Neverwinter is suffering from severe vertical upgrade fatigue.
Between new gears, new weapons, new enchantment caps, new artifacts, new companion, new mounts, new level cap and wasted investments on crafting that is easily obsoleted, it is far unsustainable to keep players on the boat.
What Neverwinter needs is stop wasting resources on for example, PvP ( there are a ton of PvP MMos out there that is 100% all-in on PvP aspect and people flock to them by the millions ) and come up with new horizontal progression.
As it is, players aren't sticking around to keep up with endless reupgrades.
This is exactly why i dont play much anymore. The constant changes with almost every update, that requires you to rework all your stuff and adapt to the changes. Its stressful, time-wasting and not rewarding. Just a waste of time and currency. Im not completely quitting, just gonna take it slowly, do my dailies, grab my key, rinse and repeat until they find some balance with their game. Meanwhile hoping they dont mess up MTG
Lardeson CW not Mage. Where's my fireball and my thunderbolt?
Used to be I could look forward to Winter Fest, but then they bollixed up the fishing activity last year (my favorite pastime) so I don't even have that to look forward to.
Remember when the big Black Friday event was an anticipated milestone, and people saved up AD to convert to Zen months ahead of time? I have zero interest this year. I feel absolutely no motivation to participate in much of anything with this game. M17 was such a let down - the only positive was the new race option - otherwise it was just reused assets from M16 and lots of weird rule changes around leveling and random dungeons.
If it weren't for the guild I'm in, I'd have abandoned regular play after M15 dropped. As it is...there are so few people participating in my guild now it's getting to where I am losing motivation to participate even there.
There are other MMORPG out there adding regular updates with quality content. NW is falling further behind the curve, badly.
I had an in game acquaintance tell me: "I was playing a game I no longer enjoyed and looking for another game to play when I discovered Neverwinter, and it was a game I actually enjoyed playing... It looks as though history will be repeating itself."
I really hope Neverwinter can attract a bunch of new players because it seems to me a good number of veteran players have already given up on Neverwinter, just idling their characters - maybe checking in every now and then for a few minutes - but no longer really "playing" the game.
But then in my opinion from the perspective of a new or newish player, Neverwinter doesn't have a lot going for it by way of keeping a lot of players past level 70 or 80 and certainly doesn't offer much of an incentive to spend real world money to stay beyond those levels...
So yeah, I'm hoping Neverwinter can attract oodles and gobs of new players and some of them will be willing to spend a little money to remain Neverwinter players - but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen. JMHO
Neverwinter is suffering from severe vertical upgrade fatigue.
Between new gears, new weapons, new enchantment caps, new artifacts, new companion, new mounts, new level cap and wasted investments on crafting that is easily obsoleted, it is far unsustainable to keep players on the boat.
What Neverwinter needs is stop wasting resources on for example, PvP ( there are a ton of PvP MMos out there that is 100% all-in on PvP aspect and people flock to them by the millions ) and come up with new horizontal progression.
As it is, players aren't sticking around to keep up with endless reupgrades.
This is exactly why i dont play much anymore. The constant changes with almost every update, that requires you to rework all your stuff and adapt to the changes. Its stressful, time-wasting and not rewarding. Just a waste of time and currency. Im not completely quitting, just gonna take it slowly, do my dailies, grab my key, rinse and repeat until they find some balance with their game. Meanwhile hoping they dont mess up MTG
One of the many reasons why I've decided to just sit this one out and just pop back in from time to time to see if there are any major changes.
Despite of all the changes and decision made since mod 6, Neverwinter has never been the neverwinter I knew and like. Its all been crude and felt like a little patch/changes here and there that never get committed. Instead of a fully grown and mature game, it felt like a Frankenstein version of its former self.
Well, people leave games for one reason or another. Don't think you can put all the blame on changes that happened. While I miss the buffing days of pre-mod16, I am fine with the changes. It certainly is a different game. While the game lost some players, it probably gained some new players. There will always be turnover.
While it is true that players do leave games for different reasons BIG difference is how that is happening. If its natural "erosion" of a game or fluctuations with new content - its ok. But NWO is suffering more then that - and that is exactly becouse of last changes. Changes itself was needed - I was a great supporter of this as game was in need of rework. But how those changes was implemented is anotother thing.
Tons of bugs, not properly tested content, lack of calss balance or even broken mechanics - and what is even worse - all that was given not as one nasty pill but divided into several waves of bugs (and more of those waves are still inbound). Each of those created new demands for players to accomodate, so generated a huge costs for upgrades. With dwindling options to get ADs it was beyond many players reach. Even those who pay real money noticed that they are simply waisting that money, as situation is changin so rapidly that it is not clear how to invest that money.
So even if there was influx of new players into the game, it didnt covered losses caused with last changes, and due to quality of content for new players (death zone at in lake district:D) I doube many of those actualy stayed in game for long. Just check steam charts Y2Y - August 2018 - 2750 average players - August 2019 - 1675 average players.
I am aware that steam charts are not covering all users - but that is only data witch we can aquire. And trends are obvious. There will be NO turn over - there was no turn after MOD 6, and there would not be now.
There are other MMORPG out there adding regular updates with quality content. NW is falling further behind the curve, badly.
Actually its not even that - sure we can discuss if/witch Modules bringed more and better content. But IMHO real problem is elswhere - other games try to keep already existing content "in use". In Neverwinter most of content become obsolete almost instantly with a new MOD release- when was a last time you were for example in Lonelywood?
Not to mention older maps - and devs used huge amounts of resources to create those maps and they they dont even try te keep those alive. It looks like it is developed in similar way to D&D pen&paper version. You got new sourcebook - lets try that. But real difference is its way easier to go back to previous version in P&P than in video game. And with paper versions you already got tons of content.
