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Public Letter to Developers

Dear Julia and the Development Team,

Hello, my name is Jenna and I am known to the community as Enna Backpetal, a cleric in Blackcloaks and Enna F Backpetal, the Leader of and Fighter in Spiritcloaks, both within the Cloaks Alliance. I have been playing for about 3 years now. I am a fairly new content creator on Twitch, starting on June 8, 2019, with Neverwinter being my top game to stream accounting for about 99% of my content. I became apart of the content creator community in November 2018 co-hosting with GreyHastur.

I am writing this rather lengthy letter to voice my concerns about the state of the game as I see it through my eyes and through the eyes of viewers of my channel and members within the Neverwinter community in-game.

The changes to the game over the last few months have been many and for many of us, most welcome. Mod 16 was buggy, but exciting, only to have those changes that made it fun again, taken away from us within days. We cried the day that the mob health decreased while doubling our enchantment values – it should have been one or the other (or none), but not both. It was said Mod 16 was about class balancing and making things more challenging and then in the next breath took the challenge away, catering to the loudest voices who from my experience represent a minority of the playerbase. That on top of the fact that class balancing still needs major work - was, and still is, a source of major disappointment.

Random dungeon queues have changed and it is a source of great frustration for many new players. It may have overlooked but: New Players have 1 loadout and that player is going to choose the DPS path every time. Granted they get a second loadout at level 30, but for all players 30 and under in the levelling queue are going to be dps. Now the trifecta (1 Tank, 1 Heal, 3 DPS) is forced onto the levelling queue and what's happening now is the wait times are atrocious because everyone is looking for that healer that will never proc unless a higher level person queues into it as a healer. As a lvl 80 Devout I can sit and proc the levelling queue, one after the other, all day long, but as an Arbiter, I wait and wait and wait. My suggestion is to remove the requirements for the levelling queues, even if it requires some additional programming to separate the two skirmishes that are in the levelling queue (because I'm guessing that's the problem).

Uprising created an amazing, challenging dungeon. However I am super upset by many things and because of them I lack the ambition to try. I am not the only one that feels this way, and while reading this, you should know that many many people feel the same way.

My first and biggest issue is, the Trial requires a double trifecta but then there is a lack of freedom over which classes can be used. Let me explain. You can have 6 Wizards (or insert any of the same class of DPS here) on DPS or 2 Fighters (or 2 Paladins) for tanks, but you cannot viably have 2 Healing Clerics or 2 Healing Paladins or 2 Healing Warlocks. The trial MUST have those temporary hit points with the Paladin heals because a healing Cleric or a healing Warlock cannot heal through a hit from Halastar that has more damage than the tank has hitpoints. It's ridiculous, disappointing and unfair.

Second, the small group of 10 people who do not play the game regularly, and are clearly only in it for a profit, have dictated how the trial was even developed and created. Testers in BETA didn't even get to really test the trial – the whole community relied on people from the elite player base community to test it. Those same people now have the trial on farm mode and have since left the game because no one is buying their loot, which feels like their agenda for testing in the first place. Most only came back after 2 weeks of not playing because Lassor wanted to do the trial with them while it was streamed live.

And, on a side note, that was a real kick in the HAMSTER to content creators that are here nearly every day streaming the game – to have a Dev ask to be in that group and to have it be streamed by someone who doesn't normally stream on a regular basis. There are many frequent dedicated and long term streamers in the community. We as streamers who play almost daily, for many hours and are all trial-ready with little to no practice, but have yet to be invited to play with anyone on a livestream, having a small select group of top tier players doesn't show the skill required and doesn't do the dungeon justice.

Third, The trial dropped on us without balancing the classes needed to keep all classes viable. Rangers are no longer relevant as ranged (and there are players that want to, and do, play ranged despite being told they can't) and are barely relevant as melee. Warlocks aren't wanted either because their damage is somewhere around 15% less than others. They are being taken to trial practice, yes, but they are being carried and it's no fun for the person playing the ranger/warlock just as it's no fun for the group carrying the person.

