How about fixing the Stronghold for starters, I need not remind you the content earned from SH is now out of date, all you need in SH is to do influence runs and maybe a marauders .... that being said, I would like to state my opinion on the scaling of mobs in the SH ......it is ridiculous, point blank.....all you have done is make it harder for lower il ppl and even at lvl folks to solo the stuff they need to build up their SH.. you have made random mobs the difficulty of tier 2 dungeon mobs and forget about tier 3 heroics in the sh.....ah yet I digress due to the fact that there are tier 3 soloable like giants at the top no sympathy and even bickering beholders so why is it the other tier 3 heroics have been scaled to complete and utter impossibility and the afore mentioned have not???? also why are there tier 1 heroics with not only tier 2 mobs but tier 3 mobs in them as well...again as stated before not all but most. I get it ppl are taking advantage of the system by using more than one toon on their account, or, more than one account to make a guild and forming their own alliances to make it easier for their initial alliance to get lvled up faster, however the changes that have been made are affecting those who have a low lvl guild not in an alliance and not very many ppl in them. In summation the least you can do is fix the SH, the scaling is not necessary in the SH there is no SH content that is relevant to the current status of the game. All that is accomplished by the Sh changes so far is that it has become more time consuming to complete normal influence runs solo.
Make old dungeons useful, now theyare wortless. Create a legacy version of them where youcan earn useful items. Similarly give stronghold vendors useful items. Make events thatcan bedone in party / in stronghold for useful rewards because currently there is no need to play with friends, guild mates except one epic duengon.
@greywynd and @pjohnakos I have "evil" characters in this game. It takes a LOT of creative thinking to develop such a character with the way Cryptic writers clumsily bungles the hero role on your character. With that said, I have my 8 characters divided into 2 custom alignments, venturers and rogues. Venturer class does good deeds for their own needs much like the neutral alignments. They don't mind hero worship or just ignore it from an NPC, they don't go on adventures to save King and country, and they do things because it seems like the right thing to do at the time. My rogues are less heroic and just a shade of grey darker than the venturer. My Rogues; from dark to darkest of intentions. Will Robert Snooks was robbing people to support his image as a rich noble. The Harpers "found" him and blackmailed him to work for them. He still pretends to be a rich noble. Goro Thay is an alias used by a Drow mercenary who kills most of the people they work with and will happily use you as a meat shield. When tasked to retrieve the crown from the Nashers they made multiple copies before returning it, one of those ending up in the hands of Gyrion. Nicholas Magnus trained by a Manshoon clone is from low Netherese ranking. His flimflam and ties to being head of a new black network, with several former members of the Zhentarim, has this odd criminal boss leading the "Order of the Manshoon". He has gone as far to name himself the heir apparent until the Manshoon returns to kill him. Aero Ironcrown was a human long ago before she made her demonic pact with Asmodeus the Lord of Nessus and rightful ruler. She made a deal with Asmodeus ages ago and never waivers from it. Currently Vhex (her demon lover) and Aero pose as "dragon slayers" in Neverwinter. Any other odd tasks given to Aero and Vhex are twisted into their dark desires. They turned many fallen Templars in Chult to loyal subjects of Asmodeus, the few they could not turn died and were replaced with doppelgangers.
More races, this game is based on D&D yet the races choice is so poor.
If you go by "Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3rd edition" published in 2001 by WoC, authors; Ed Greenwood, Sean K. Reynolds, Skip Williams, and Rob Heinsoo, the demographics for this game's races are off the hook!
Humans are the most common race, at over 80% Faerun's total sentient population is about 66 million, halflings are most common demihuman with 3.5 million, followed closely by Dwarves. Elves and Orcs are rare outside of their known habitats. Gnomes are lower yet. Thesk is the only nation with more than 5% Gnomes. The most populated nations are Mulhorand (5.4 M), Calimhsan (5.3 M), Thay (4.9 M), Unther (4.2 M) and Tethyr (3.8 M). The Vilhon Reach is the cradle of human civilization, has a total population between (5.5 M to 10 M). Thay is home to over half of Faerun's Orcs, nearly three quarters of its Goblins and 80% of its Gnolls. Thay's population (4.9 M), 88% Human, 4% Halfling, 2% Dwarves, 1% Orcs, 1% Gnolls, 1% Goblins, 1% Lizardfolk. All the proportions given in the book add up to 99% for a 1% variable of unknown.