And that is why this game cant keep players for long. I even start to suspect that it is working as intended here. You new - you jump in - you get lot free stuff witch only looks cool and adequate - then you find out to be undergeared with a way to progress gated behind a lot of time, so it is a point of decision - full time dedication/ VISA artefact use/ or both - OR quit.
Just look at the influx of players with Ravenloft - popular setup - lot of new faces - then population is droping rapidly, rinse repeat. Except that later MODs setups was either - not that popular (AI) or almost not tested, technicly broken like MOD 16 or not bringing any widely accesible content, while still technicly broken (MOD 17).
Please notice that there is a limitation of how popular setup can bolster players ranks. Undermountain is as iconic as it can be for D&D. Halaster is "that" man. Still it didnt menaged to bring more faces to the game. Actually I bet it bringed, but in the same time "way of rework", technicall issues and bugs was a reason to quit for much more players then "cool" setup could bringed as reinfocemnts.
It is more like advertisment platform for D&D latest products, than stand alone game. Sure with time it growed to respectful size, but only small fraction of content is kept up to date and relevant - so it leads me to that conclusion. Sure I can be wrong here - but add to that a official devs statemnts as part of a reason (IMO only reason) for a game rework was to change it be as easy as possible to them to run things.
That is why I am not so sure if NWO was ever on a curve you are mentionig here @kemnimtarkas
All what keeps this game afloat is a D&D background - that, and a natural for MMOs feeling of being attached to that game couse of amounts of time and/or real money spent here.
new players will soon see and find out as soon they start discovering many flaws, and not happy, they start asking why paying for upgrades to level up enchants or to meet requirements, they will see this ugly "paywall" when this game were suppose to be free to play format. they will say "OMG! They are greedy for more".
Unable to agree with you wylonus I never paid 1 dollar to the game and have all rank 15 runestones and enchants. Not to say that I did not grind my HAMSTER off for the AD to get them there but I surely did not pay 1 dollar to this game.
> @b4t1b4t True, but new players are not used to that anymore. They start, lvl, sometime inbetween ask how to do this fast and are told: lvl to 80 with thisthisthis, go do Undermountain, get Alabaster, do Lomm. Done. So, if thats the case then buying those shocking expensive packages is of course an option. Cause if you say "Oh I did xyz campaigns before even touching that" you are boring their asses off. And end up explaining what Omu even is cause it's not on the map, but they saw a shadowstalker on a guide...
Unable to agree with you wylonus I never paid 1 dollar to the game and have all rank 15 runestones and enchants. Not to say that I did not grind my HAMSTER off for the AD to get them there but I surely did not pay 1 dollar to this game.
Oh, you are exactly the kind of player the devs are trying to attract to play the game! Cryptic is a non-profit right? They pay their staff salaries and system overhead with BECAUSE.
Maybe so in regards to f2p, but that model appears to be broken and/or exploited in many (most?) instances where it is employed. I've only read of one game that apparently got it right; I forget it's name, but its f2p approach is to sell primarily cosmetic items and in such a manner, that it makes you want to pay because you enjoy the game as opposed to resenting years' worth of mindless, monotonous, soul destroying grinding where the goal posts are regularly moved - even if you spent money. (Hello Neverwinter!)
NW might actually be a better game, if it ceased using a predatory f2p model. Oh, and actively hired devs that actually played their own game (I don't for a moment believe claims by sycophantic reddit mods claiming the opposite). Effectively communicating together would probably also help avoid throwing out the baby with the bath water when claiming to revise class balance to get rid of things *they* don't approve of....only to recreate the same issues, and worse.
At this point I simply can not categorize the dev team as anything but incompetent, which is a shame because they're people too with (presumably) their own hopes, dreams, and human sensibilities. I would like to root for them, but the state of this game is a travesty and an offense to professional quality assurance.
If it was anything but f2p it wouldn't get away with this quality. I agree, tho. Many people would just sub this game or whatever, it would simply be enough to make VIP a bit better and people would buy it, but the system won't change, and thats why the game got away with this kind of content and upgrades/nerfs/bugs for so long. Communication was and is broken for as long as I've been playing this game. This after-M16-"dialogue" didn't really happen, and if anything it helped to see even clearer how far apart we are from the people we pay (or don't pay). I mean. I would buy alpha compy because its so cute...
most of players dont know what i was talking, seem they may never been playing pre-mod 5, those came later and missed so much been changed, look at mod 6, just repeated same mistake with mod 16. after Mod 6, so much changed to "free to play format". most '"rolls" were d-20 on lockboxes, now today, it became more RNG "percentages" with hidden layer of layers of slot machines. so you guys said it all okay? from AT&T tv ads, Just okay is not an okay. i want my RPG back, and back to basic, not base on that awful RNG casino and stat for number race just to meet requirements. it not fun playing calculator race war. let me ask you, you rather play RPG or play numbers? so, what Neverwinter is? RPG? i had one of my character and need 15-20 coal wards to upgrade completely trying to meet stats required, and i am looking at 150-200 dollars to invest, i just refuse that, knowing one of these days devs will nerf and use "scale-back" to weaker versions, making game unfunable to play, just creating more frustrations. yes, i know about Sybella selling marks if you do the weeklies. they remove those wards from vendors and place in zen market, placing in "captive market" on characters' progression. then it was no longer free to play as i see.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,211Arc User
most of players dont know what i was talking, seem they may never been playing pre-mod 5, those came later and missed so much been changed, look at mod 6, just repeated same mistake with mod 16. after Mod 6, so much changed to "free to play format". most '"rolls" were d-20 on lockboxes, now today, it became more RNG "percentages" with hidden layer of layers of slot machines. so you guys said it all okay? from AT&T tv ads, Just okay is not an okay. i want my RPG back, and back to basic, not base on that awful RNG casino and stat for number race just to meet requirements. it not fun playing calculator race war. let me ask you, you rather play RPG or play numbers? so, what Neverwinter is? RPG? i had one of my character and need 15-20 coal wards to upgrade completely trying to meet stats required, and i am looking at 150-200 dollars to invest, i just refuse that, knowing one of these days devs will nerf and use "scale-back" to weaker versions, making game unfunable to play, just creating more frustrations. yes, i know about Sybella selling marks if you do the weeklies. they remove those wards from vendors and place in zen market, placing in "captive market" on characters' progression. then it was no longer free to play as i see.