Fourth, because of all of the attention given to the loudest voices who I do not believe represent the majority, many good players have left the game. Since Ravenloft, it feels like the changes are pushing people to leave a game they love. I'm sure it's in the numbers. People might have come back for Mod 16, but it feels like numbers have fallen a great deal lately. Please stop pandering to the loudest voices. Just remember for every person you hear complaining, think of the number of people that are keeping quiet because they love the game as it is.

Fifth, There are issues with the test server, not everyone wants to go on the test server and run the new content. There are a ton of us who have avoided anything on preview, avoided watching anything on preview, because we wanted to – and will always want to – experience content organically – when it goes live. So many of us were not even aware of what was going on with the preview server and this elite group of people and now that it is on the live server, we have to take what they came up with for you. That is a hard pill to swallow. I feel more players would play the test server if it wasn't the identical content to the next release, but maybe an arena style fight with the mechanics in there but individually rather than a boss fight with all mechanics in one.

Finally, the trial dropped on us as a very exciting challenge and then later it was called an experiment. There are so many things wrong with this. It was obvious this wasn't intended as an experiment, but as a new state of the game and it was exciting! To now say it's an experiment just feels like a cop out for anything that doesn't work. Cryptic should be proud of what they have created and own this as an intended challenging dungeon and then set about fixing what is making it all go wrong.

In conclusion, please make the content challenging again. We all feel like we are right back at Mod 15. Please make the levelling queue have no class requirement. Please fix the classes and/or trial so 2 of the same healing class can be viable. Please stop pandering to the loudest voices. Please stop using the same group of people to test the game. These people, while doing it for free, really aren't doing it for free, they are doing it for an in-game profit. The content needs testing, not the top tier players.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss issues I have raise, you can reply to me here or alternatively My channel can be found at www.twitch.tv/backpetal.
Just call me Enna...
Enna Backpetal Cleric
Enna F Backpetal Fighter

Twitch Me Baby One More Time

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Comments

  • paulamyo#4926 paulamyo Member Posts: 73 Arc User
    I play only as cleric.

    My thoughts are very close to what you have said.

    I hope you have more success than me in getting some answer.
  • sobi#1980 sobi Member Posts: 401 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    I agree with almost everything in your post but some things will almost definitely be picked on by the community.

    Those are:

    Rangers are lacking in single target DPS
    Warlock's have to be carried
    Cannot have 2 healing clerics (though definitely cannot have 2 SW's)
    Stop catering to the loud noises
    Stop testing content by the elite players

    I disagree with rangers lacking DPS even as single target and to stop catering to the loud noises only.

    My reasons are:

    I have tested all the top 3 dps classes by skill ceiling players and for rangers, the difference in ST dps is very miniscule in comparison to an arcanist, that is presumably the best ST dps dealer. In fact, they have the best rush skills and burst aoe that it doesn't justify for them to also have the best ST DPS as well.

    My second reason to not cater to the elitist is because the game has been catering for the casual players for as long as it existed. These elitist have spend irl money and time and effort to reach where they are now. It's like they chased for all that end gear and progressed through game to only find out that they didn't need any of that for any dungeon.

    I am also absurdly confused about why people separate TOMM for the 1%. It is not for the 1%, it is for the 100% if those 99% actually do aim to reach BiS. The dungeon is a end game dungeon which is suppose to be played by end game players. The same way TOMG, CR and etc are made for averaged gear player, would you then blame the dev's for not making them available for someone who just turned lvl 80 with 15-16ilvl with no real experience of dungeons? This game is all about its gear progression and it only makes sense to gate dungeons behind a certain lvl gear, otherwise the game will lose all its sense of progression. In the same way, TOMM is something to be chased for and sought after, you remove TOMM, you basically remove the existence of elitism in the game. Why shouldn't you perfect things in life? If you are a casual player, that is perfectly fine with me as someone who respects elitism but i don't understand what part of being good in the game is a problem? if anything, we carry you guys in LOMM and other difficult dungeons when you are completely oblivious of the mechanics.

    Note that PVE games always tend to rely on progression to attract players whereas the PVP games are more about cosmetics and etc. God forbid you make a PVP game pay2win, you'll see no one play in 1 month's time.


