bavoria hunts, mob farming for hours and hours for some players , turned to zero time spent the next day)
So ya, you can say relevant.. what you really mean is rewarding.. and just scaling down areas, doesnt make any of them relevant.. not at all.. it just makes them longer, because none of them have rewards to just justify the time spent.
Capping to a point makes progress (after that point) unnecessary.
So the core problem is the same as it is right now just at a higher level.
All we said to you is that progress is something meaningfull to an MMO and to the game. You steal us so much when cap scaling is in place.
On the other side, no scaling isnt the solution, cause old content where build for old environment with lower stat values at all. So i can understand that something must be done to our stat values when entering old zones or old dungeons. But not a scaling with a fix point you can not overcome. Its better to just do scaling on a percentage scale of the stats or flat -3000 value to all stats (that is the different of the base value for lvl 80 and lvl 70).
This solution was mentioned so often but you even do not explain why it is for YOU no solution.
Ok in PVP it can make sense to have a fix point of stat values but that is the only area.
I dont know the whole thing seems snakey to me.. no offense to you snakes out there of course.
Roll back to mod 2!
I have seen this type of response from a company over and over and over. We did ask for changes, removal/decrease in how buffs/power sharing work, changes to companion, class balancing, etc... we got what we asked for but not what we wanted. The devs heard ABC and we wanted XYZ. If the devs can take this game to LMNOP I would be happy as it would be the in middle of what they heard vs. what we actually wanted. Getting to LMNOP to where the game is now, it will take over a year if not two.
My personal nitpick, since that's clearly what this thread is about:
Immolation Spirits. OMG, Warlocks just HAMSTER those out and leave them all over the place. I can't imagine it doesn't contribute to lag at some point. If nothing else @mimicking#6533 - give us some immolation spirit pooper scoopers. I pointed these out in closed beta, and in open beta, and someone (@asterdahl maybe or @noworries#8859) even said they were looking into it...
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
The end chest would have anywhere from 5-10K additional AD in it as well. The second chest, optional key, would be similar but with 10-15K.
Not sure if they would do this as many player may just run level 8/10 character through cloak tower for their daily AD. I know I probably would. LOL...
> Why would anyone seriously think they would roll back to an earlier version? That's just silly. Of course that's off the table and anyone that would ask that in a serious way is off their rocker.
>
> My personal nitpick, since that's clearly what this thread is about:
>
> Immolation Spirits. OMG, Warlocks just <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> those out and leave them all over the place. I can't imagine it doesn't contribute to lag at some point. If nothing else @mimicking#6533 - give us some immolation spirit pooper scoopers. I pointed these out in closed beta, and in open beta, and someone (@asterdahl maybe or @noworries#8859) even said they were looking into it...
The thread was started to nitpick, but to get an honest opinion from playerbase.
In more serious news, thanks for the feedback everybody. Obviously I can't comment much beyond that but I do appreciate the fairly civil and serious concerns being brought up here.
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
But based on later run through I admit I took everything wrong, pressed the poor developers into the corner and even tried to force them being unreasonable.
Yes, now I finally see. Buggy, lagging game with active system to mitigate any improvement or even directly punishing the player for levelling up - the only thing they should have done was to advertise this game stating its real target audience: the masochists.
And I guess it is no wonder that developers do not play this game - my best bet is they are forbidden to do so. I mean, if an employer cares for the mental health of his employees... it really makes sense.
Think about how D&D 5e is now - you only have a small handful of choices, but (for the most part) you can't really make a wrong choice because with fewer options, play is well balanced- just different choices that make you play a character differently. Compare that to Pathfinder 1e where you have thousands of choices, and the vast majority of options lead to non-viable characters, so hours of research is required before you even start. Some people love that and some hate it - I personally hate it (so much so that I gave up tabletop games when 3e came out and didn't start again until 5e - skipped pathfinder altogether). If you love that kind of game then D&D, and therefore Neverwinter, simply aren't your games.
All this complexity was pre-m16 Neverwinter, which was based on 4e - a deeply flawed version that was still trying to figure out how to appeal to a mass audience after 3e and PF devastated the game overall. Those flaws carried into NW and were persistent from the start of the game. M16 has gone a long way to finally rectifying those complexity flaws.
Are there tons of bugs, some that make certain classes or content unplayable? Sure there are, as we see Cryptic has acknowledged their mistakes and is working to correct things. However, I believe now just as strongly as I did when I first saw all the changes in store when closed beta began that this was absolutely the right direction for the overall good of the game.