I played since mod 3 and it was number game back then. Actually, it was even more numbers, graph, formula than now. It was even more organize back then. The formula was even more complicated. There was gear score. There is item level.
What I have learnt since is this game always changing. I just need to find a new shortcut in every change. I did not care about lockbox back then. I don't really care about lockbox now.
There was certain element of RPG but not much. It was just better than zero. It was not exactly a RPG in mod 3 neither. There was RNG back then. What I learned from that is I don't want to deal with RNG. I also learned C-ward can be free (I don't mean using AD/Zen to buy them) and one day they may nerf that too. I have not bought any 'needed' items from AH or Zen store for a long time.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
remember pre mod 6, C-wards were sold on AH for 30k-50k ADs ?, when they pulled out of vendors, price went up to about 600k-750k ADs. i had some Dark (red) enchants for speed buffs on utility slots, devs nerfed, that how i felt cheated and robbed after investing. got burned few times over and over. i hated both Mod 6 and Mod 16, had Mod 17 in very little play times when i had few "deaths" in family and in friends, funeral services, and visiting others in hospital care, and watch the dogs for them until they get back home. my mood changed when i see so much bad changes and so much more bugs.
way i see, devs are killing this game. their scaling are still way off the mark, made to feel mod 6 all over again, memories too fresh. they will repeat another Mod 6 again.
For the level 80's, we have had 3 'bad' expansions in a row, content-wise: * Mod 15 - low-level and very grindy AI campaign. Unpopular with the max level crowd(that seems to be the majority of the players) * Mod 16 - level 80 cap increase. UM was ok content-wise for levelling 70->80, but it was not really challenging and it quickly ended in a massive ME grindfest. Not much longevity. * Mod 17 - just more ME grindfest. ToMM is not for most people.
Mod 18 needs to be a massive level 80 content expansion with a reasonable scale of difficulty.
I am not sure Cryptic got the developer resources any more to produce content at a scale that the game really need. I guess we'll see in 4-6 weeks.
There's an old saying: "Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me".
Myself and a lot of people I used to play with dropped a bunch of money for gear, enchantments, runestones, etc. only to discover whatever we spent was pretty much a waste of money because the BIS gear, enchantments, runestones - whatever - were no longer BIS or nearly BIS they were in fact at or about the comparatively the same level as the gear we had, before spending money to get better gear. With the only option being either spend even more money and hope whatever we bought didn't too quickly become obsolete or not to spend any more on the game.
“Fool me once shame on you”
We were encouraged to “buy character slots”… We could invoke more characters and get more - ”stuff”, we could run more characters in dungeons and get more Astral Diamonds and we could do professions with more characters and fabricate more items we needed to play and or perhaps we could sell some of the items we fabricated.
Well as it turned out invoking rewards were significantly nerfed and we could no longer get more “stuff” when we invoked, professions were changed and regardless of how many characters we had, we were severely limited on the number of professions operatives (now called artisans and gatherers) we could employ which in turn also limited the products we could produce to sell or use. Finally the AD gathering was also nerfed so instead of being able to run multiple characters for max AD’s with each character per day – now we can only get max AD’s with each account per day and for those of us dumb enough to have purchased 50+ character slots that was a significant in game currency loss.
“Fool me twice shame one me”
I know that financially supporting the game keeps it more viable and current, but considering the results of our previous financial contributions, no one I know from the original group (with the exception of me – conservatively of course) has spent a penny more to financially support Neverwinter and they’ve all made a point of explaining the circumstances they encountered which colored their opinion to every new guildmate, party member and PE chat stranger that wonders about spending money for their character’s improvement or on services like character slots. And I wonder how many new (newish) players will spend real world currency on the game before they arrive at a similar conclusion?
Fool me once shame one you. Fool me twice shame on me - Fool me thrice... not going to happen.
It's been in decline for a long while. But that's normal for these types of games. The trick at this point is getting new players. Some manage, some don't. Be interesting to see whether NW manages it.
I think NW will have problems, they have removed the three unique points of the game, foundry, API and doggy maze. What's left is generic with some things badly missing (homes etc.). And some of the recent changes have been a pita. Scaling is bad in any game, just a cheap way to reuse assets, which is fine except it's boring for the players (Sybilla is a far better way to reuse assets, that has a lot of potential). The longer fights are not intrinsically bad, but they do not have combos, overlaid powers or some such which means it's amongst the most boring of fighting in MMORPG's. Thankfully *most* fights are still quick enough it's not quite an issue, but it's borderline.
Also, I don't mind dying, or being overwhelmed, but I loath one-shot death mechanics in dungeons, it's cheap and tacky. NW is full of these HAMSTER dungeon mechanics. Use some imagination FFS.
You can add BIS only content like TOMM that rarely have more than 2 groups running it at any given time.
A BIS only mod means Non Bis Players have nothing to do and is not wanted till next mod
what about all the content that is in the Game besides ToMM?
Like what? Daily MEs, WEs? that's ok...Broken CR? Broken Tales of Old? content like events like outdated CTA? Running the same till next mod because the last content isn't for everyone? That's ok with ToMM for BIS, but it's hard for them to release a dungeon or something more beside ToMM? Mod 17 is empty.
id love if they would realease multiple dungeons each module, but there is still FBI/MSP/TONG/CR/LOMM/CODG for example, and if those are all easy and boring to u, go and start training ToMM.