  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    I have one major issue with the original letter.
    Stating something like: "Make the game difficult again" is a road to hell. I mean, M16 did one major thing wrong in this accord: it made things unbearable for a casual player while not satisfying the skilled ones. That is the problem - you need more difficulty settings and corresponding rewards. If you have just one, wherever it is, you are hurting too many people.

    I personally do not care anymore. Originally I played the content a few mods after the release, when requirements begun to be "whatever". With scaling... I consider such an attitude gone. To top that, some challenges have other checks - like CoDG - and will never be playable by less skilled people.

    So yeah, I understand your desire - but please, realise you are once again just one voice of many trying to prove your own interest. And that is what the devs have to realise: They do not have a homogeneous player-base, on the contrary, once in a while they should drop a candy to every segment of a game.
    Post edited by rikitaki on
  • tassedethe13tassedethe13 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 806 Arc User
    rikitaki said:

    And that is what the devs have to realise: They do not have homogeneous player-base, on the contrary, once in a while they should drop a candy do every segment of a game.

    Devs can solve this problem by making different level of difficulty for new content, we asked for it since years. Doing this, each MOD, everybody, and every kind of player will have something new to play, try to beat a harder difficulty level each time. Win - win situation for everybody
  • tom#6998 tom Member Posts: 952 Arc User

    The problem with this kind of post is this:

    people who don´t want things to change because they are very happy with the state of classes balance, and tomm, and all this OP concerns will do this: they will pick one small aspect of the OP´s text and attack that.

    Like "eh rangers are ok", or "one warlock once finished TOMM", or "I entered once the preview server, why are you attacking me?" and then implying the rest of the post is wrong.

    if u see such a post, call it out directly.
  • paulamyo#4926 paulamyo Member Posts: 73 Arc User
    tom#6998 said:

    The problem with this kind of post is this:

    people who don´t want things to change because they are very happy with the state of classes balance, and tomm, and all this OP concerns will do this: they will pick one small aspect of the OP´s text and attack that.

    Like "eh rangers are ok", or "one warlock once finished TOMM", or "I entered once the preview server, why are you attacking me?" and then implying the rest of the post is wrong.

    if u see such a post, call it out directly.
    Lol, the post next to mine is exaclty this.
  • tom#6998 tom Member Posts: 952 Arc User

    tom#6998 said:

    The problem with this kind of post is this:

    people who don´t want things to change because they are very happy with the state of classes balance, and tomm, and all this OP concerns will do this: they will pick one small aspect of the OP´s text and attack that.

    Like "eh rangers are ok", or "one warlock once finished TOMM", or "I entered once the preview server, why are you attacking me?" and then implying the rest of the post is wrong.

    if u see such a post, call it out directly.
    Lol, the post next to mine is exaclty this.
    its hard to see what post is "next" to yours, when in this forums post are either below or above your post.
  • sobi#1980 sobi Member Posts: 401 Arc User
    edited September 2019

    rikitaki said:

    And that is what the devs have to realise: They do not have homogeneous player-base, on the contrary, once in a while they should drop a candy do every segment of a game.

    Devs can solve this problem by making different level of difficulty for new content, we asked for it since years. Doing this, each MOD, everybody, and every kind of player will have something new to play, try to beat a harder difficulty level each time. Win - win situation for everybody
    The only issue i see is the progression dying in the game. You start as nobody, you build your character and get the Bis gear to do the end game dungeons. If then people with no gear are able to choose casual difficulty and run the same content with lower gear/difficulty, requiring less effort and resources and still getting the same rewards, then that there is an issue.

    Alternatively, to make the above possible without being illogical, they could give certain difficulties to some dungeons. For example LOMM could have a lowest difficulty catering to someone with 90k power minimum. Eventhough, you see enough people running with lower power than that, but they almost always get carried. However, the rewards have to be lower otherwise it becomes unfair. But i still think that the issue with TOMM is not this, in fact the casual players would still hate the dungeon as there is a single boss, and if he didn't aoe one shot you without you knowing the mechanics because the difficulty is set to low, then most casual players will bore out of it pretty fast. Most casual players i know just want trash trash trash and they want to see those juicy crit numbers float.