I applaud @mimicking#6533 for the public apology - that's always good to see responsibility being taken for flaws. Bugs will happen, it's impossible to have a game this complex being worked on by such a relatively small team of developers (no matter how talented) and not end up with defects. That Cryptic has acknowledged the defects (both in their product, and in their process around interacting with players) is the first major step to setting things right, so my honest opinion is that Neverwinter is in a pretty good place right now (yes, despite the bugs, which will get sorted out in time).
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Keep the damn CAPS in scaling for PvPers, not for us. Since at the end of the stream he didnt seem to understand the question asked about CAPS in scaling,I doubt its gonna happen.
They can give me all the CAPES (and certainly not CAPS) in the world, the fact that he said that scaling is focused on PvP made me lose it. I think he should just have not said that very line. And i would have still been relatively ok-ish. Now im just in a like "wtf seriously dude" mood.
> Sorry not to nitpick but for people to express their thoughts
>
> Oh, well in that case: I think, aside from obvious bugs - Cryptic was entirely on the right track with m16. I personally like that they trashed all the waste of code extra feats and powers that were only used by people that didn't know any better. Truth is, they could remove half of what's there NOW (as of m16) and hardly anyone would notice because there's STILL powers and feats that aren't worth using. I think they should have reduced the number of boons by half or even 2/3 and increased the magnitude of each one to make them more powerful (slot up to 10 instead of 5 for example).
>
> Think about how D&D 5e is now - you only have a small handful of choices, but (for the most part) you can't really make a wrong choice because with fewer options, play is well balanced- just different choices that make you play a character differently. Compare that to Pathfinder 1e where you have thousands of choices, and the vast majority of options lead to non-viable characters, so hours of research is required before you even start. Some people love that and some hate it - I personally hate it (so much so that I gave up tabletop games when 3e came out and didn't start again until 5e - skipped pathfinder altogether). If you love that kind of game then D&D, and therefore Neverwinter, simply aren't your games.
>
> All this complexity was pre-m16 Neverwinter, which was based on 4e - a deeply flawed version that was still trying to figure out how to appeal to a mass audience after 3e and PF devastated the game overall. Those flaws carried into NW and were persistent from the start of the game. M16 has gone a long way to finally rectifying those complexity flaws.
>
> Are there tons of bugs, some that make certain classes or content unplayable? Sure there are, as we see Cryptic has acknowledged their mistakes and is working to correct things. However, I believe now just as strongly as I did when I first saw all the changes in store when closed beta began that this was absolutely the right direction for the overall good of the game.
>
> I applaud @mimicking#6533 for the public apology - that's always good to see responsibility being taken for flaws. Bugs will happen, it's impossible to have a game this complex being worked on by such a relatively small team of developers (no matter how talented) and not end up with defects. That Cryptic has acknowledged the defects (both in their product, and in their process around interacting with players) is the first major step to setting things right, so my honest opinion is that Neverwinter is in a pretty good place right now (yes, despite the bugs, which will get sorted out in time).
Thanks for your honest opinion. That is why I started the thread. I knew there would be bashing (expected as people are passionate about the game), but would also get thoughtful responses that the devs can look at for future streams.
In a mmo, everyone has a different agenda or thought on how the game should be. The devs have the unenviable position of trying to find a good common middle ground. Something I hope they do.
For me there were only 2 questions that mattered, the scaling issue and the new playstyle.
Cudos on them for answering the scaling question, i didnt like their answer as i dont like scaling full stop and i dont have any interest in pvp, but at least i know where we stand on the subject now in that its here to stay and they think they can get it working properly.
The playstyle (fun) of the game now was avoided entirely from which i deduce they know theyve reduced the enjoyment level but felt they needed to as the only means to make the changed they wanted to, but clearly cant sit their and openly say theyve made the game less fun.
I said when id taken all 8 classes through the undermountain on preview that id probably do the same on live just to take advantage of the enchant exchange before it goes. My view hasnt really changed, i wont run old dungeons scaled, ive done them all a thousand times, i used to be able to solo everything upto and including fbi and msp it isnt fun to make me do the same content over and over just slower. So my choice is walk away completely, or only come back briefly each time new content is released, ill await thursdays patch before deciding.
Original Serenity Mostly Retired DC
Tokarek Bearded Dwarven OP Tankadin
JuiceHead Goofy Human GWF
Member of H3llzWarriors and Limitless.