This is the first MMO I played where devs release just a campaign zone and one dungeon, trial or skirmish. Most MMOs I played the devs release three pieces of content and a new zone. The new content is used to get the character ready for the highest end raid.
Using DCUO as an example; that game had Solo and DUO content to Q up. You would use that gear to help you get ready for the dungeon. Than the dungeon gear would help you get ready for the raid. Than you used the raid gear to run the elite raid which had more mechanics, enemies have higher health and you only could die 2x on a boss.
DCUO at one point was doing small, large, small, large, etc... for content release.
What that meant is during the small release there would be only a single raid with central focus on dungeons, duos and solos; when this happened if the devs had time they would make the raid elite. During large content you would get a solo or a duo, a dungeon, two raids and one raids would have an elite version.
DCUO was a true gear chasing game. Everything from weapons, neck, rings, armor, legs, hands, feet, waist, etc.. was replaced with each mod. However, now only were player going after the gear but also after the unique styles that some of the dropped gear had. Some mods the devs would add a golden item to the raid and that piece of gear would become BiS do to it having much higher stats.
Overall I had fun but like NWO it seemed as if the devs purposely made some powers (classes) in that game to strong and in that game you can swap between any of the powers (classes) for $10. Players chasing that damage board did this and over time it annoying being told by others to swap to my support role because I was not using the flavor of the month power. Yet I continued to play as a dps when I pugged and typically I was near the top or the top even above those using the new flavor of the month power.
I quit DCUO to play NWO. It took me a while to really enjoy NWO, after mod 11 I really liked the game and really spent time working on my cleric and mod 16 put a stop that. In fact, I tried to go back to my cleric this week and I simply stopped after 3 days as I hate how that class now plays as a healer, its horrible IMO. I've played healers in other games and love playing support roles in other games but I can't play as a healer in NWO healing in NWO doesn't flow all that well IMO.
Right now it looks like I may just end up quitting playing NWO do to recent decisions by Cryptic and that the game just isn't as engaging as it once was.
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
> @tom#6998 said: > (Quote) > what about all the content that is in the Game besides ToMM?
Well, I do not consider myself a BIS player right now, anyway I can solo a large part of the content (did FBI a few days ago) and I guess almost everything can be duo'd by competent players, but from a reward points of view all this content is not really worth it. Then there is TOMM, which requires a group of ten great players that can devote quite some time to master the trial. Somebody like me, who doesn't like voice channels, and doesn't have all that time available, is left with nothing really worth the time. I mostly play to have fun with guildmates, but that's it. This game need some more rewarding content between mindless grind and TOMM, so that everybody can progress and have fun according to the time and effort he can spend on the game.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Well, I do not consider myself a BIS player right now, anyway I can solo a large part of the content (did FBI a few days ago) and I guess almost everything can be duo'd by competent players, but from a reward points of view all this content is not really worth it. Then there is TOMM, which requires a group of ten great players that can devote quite some time to master the trial. Somebody like me, who doesn't like voice channels, and doesn't have all that time available, is left with nothing really worth the time. I mostly play to have fun with guildmates, but that's it. This game need some more rewarding content between mindless grind and TOMM, so that everybody can progress and have fun according to the time and effort he can spend on the game.
Yup, I remember when profession resources were a thing it was worth running FBI, MSPC and T9 or if you can't run those dungeons yet CN and Demo for the Orcus set gear pieces. There was always something worth doing by playing the game normally in other words running dungeons.
Maybe we get a Tales of Old: Castle Ravenloft in a year or two...
I am not sure Cryptic got the developer resources any more to produce content at a scale that the game really need. I guess we'll see in 4-6 weeks.
I'm completely ok with one dungeon and one campaign area. Undermountain is beautiful but I'd rather have one, relevant area then 4 vacated ones. Sure, if they could copy one of the larger MMOs modules like FF XIV or ESO it would be amazing and draw in a lot more players, but they gotta work with what they got and most updates that included a new dungeon and a campaign area were more then ok for me content and scale-wise especially when they were worth running for more then a month.
The main Prob why many players left is: Your progress is gone and there is no more progress for you. You upgraded and geared up everything over the years? Like gems Weapon Enchantements and so on? All wasted. Fpor example allmy rank 14 brutals are not needed anymore. All the Millions of Millions of AD i spend to upgrade everything on 2 BIS toons - all wasted all not needed anymore. A new guy can jump to the game - get easily to the caps - can easily start buying rank 10 or eleven radiants -- not need to invest in Weapon enchantements or companions or Mounts or upgrade anything else - he easily outperforms Players who played this game for years. Thats just wrong. Sure the game changes and you have to adapt. But all was done is killing endgameplayers so new players can catch up fast and new players are also able to run content.
And the changes to healers and tanks are so bad - no wonder noone runs anymore - especially not the BIS guys from before, The main problem here is: You dont fell a difference if a 26k healer or a 10k healer is in the party (same with tanks). But you feel a difference if there is a 26k DPS in the group or only 10k DPS. So in the past I could run everything on my DC an i was sure I will finisch content because My toon is making the difference to be sure to finish - I earned it I upgradedt it I played the game. (more than 3800 Dungeon runs - most of them random). But NOW - why upgrading my Healer if I end up in a group not able to finish Malabog? I´m a 26k healer and can´t finish Malabog? Tanks and healers give NOTHING to a group they are jus not usefull anymore - every 10k healer gets the job as good done as a 26k healer especially in older content. So you wonder why no random queue pops? Because most of the BIS players (tanks and healers especially) stopped playing. Upgrade my CW would make sense because more damage does make a difference but ranking up new radiants because all my brutals are .... now - just no.
My legendary companions - not needed anymore. My weapon enchantements? Not needed anymore (you can even play without). My hard earned boons for playing the game (all gone - the boons don´t make a difference now). My legendary mounts? Well also not really needed - the difference is only for mountspeed.