    But something like TOMM must stay top difficulty or maybe add another setting for non-dps classes to be able to play TOMM at lower difficulty but keep the rewards the same since they are lower in dps anyway.

    But it's a big no no for a progression based game to simply allow all content to be playable by all the playerbase. Where is the sense of progression when you can do any dungeon with any gear? Can we then say that we need the gear at all?

    In fact, elitism encourages skill over anything else but then the gear system needs to vanish but there is loophole even in this situation. Assume for a second, that the devs remove the gear/ilvl altogether and release a dungeon TOMM 2 for a certain skilled lvl players. Do you think the casual players with lower gears will like that? In fact, they'll hate it even more as now they can't compensate for their lack of skills through the gear which at least they could earn through the grind and playing casually, that they actually love doing.

    The current system is benefiting every type of person. If you prefer a grindy game, well good luck you got just that. If you hate the grind because you work and study then you have the ZAX and Zen store. If you love difficult content that requires skill and gear, then you have TOMM. If you love content that requires less skill and less gear, you have LOMM. If you love content that requires no skill, you have lots of dungeons and if you love content that requires less gear but skill, then you have CR, CODG, TONG etc. The addition of TOMM was aimed at those that wanted a reward for obtaining Bis gear and requiring skill for the dungeon i.e. elitists and the game had yet to cater for them.

    I congratulate the Dev's for making this decision and it was utmost wise of them to cater to this small population that had been overlooked for years.
  • theskalltheskall Member Posts: 18 Arc User
    > @paulamyo#4926 said:
    > Again that screenshot with 7 dps players from only 2 classes.
    >
    > If that screenshot doesn not make the devs go and balance the classes, my hope is lost.

    If you want we can also upload the screenshot of the non-meta successful run. Do you prefer that one?
  • paulamyo#4926 paulamyo Member Posts: 73 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    theskall said:

    > @paulamyo#4926 said:

    > Again that screenshot with 7 dps players from only 2 classes.

    >

    > If that screenshot doesn not make the devs go and balance the classes, my hope is lost.



    If you want we can also upload the screenshot of the non-meta successful run. Do you prefer that one?

    You can post whatever you want, of course.

    But don´t try to convince me that all the classes are at the same level because once one warlock and one guardian finished ToMM.

    Well sorry. You can try to convince me of that if you want.
  • tassedethe13tassedethe13 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 806 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    @paulamyo#4926 I assume you spoke about my post,what you told is true, but had to point this details who really bothered me, assuming other people life first, and saying the game is challenging and not challenging at the same time. It doesn't imply that the rest of the post is wrong. It's the OP opinion whever or not I agree with it.

    @sobi I didn't write it, because I thought it was clear, the more difficult the level is, the better are the rewards, and that's how you feel that you improved yourself.
  • lordaeoloslordaeolos Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 167 Arc User



    The changes to the game over the last few months have been many and for many of us, most welcome. Mod 16 was buggy, but exciting, only to have those changes that made it fun again, taken away from us within days. We cried the day that the mob health decreased while doubling our enchantment values – it should have been one or the other (or none), but not both. It was said Mod 16 was about class balancing and making things more challenging and then in the next breath took the challenge away, catering to the loudest voices who from my experience represent a minority of the playerbase. That on top of the fact that class balancing still needs major work - was, and still is, a source of major disappointment.


    Agreed


    Random dungeon queues have changed and it is a source of great frustration for many new players. It may have overlooked but: New Players have 1 loadout and that player is going to choose the DPS path every time. Granted they get a second loadout at level 30, but for all players 30 and under in the levelling queue are going to be dps. Now the trifecta (1 Tank, 1 Heal, 3 DPS) is forced onto the levelling queue and what's happening now is the wait times are atrocious because everyone is looking for that healer that will never proc unless a higher level person queues into it as a healer. As a lvl 80 Devout I can sit and proc the levelling queue, one after the other, all day long, but as an Arbiter, I wait and wait and wait. My suggestion is to remove the requirements for the levelling queues, even if it requires some additional programming to separate the two skirmishes that are in the levelling queue (because I'm guessing that's the problem).