And this is how many of the Veteran players feel. On my friendlist I had tons of DC Players and Power share Pallys - but more than 90% of the support classes left the game.
If healers and Tanks don´t give something to a group - support classes die - means no runs means DPS will leave too because no popping queue means no AD means no progress means no fun.
DC´s and Tanks need a big update so people want to run them again - it would help everyone.
The main Prob why many players left is: Your progress is gone and there is no more progress for you. You upgraded and geared up everything over the years? Like gems Weapon Enchantements and so on? All wasted. Fpor example allmy rank 14 brutals are not needed anymore. All the Millions of Millions of AD i spend to upgrade everything on 2 BIS toons - all wasted all not needed anymore. A new guy can jump to the game - get easily to the caps - can easily start buying rank 10 or eleven radiants -- not need to invest in Weapon enchantements or companions or Mounts or upgrade anything else - he easily outperforms Players who played this game for years. Thats just wrong. Sure the game changes and you have to adapt. But all was done is killing endgameplayers so new players can catch up fast and new players are also able to run content.
And the changes to healers and tanks are so bad - no wonder noone runs anymore - especially not the BIS guys from before, The main problem here is: You dont fell a difference if a 26k healer or a 10k healer is in the party (same with tanks). But you feel a difference if there is a 26k DPS in the group or only 10k DPS. So in the past I could run everything on my DC an i was sure I will finisch content because My toon is making the difference to be sure to finish - I earned it I upgradedt it I played the game. (more than 3800 Dungeon runs - most of them random). But NOW - why upgrading my Healer if I end up in a group not able to finish Malabog? I´m a 26k healer and can´t finish Malabog? Tanks and healers give NOTHING to a group they are jus not usefull anymore - every 10k healer gets the job as good done as a 26k healer especially in older content. So you wonder why no random queue pops? Because most of the BIS players (tanks and healers especially) stopped playing. Upgrade my CW would make sense because more damage does make a difference but ranking up new radiants because all my brutals are .... now - just no.
My legendary companions - not needed anymore. My weapon enchantements? Not needed anymore (you can even play without). My hard earned boons for playing the game (all gone - the boons don´t make a difference now). My legendary mounts? Well also not really needed - the difference is only for mountspeed.
And this is how many of the Veteran players feel. On my friendlist I had tons of DC Players and Power share Pallys - but more than 90% of the support classes left the game.
If healers and Tanks don´t give something to a group - support classes die - means no runs means DPS will leave too because no popping queue means no AD means no progress means no fun.
DC´s and Tanks need a big update so people want to run them again - it would help everyone.
The main Prob why many players left is: Your progress is gone and there is no more progress for you. You upgraded and geared up everything over the years? Like gems Weapon Enchantements and so on? All wasted. Fpor example allmy rank 14 brutals are not needed anymore. All the Millions of Millions of AD i spend to upgrade everything on 2 BIS toons - all wasted all not needed anymore. A new guy can jump to the game - get easily to the caps - can easily start buying rank 10 or eleven radiants -- not need to invest in Weapon enchantements or companions or Mounts or upgrade anything else - he easily outperforms Players who played this game for years. Thats just wrong. Sure the game changes and you have to adapt. But all was done is killing endgameplayers so new players can catch up fast and new players are also able to run content.
And the changes to healers and tanks are so bad - no wonder noone runs anymore - especially not the BIS guys from before, The main problem here is: You dont fell a difference if a 26k healer or a 10k healer is in the party (same with tanks). But you feel a difference if there is a 26k DPS in the group or only 10k DPS. So in the past I could run everything on my DC an i was sure I will finisch content because My toon is making the difference to be sure to finish - I earned it I upgradedt it I played the game. (more than 3800 Dungeon runs - most of them random). But NOW - why upgrading my Healer if I end up in a group not able to finish Malabog? I´m a 26k healer and can´t finish Malabog? Tanks and healers give NOTHING to a group they are jus not usefull anymore - every 10k healer gets the job as good done as a 26k healer especially in older content. So you wonder why no random queue pops? Because most of the BIS players (tanks and healers especially) stopped playing. Upgrade my CW would make sense because more damage does make a difference but ranking up new radiants because all my brutals are .... now - just no.
My legendary companions - not needed anymore. My weapon enchantements? Not needed anymore (you can even play without). My hard earned boons for playing the game (all gone - the boons don´t make a difference now). My legendary mounts? Well also not really needed - the difference is only for mountspeed.
And this is how many of the Veteran players feel. On my friendlist I had tons of DC Players and Power share Pallys - but more than 90% of the support classes left the game.
If healers and Tanks don´t give something to a group - support classes die - means no runs means DPS will leave too because no popping queue means no AD means no progress means no fun.
DC´s and Tanks need a big update so people want to run them again - it would help everyone.
As I said anyone might put forth the time, effort and (real world money) expense to improve their character once - maybe twice - but to be expected to do the same over and over, time and again only to see what they worked so hard to earn (or buy) to so quickly become obsolete and nearly worthless, to see the characters that they worked to build up become borderline irrelevant because of repeated changes (reductions) to their characters powers.
I can't blame any player for going inactive with a "wait and see if things improve" attitude. Nor can I blame new players from bailing once the hit the end of the "free to play" wall with no desire to finance the game and keep playing, but is is what it is and any change to reverse these trends will have to come from Neverwinter and Cryptic as I seriously doubt it will be coming from new and veteran players.
We have to use radiants because the only two stats we can actually chase are power and HP. Everything else hits either a hard or soft cap, or was removed outright.
You can't chase defense anymore because they capped it at 50%. You can't chase critical strike anymore because they capped it at 50%. You can't chase any other stat because they hit a soft cap based on opposing rolls. You can't chase lifesteal or recovery because "holy trinity". You can't chase in-combat regen because they let some jerk design mod 6.
They wanted to simplify it for either themselves or for some theoretical, whiteboard "new player" who might be overwhelmed by the old system -- or both. The result is a horribly dumbed-down experience from the perspective of most existing players. Maybe they want the Fortnite crowd -- who the heck knows. This sure doesn't feel like D&D.
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5
dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
> @hustin1 said: > We have to use radiants because the only two stats we can actually chase are power and HP. Everything else hits either a hard or soft cap, or was removed outright. >The result is a horribly dumbed-down experience from the perspective of most existing players
Yes. Only power and HP to chase. And HP are BROKEN on the one role that most needs HP: tank. Empowered runestones don't work in defensive slots... spent millions on mind. No fix... Caveat emptor is the policy, I guess. The caps and tank/healer nerfs have stifled creativity and theorycrafting. You thought the meta was "Cookie cutter" pre-Mod16? How many Cleric healer builds are there? 1 Pally tank? 1 Fighter tank? 0 ... noone wants to play it or have one in a party.
This ain't just cookie cutter. We are Keebler elves now. Nabisco even.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
Comments
Remember when the big Black Friday event was an anticipated milestone, and people saved up AD to convert to Zen months ahead of time? I have zero interest this year. I feel absolutely no motivation to participate in much of anything with this game. M17 was such a let down - the only positive was the new race option - otherwise it was just reused assets from M16 and lots of weird rule changes around leveling and random dungeons.
If it weren't for the guild I'm in, I'd have abandoned regular play after M15 dropped. As it is...there are so few people participating in my guild now it's getting to where I am losing motivation to participate even there.
There are other MMORPG out there adding regular updates with quality content. NW is falling further behind the curve, badly.
I really hope Neverwinter can attract a bunch of new players because it seems to me a good number of veteran players have already given up on Neverwinter, just idling their characters - maybe checking in every now and then for a few minutes - but no longer really "playing" the game.
But then in my opinion from the perspective of a new or newish player, Neverwinter doesn't have a lot going for it by way of keeping a lot of players past level 70 or 80 and certainly doesn't offer much of an incentive to spend real world money to stay beyond those levels...
So yeah, I'm hoping Neverwinter can attract oodles and gobs of new players and some of them will be willing to spend a little money to remain Neverwinter players - but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen. JMHO
House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac
Tons of bugs, not properly tested content, lack of calss balance or even broken mechanics - and what is even worse - all that was given not as one nasty pill but divided into several waves of bugs (and more of those waves are still inbound). Each of those created new demands for players to accomodate, so generated a huge costs for upgrades. With dwindling options to get ADs it was beyond many players reach.
Even those who pay real money noticed that they are simply waisting that money, as situation is changin so rapidly that it is not clear how to invest that money.
So even if there was influx of new players into the game, it didnt covered losses caused with last changes, and due to quality of content for new players (death zone at in lake district:D) I doube many of those actualy stayed in game for long.
Just check steam charts Y2Y - August 2018 - 2750 average players - August 2019 - 1675 average players.
I am aware that steam charts are not covering all users - but that is only data witch we can aquire.
And trends are obvious. There will be NO turn over - there was no turn after MOD 6, and there would not be now.
But IMHO real problem is elswhere - other games try to keep already existing content "in use". In Neverwinter most of content become obsolete almost instantly with a new MOD release- when was a last time you were for example in Lonelywood?
Not to mention older maps - and devs used huge amounts of resources to create those maps and they they dont even try te keep those alive. It looks like it is developed in similar way to D&D pen&paper version. You got new sourcebook - lets try that. But real difference is its way easier to go back to previous version in P&P than in video game. And with paper versions you already got tons of content.
And that is why this game cant keep players for long. I even start to suspect that it is working as intended here.
You new - you jump in - you get lot free stuff witch only looks cool and adequate - then you find out to be undergeared with a way to progress gated behind a lot of time, so it is a point of decision - full time dedication/ VISA artefact use/ or both - OR quit.
Just look at the influx of players with Ravenloft - popular setup - lot of new faces - then population is droping rapidly, rinse repeat. Except that later MODs setups was either - not that popular (AI) or almost not tested, technicly broken like MOD 16 or not bringing any widely accesible content, while still technicly broken (MOD 17).
Please notice that there is a limitation of how popular setup can bolster players ranks. Undermountain is as iconic as it can be for D&D. Halaster is "that" man. Still it didnt menaged to bring more faces to the game. Actually I bet it bringed, but in the same time "way of rework", technicall issues and bugs was a reason to quit for much more players then "cool" setup could bringed as reinfocemnts.
It is more like advertisment platform for D&D latest products, than stand alone game.
Sure with time it growed to respectful size, but only small fraction of content is kept up to date and relevant - so it leads me to that conclusion.
Sure I can be wrong here - but add to that a official devs statemnts as part of a reason (IMO only reason) for a game rework was to change it be as easy as possible to them to run things.
That is why I am not so sure if NWO was ever on a curve you are mentionig here @kemnimtarkas
All what keeps this game afloat is a D&D background - that, and a natural for MMOs feeling of being attached to that game couse of amounts of time and/or real money spent here.
True, but new players are not used to that anymore.
They start, lvl, sometime inbetween ask how to do this fast and are told: lvl to 80 with thisthisthis, go do Undermountain, get Alabaster, do Lomm.
Done.
So, if thats the case then buying those shocking expensive packages is of course an option.
Cause if you say "Oh I did xyz campaigns before even touching that" you are boring their asses off.
And end up explaining what Omu even is cause it's not on the map, but they saw a shadowstalker on a guide...
NW might actually be a better game, if it ceased using a predatory f2p model. Oh, and actively hired devs that actually played their own game (I don't for a moment believe claims by sycophantic reddit mods claiming the opposite). Effectively communicating together would probably also help avoid throwing out the baby with the bath water when claiming to revise class balance to get rid of things *they* don't approve of....only to recreate the same issues, and worse.