    This could be fixed by upping the AD incentive for non-DPS classes, frankly the incentive is currently too small to be worth queuing.


    My first and biggest issue is, the Trial requires a double trifecta but then there is a lack of freedom over which classes can be used. Let me explain. You can have 6 Wizards (or insert any of the same class of DPS here) on DPS or 2 Fighters (or 2 Paladins) for tanks, but you cannot viably have 2 Healing Clerics or 2 Healing Paladins or 2 Healing Warlocks. The trial MUST have those temporary hit points with the Paladin heals because a healing Cleric or a healing Warlock cannot heal through a hit from Halastar that has more damage than the tank has hitpoints. It's ridiculous, disappointing and unfair.

    Not true at all.. having a paladin healer does make it easier, but the trial can certainly be completed without a paladan, and can be finished with a single Cleric, as demonstarated by gonzo.


    Second, the small group of 10 people who do not play the game regularly, and are clearly only in it for a profit, have dictated how the trial was even developed and created. Testers in BETA didn't even get to really test the trial – the whole community relied on people from the elite player base community to test it. Those same people now have the trial on farm mode and have since left the game because no one is buying their loot, which feels like their agenda for testing in the first place. Most only came back after 2 weeks of not playing because Lassor wanted to do the trial with them while it was streamed live.

    That group stepped up to the plate, worked with the dev team extensively to make one of the most bug free pieces of content we have to date.. I could get into the math why the unbound loot makes sense.. but never mind


    And, on a side note, that was a real kick in the HAMSTER to content creators that are here nearly every day streaming the game – to have a Dev ask to be in that group and to have it be streamed by someone who doesn't normally stream on a regular basis. There are many frequent dedicated and long term streamers in the community. We as streamers who play almost daily, for many hours and are all trial-ready with little to no practice, but have yet to be invited to play with anyone on a livestream, having a small select group of top tier players doesn't show the skill required and doesn't do the dungeon justice.

    It made sense for them to go with viral... that group was working with them in preview, AND streaming trial runs without leaving in a huff right away. they also have a solid and practiced group.


    Third, The trial dropped on us without balancing the classes needed to keep all classes viable. Rangers are no longer relevant as ranged (and there are players that want to, and do, play ranged despite being told they can't) and are barely relevant as melee. Warlocks aren't wanted either because their damage is somewhere around 15% less than others. They are being taken to trial practice, yes, but they are being carried and it's no fun for the person playing the ranger/warlock just as it's no fun for the group carrying the person.

    Agreed Class balance is a mess, and the proposed changes we have seen so far will still create a mess.


    Fifth, There are issues with the test server, not everyone wants to go on the test server and run the new content. There are a ton of us who have avoided anything on preview, avoided watching anything on preview, because we wanted to – and will always want to – experience content organically – when it goes live. So many of us were not even aware of what was going on with the preview server and this elite group of people and now that it is on the live server, we have to take what they came up with for you. That is a hard pill to swallow. I feel more players would play the test server if it wasn't the identical content to the next release, but maybe an arena style fight with the mechanics in there but individually rather than a boss fight with all mechanics in one.

    The test server has saved our bacon as a player community a number of times.. the dev team just doesn';t have the resources to do extensive QA, and there are plenty of people like me who love getting a chance to go into test and preview content.


    Just thought from another Neverwinter content creator.

    www.twitch.tv/lord_willow_

    www.youtube.com/c/LordWillow



    "Lord Willow"
    Guild Leader: Mistaken Identity (formerly Midnight Express)
    My Twitch Stream
    See my Youtube Channel for guides and more


    "Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events."
  • jules#6770 jules Member Posts: 709 Arc User
    edited September 2019

    theskall said:

    > @paulamyo#4926 said:

    > Again that screenshot with 7 dps players from only 2 classes.

    >

    > If that screenshot doesn not make the devs go and balance the classes, my hope is lost.



    If you want we can also upload the screenshot of the non-meta successful run. Do you prefer that one?

    You can post whatever you want, of course.

    But don´t try to convince me that all the classes are at the same level because once one warlock and one guardian finished ToMM.

    Well sorry. You can try to convince me of that if you want.
    Yeah.

    All I read constantly is "its possible, its possible."
    Yeah it is.
    As if that ever was the point, the point was: It's not a similar experience.
    When I run content with a likely geared SW (we even got the same Battlehorns, Power around 1.5k difference, he got a bit more base power) and I go looking for that one popcorn I just lost, he pops 3 battlehorns while I pop ... my popcorn.. and I end up as top paingiver, even if it wasn't by much, then its laughable.
    And well, that wasn't a hypothetical situation here.
    The elitism aside, the issue with Tomm is how worthless running other content is now compared to it. Nobody would feel like an idiot if there were some rewards in running content, other than RNG on meh-rewards and RAD thats capped to a minimum, and many other ways to make AD nerfed. (I'm looking at you, MW!)
    Of course there are still ways to make AD. There is still stuff to sell. Yeah, yeah. I can also hypothetically make a lot of AD from EXP if I had so much time. ... Cause thats what everything else is consuming far too much now, compared to M15. Time.
    With what originally was the way to go, the average daily grinding nerfed, and it now mainly consisting of MEs (and their slightly altered copies) its hard to love the game especially when the RNG is not on your side.
    Thats the only winning factor of a big daily grind now: pure RNG. If I get something good, I can stomach another few days of nothing. I didn't get anything for a week, I feel like hitting dummies and pretending rather.
    - bye bye -
  • jules#6770 jules Member Posts: 709 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    It's not even a lack of support from the community, I remember no answers on questions in Warlocks thread for M16 preview.
    There was a lot of silence in quite a few threads.
    There is now, too. Why put so much effort into anything that gets pushed aside (like testing class balance, comparing heals and the SW healing ability as a whole compared to the others, dps, stuff like that), but hey - Tomm works! Tomm gets worked on! Oh, another dev answer on a Tomm thread.
    I don't mind Tomm or who it caters to. But it felt like it sucked the devttention from every other topic regarding the whole mess left behind.
    - bye bye -
  • paulamyo#4926 paulamyo Member Posts: 73 Arc User
    hrakh said:

    I have no comments on the OP's post at this time, agree in part, disagree in part, but not reached a point where I can comment coherently..

    I do however have one small comment concerning quite a few of the replies focussed on TOMM:

    Volume matters. Of course TOMM has not yet reached a point where there is a lot of volume yet, but it would be nice if we could stop treating a couple of non-meta successes as being applicable to the greater whole. You don't refer to them as non-meta for nothing.

    I am happy to know that there are people that can do TOMM on a DPS Warlock, I am happy to know that non-meta groups can complete it. Its good news, but until as many Archery Rangers, DPS Clerics or DPS Barbarians have finished that thing as Wizards Rogues or melee Rangers have.. Balance is still obviously an issue.

    Yes I know most of you agree with that premise (at least somewhat..archery ranger may be a stretch :) ), but I would very much like for Cryptic to not get distracted by a screenshot or other anecdotes and then decide "oh all is well". I want them to stay focused on the big, seriously skewed, picture. Yes, I also know that that is a very paranoid attitude. But I am not willing to pretend to have much trust left here. Yet, I have hope and I'd like to keep it for a little longer.

    Yeah, of course.

    They should have the numbers. Just look at the numbers of people completing, damage dealt and all of that. And adjust.

    I just mentioned that screenshot because it looks ironical to me that a run intended to gather some kind of prove of balance between classes choses to run with only 2 different classes as dps.
  • thefiresidecatthefiresidecat Member Posts: 4,486 Arc User

    It's not even a lack of support from the community, I remember no answers on questions in Warlocks thread for M16 preview.
    There was a lot of silence in quite a few threads.
    There is now, too. Why put so much effort into anything that gets pushed aside (like testing class balance, comparing heals and the SW healing ability as a whole compared to the others, dps, stuff like that), but hey - Tomm works! Tomm gets worked on! Oh, another dev answer on a Tomm thread.
    I don't mind Tomm or who it caters to. But it felt like it sucked the devttention from every other topic regarding the whole mess left behind.

    not really. devtention is always difficult to get. lol. pvp is the other thing they seem focused on right now. I'm amazed we've gotten the devtention we have got. I can remember many things over the last few years that have gone ignored/unanswered. the communication has always been notably missing other than a few instances where they start to make an effort and then let it slide again. I'm sure they read things and work on things and discuss what they're going to do and not do. (very small team) but their communication to us is basically just non existent.
  • flublblbluflublblblu Member Posts: 25 Arc User
    MMOs aren't meant to be played solo.