At this point I simply can not categorize the dev team as anything but incompetent, which is a shame because they're people too with (presumably) their own hopes, dreams, and human sensibilities. I would like to root for them, but the state of this game is a travesty and an offense to professional quality assurance.
I agree, tho. Many people would just sub this game or whatever, it would simply be enough to make VIP a bit better and people would buy it, but the system won't change, and thats why the game got away with this kind of content and upgrades/nerfs/bugs for so long.
Communication was and is broken for as long as I've been playing this game. This after-M16-"dialogue" didn't really happen, and if anything it helped to see even clearer how far apart we are from the people we pay (or don't pay).
I mean. I would buy alpha compy because its so cute...
let me ask you, you rather play RPG or play numbers? so, what Neverwinter is? RPG? i had one of my character and need 15-20 coal wards to upgrade completely trying to meet stats required, and i am looking at 150-200 dollars to invest, i just refuse that, knowing one of these days devs will nerf and use "scale-back" to weaker versions, making game unfunable to play, just creating more frustrations.
yes, i know about Sybella selling marks if you do the weeklies. they remove those wards from vendors and place in zen market, placing in "captive market" on characters' progression. then it was no longer free to play as i see.
What I have learnt since is this game always changing. I just need to find a new shortcut in every change.
I did not care about lockbox back then. I don't really care about lockbox now.
There was certain element of RPG but not much. It was just better than zero. It was not exactly a RPG in mod 3 neither.
There was RNG back then. What I learned from that is I don't want to deal with RNG.
I also learned C-ward can be free (I don't mean using AD/Zen to buy them) and one day they may nerf that too.
I have not bought any 'needed' items from AH or Zen store for a long time.
way i see, devs are killing this game.
their scaling are still way off the mark, made to feel mod 6 all over again, memories too fresh. they will repeat another Mod 6 again.
* Mod 15 - low-level and very grindy AI campaign. Unpopular with the max level crowd(that seems to be the majority of the players)
* Mod 16 - level 80 cap increase. UM was ok content-wise for levelling 70->80, but it was not really challenging and it quickly ended in a massive ME grindfest. Not much longevity.
* Mod 17 - just more ME grindfest. ToMM is not for most people.
Mod 18 needs to be a massive level 80 content expansion with a reasonable scale of difficulty.
I am not sure Cryptic got the developer resources any more to produce content at a scale that the game really need. I guess we'll see in 4-6 weeks.
Myself and a lot of people I used to play with dropped a bunch of money for gear, enchantments, runestones, etc. only to discover whatever we spent was pretty much a waste of money because the BIS gear, enchantments, runestones - whatever - were no longer BIS or nearly BIS they were in fact at or about the comparatively the same level as the gear we had, before spending money to get better gear. With the only option being either spend even more money and hope whatever we bought didn't too quickly become obsolete or not to spend any more on the game.
“Fool me once shame on you”
We were encouraged to “buy character slots”… We could invoke more characters and get more - ”stuff”, we could run more characters in dungeons and get more Astral Diamonds and we could do professions with more characters and fabricate more items we needed to play and or perhaps we could sell some of the items we fabricated.
Well as it turned out invoking rewards were significantly nerfed and we could no longer get more “stuff” when we invoked, professions were changed and regardless of how many characters we had, we were severely limited on the number of professions operatives (now called artisans and gatherers) we could employ which in turn also limited the products we could produce to sell or use. Finally the AD gathering was also nerfed so instead of being able to run multiple characters for max AD’s with each character per day – now we can only get max AD’s with each account per day and for those of us dumb enough to have purchased 50+ character slots that was a significant in game currency loss.
“Fool me twice shame one me”
I know that financially supporting the game keeps it more viable and current, but considering the results of our previous financial contributions, no one I know from the original group (with the exception of me – conservatively of course) has spent a penny more to financially support Neverwinter and they’ve all made a point of explaining the circumstances they encountered which colored their opinion to every new guildmate, party member and PE chat stranger that wonders about spending money for their character’s improvement or on services like character slots. And I wonder how many new (newish) players will spend real world currency on the game before they arrive at a similar conclusion?
Fool me once shame one you. Fool me twice shame on me - Fool me thrice... not going to happen.
¢¢
I think NW will have problems, they have removed the three unique points of the game, foundry, API and doggy maze. What's left is generic with some things badly missing (homes etc.). And some of the recent changes have been a pita.
Scaling is bad in any game, just a cheap way to reuse assets, which is fine except it's boring for the players (Sybilla is a far better way to reuse assets, that has a lot of potential). The longer fights are not intrinsically bad, but they do not have combos, overlaid powers or some such which means it's amongst the most boring of fighting in MMORPG's. Thankfully *most* fights are still quick enough it's not quite an issue, but it's borderline.
Also, I don't mind dying, or being overwhelmed, but I loath one-shot death mechanics in dungeons, it's cheap and tacky. NW is full of these HAMSTER dungeon mechanics. Use some imagination FFS.
Using DCUO as an example; that game had Solo and DUO content to Q up. You would use that gear to help you get ready for the dungeon. Than the dungeon gear would help you get ready for the raid. Than you used the raid gear to run the elite raid which had more mechanics, enemies have higher health and you only could die 2x on a boss.
DCUO at one point was doing small, large, small, large, etc... for content release.
What that meant is during the small release there would be only a single raid with central focus on dungeons, duos and solos; when this happened if the devs had time they would make the raid elite. During large content you would get a solo or a duo, a dungeon, two raids and one raids would have an elite version.
DCUO was a true gear chasing game. Everything from weapons, neck, rings, armor, legs, hands, feet, waist, etc.. was replaced with each mod. However, now only were player going after the gear but also after the unique styles that some of the dropped gear had. Some mods the devs would add a golden item to the raid and that piece of gear would become BiS do to it having much higher stats.