    Moreover, D&D is supposed to be a very social game, official adventures are for 4-6 players iirc
  • tassedethe13tassedethe13 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 806 Arc User
    By "complex social interactions" you mean going on a discord and listening to the "Ballet master" ?

    That doesn't sound complex to me, and a lot of people forget what the first "M" means in MMORPG.

    Neverwinter is not D&D, it's a MMORPG based on D&D.
  • paulamyo#4926 paulamyo Member Posts: 73 Arc User
    akemnos said:

    hrakh said:

    I have no comments on the OP's post at this time, agree in part, disagree in part, but not reached a point where I can comment coherently..

    I do however have one small comment concerning quite a few of the replies focussed on TOMM:

    Volume matters. Of course TOMM has not yet reached a point where there is a lot of volume yet, but it would be nice if we could stop treating a couple of non-meta successes as being applicable to the greater whole. You don't refer to them as non-meta for nothing.

    I am happy to know that there are people that can do TOMM on a DPS Warlock, I am happy to know that non-meta groups can complete it. Its good news, but until as many Archery Rangers, DPS Clerics or DPS Barbarians have finished that thing as Wizards Rogues or melee Rangers have.. Balance is still obviously an issue.

    Yes I know most of you agree with that premise (at least somewhat..archery ranger may be a stretch :) ), but I would very much like for Cryptic to not get distracted by a screenshot or other anecdotes and then decide "oh all is well". I want them to stay focused on the big, seriously skewed, picture. Yes, I also know that that is a very paranoid attitude. But I am not willing to pretend to have much trust left here. Yet, I have hope and I'd like to keep it for a little longer.

    Yeah, of course.

    They should have the numbers. Just look at the numbers of people completing, damage dealt and all of that. And adjust.

    I just mentioned that screenshot because it looks ironical to me that a run intended to gather some kind of prove of balance between classes choses to run with only 2 different classes as dps.
    Except the screenshot they showed had nothing to do with a discussion about dps classes. It was directly referencing a post stating that a Pally was required for the trial. The screenshot showed very nicely that it is not required.

    Everyone knows about the issues with the dps classes. It has been discussed to death and everyone, including the people, who are running TOMM, has agreed that those classes need to have their damage ratios fixed to be inline with the others.

    I am not sure why everyone is going around complaining so much about TOMM with a stick up their HAMSTER. It is not the first time content has been released for a specific group. This happened just recently with whatever mod was IA. This mod had absolutely nothing of value for anyone who already was or near BIS. What was available? a rank 14 enchantment and gear that you had to jump through hoops to get that was worse than your current gear? While there was some complaints then i dont remember nearly the same volume as their is now. If you cant get into TOMM then work your way there so you can do it. These so called "Evil loot selling testers who are only in it for themselves" have provided us with multiple guides and videos showing us exactly how to run the trial successfully.

    Maybe instead of continually bashing these people we should maybe thank them for helping to make sure we actually have a working trial. Or i guess instead we could have a trial where you just queued with 10 people running Xuna and basically have the trail autocompleted for you.....


    NOTE: I am currently not able to run the trial and have not set foot in it.

    Thats exaclty wht I find ironic. I was the one that opened the post that motivated that run to "prove" me wrong.

    I now that the topic of that post was not ONLY dps class balance, but it was mentioned on the first message.

    And I imagine the party gathering for that run:

    _ Ey, let´s show that Paula how wrong she is, let´s make a run with only one healer so she can´t complain anymore.
    - Great idea! what DPS do we use?
    - All wizzards and rogues and rangers, of course... if not we are not finishing it.
    - YAY! let´s shut up that b****.

    facepalm!
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