Overall I had fun but like NWO it seemed as if the devs purposely made some powers (classes) in that game to strong and in that game you can swap between any of the powers (classes) for $10. Players chasing that damage board did this and over time it annoying being told by others to swap to my support role because I was not using the flavor of the month power. Yet I continued to play as a dps when I pugged and typically I was near the top or the top even above those using the new flavor of the month power.
I quit DCUO to play NWO. It took me a while to really enjoy NWO, after mod 11 I really liked the game and really spent time working on my cleric and mod 16 put a stop that. In fact, I tried to go back to my cleric this week and I simply stopped after 3 days as I hate how that class now plays as a healer, its horrible IMO. I've played healers in other games and love playing support roles in other games but I can't play as a healer in NWO healing in NWO doesn't flow all that well IMO.
Right now it looks like I may just end up quitting playing NWO do to recent decisions by Cryptic and that the game just isn't as engaging as it once was.
> (Quote)
> what about all the content that is in the Game besides ToMM?
Well, I do not consider myself a BIS player right now, anyway I can solo a large part of the content (did FBI a few days ago) and I guess almost everything can be duo'd by competent players, but from a reward points of view all this content is not really worth it. Then there is TOMM, which requires a group of ten great players that can devote quite some time to master the trial. Somebody like me, who doesn't like voice channels, and doesn't have all that time available, is left with nothing really worth the time. I mostly play to have fun with guildmates, but that's it. This game need some more rewarding content between mindless grind and TOMM, so that everybody can progress and have fun according to the time and effort he can spend on the game.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Maybe we get a Tales of Old: Castle Ravenloft in a year or two... It will be a giant HAMSTER like usual. I'm completely ok with one dungeon and one campaign area. Undermountain is beautiful but I'd rather have one, relevant area then 4 vacated ones. Sure, if they could copy one of the larger MMOs modules like FF XIV or ESO it would be amazing and draw in a lot more players, but they gotta work with what they got and most updates that included a new dungeon and a campaign area were more then ok for me content and scale-wise especially when they were worth running for more then a month.
You upgraded and geared up everything over the years? Like gems Weapon Enchantements and so on? All wasted.
Fpor example allmy rank 14 brutals are not needed anymore. All the Millions of Millions of AD i spend to upgrade everything on 2 BIS toons - all wasted all not needed anymore.
A new guy can jump to the game - get easily to the caps - can easily start buying rank 10 or eleven radiants -- not need to invest in Weapon enchantements or companions or Mounts or upgrade anything else - he easily outperforms Players who played this game for years. Thats just wrong. Sure the game changes and you have to adapt. But all was done is killing endgameplayers so new players can catch up fast and new players are also able to run content.
And the changes to healers and tanks are so bad - no wonder noone runs anymore - especially not the BIS guys from before,
The main problem here is: You dont fell a difference if a 26k healer or a 10k healer is in the party (same with tanks). But you feel a difference if there is a 26k DPS in the group or only 10k DPS.
So in the past I could run everything on my DC an i was sure I will finisch content because My toon is making the difference to be sure to finish - I earned it I upgradedt it I played the game. (more than 3800 Dungeon runs - most of them random).
But NOW - why upgrading my Healer if I end up in a group not able to finish Malabog? I´m a 26k healer and can´t finish Malabog?
Tanks and healers give NOTHING to a group they are jus not usefull anymore - every 10k healer gets the job as good done as a 26k healer especially in older content.
So you wonder why no random queue pops? Because most of the BIS players (tanks and healers especially) stopped playing.
Upgrade my CW would make sense because more damage does make a difference but ranking up new radiants because all my brutals are .... now - just no.
My legendary companions - not needed anymore. My weapon enchantements? Not needed anymore (you can even play without). My hard earned boons for playing the game (all gone - the boons don´t make a difference now). My legendary mounts? Well also not really needed - the difference is only for mountspeed.
And this is how many of the Veteran players feel. On my friendlist I had tons of DC Players and Power share Pallys - but more than 90% of the support classes left the game.
If healers and Tanks don´t give something to a group - support classes die - means no runs means DPS will leave too because no popping queue means no AD means no progress means no fun.
DC´s and Tanks need a big update so people want to run them again - it would help everyone.
I can't blame any player for going inactive with a "wait and see if things improve" attitude. Nor can I blame new players from bailing once the hit the end of the "free to play" wall with no desire to finance the game and keep playing, but is is what it is and any change to reverse these trends will have to come from Neverwinter and Cryptic as I seriously doubt it will be coming from new and veteran players.
You can't chase defense anymore because they capped it at 50%.
You can't chase critical strike anymore because they capped it at 50%.
You can't chase any other stat because they hit a soft cap based on opposing rolls.
You can't chase lifesteal or recovery because "holy trinity".
You can't chase in-combat regen because they let some jerk design mod 6.
They wanted to simplify it for either themselves or for some theoretical, whiteboard "new player" who might be overwhelmed by the old system -- or both. The result is a horribly dumbed-down experience from the perspective of most existing players. Maybe they want the Fortnite crowd -- who the heck knows. This sure doesn't feel like D&D.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
> We have to use radiants because the only two stats we can actually chase are power and HP. Everything else hits either a hard or soft cap, or was removed outright.
>The result is a horribly dumbed-down experience from the perspective of most existing players
Yes. Only power and HP to chase.
And HP are BROKEN on the one role that most needs HP: tank.
Empowered runestones don't work in defensive slots... spent millions on mind. No fix...
Caveat emptor is the policy, I guess.
The caps and tank/healer nerfs have stifled creativity and theorycrafting.
You thought the meta was "Cookie cutter" pre-Mod16?
How many Cleric healer builds are there? 1
Pally tank? 1
Fighter tank? 0 ... noone wants to play it or have one in a party.
This ain't just cookie cutter.
We are Keebler elves now. Nabisco even.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.