I understand everyone wants to pick the non human races and that's cool. I have 8 characters and play 4 Humans (50%), 1 Elf, 1 Half Elf, 1 Tiefling, and 1 Drow. Even my personal demographics are out of kilter. I know you mean you want more choice. However if they really based this on the working world of Toril's Faerun, you would get even less choice. Only 19 to 20% of the game would be able to pick something outside of the human race. That would absolutely suck.
I've always felt that a game that uses scaling essentially is advertising that their game is broken. Scaling should never be in a game period. But I also think many players over the years have come to accept that scaling in games is acceptable because so many games have resorted to using it. But fundamentally it means the game system is broken and it uses a convoluted method to attempt to balance it out.
I'm not a fan of arbitrary hard caps or forced ceiling stats where if you are a player who is clever enough to experiment with equipment and manage to get exceptional results for it, you are now nullified because of a cap ceiling that artificially negates all your effort to squeeze out some special amount of "power".
I honestly think players enjoy games more when they can discover ways in which to mix and match their gear to get an edge over the competition or their fellow players who play the same class.
When games resort to making scaling they are essentially trying to force strong characters into becoming weaker to fulfill some sort of reward per minute threshold. If a player can obtain rewards faster than this threshold they need to be limited in some way.
My proof that cryptic has this mentality is Malabogs Castle. Its absurd how many gates are now in effect in that dungeon. There is a section where you run 10 feet, run into a gate, wait for the party and 5 second count down, to enter into an area that has NOTHING but a run to the next gate, to wait for your party and another 5 second count down to then run another short distance for another gate and not exaggerating, another gate a short distance a way.
The reason they put these gates in, was to arbitrarily increase the time by which this dungeon can be ran. So that it meets the time frame of the other dungeons so it meets the threshold of X number of minutes per reward, and in this case the reward is often rough AD. So its x minutes per rough ad. This means the game is broken when development resorts to these systems.
That dungeon is just plain silly now and goes completely against the spirit of DnD.
And when I say it goes against the spirit of DnD, that second to last gate in malabogs when we could jump through the openings of the gate was awesome, simply awesome from the perspective of this large place of Giants where they have large gates that would stop giants but these tiny adventurers can fit between the bars. This is the spirit of DnD that cryptic keeps removing from the game.
Another example was from Lair of Mage Mage where players would gather under the pillar to avoid the falling stones. This IS the spirit of DnD where players find a clever solution to a problem. But NO cryptic has to remove this and force players to play in a very specific way, the way in which they demand.
The game really needs multiple ways to obtain the same goal. It needs to remove all these nonsensical gates like the dungeons were in the early days when we could jump over walls and find short cuts. That is the spirit of DnD not stopping every ten feet to wait at a gate for 5 seconds and then repeat that.
There are of course many other examples of this where the creative problem solving is just removed from the game and we are left with ONE way to solve a problem and its their way to solve the problem.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
You may not see it as such, but scaling was asked for. Every time a new player came to the forums and complained that people were speed-running through the leveling dungeons and leaving them hanging behind with whatever hadn't been killed. So, now, everyone more or less has the same movement.
Endgamers are scaled down so as to not be the sole damage dealer in those dungeons.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
You may not see it as such, but scaling was asked for. Every time a new player came to the forums and complained that people were speed-running through the leveling dungeons and leaving them hanging behind with whatever hadn't been killed. So, now, everyone more or less has the same movement.
Endgamers are scaled down so as to not be the sole damage dealer in those dungeons.
And it didn't work , they still run ahead and leave a storm behind.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
But not as fast.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
I know how to scale the game, but no one ever like my opinions and ideas. So here is how I would scale these PUGs....
Everyone in the dungeon arrives with the same amount of health and stats. I know this makes everyone very generic and doesn't allow anyone to shine, but it is scaling. The game adds up the 5 players stats and divides by 5 to get the average. For example; Player 1 Health 180,000 Player 2 Health 122,000 Player 3 Health 8,000 Player 4 Health 90,000 Player 5 Health 10,000 =================== Total = 410,000 Divide by 5 = 82,000 Health
After all the stats are scaled this way the mobs get scaled to match accordingly. If they are weak mobs their health should be 50% of the party average, 75% for medium, and so on. End boss would also be scaled to the party average. This would mean running Tiamat or the Cloak Tower would be the same difficulty for everyone no matter what your item level, companion, or having best in slot. They could open all dungeons for all users regardless of item level. Five level 20 characters could walk into Strahd's castle and take him on, the same as five level 80 characters could.
My issue with the dungeons is not scaling, they are just boring and lifeless. People who queue up dungeons daily are just doing it for the fast grab AD. If Cryptic dropped the AD, no one would run these dungeons for fun or out of nostalgia. When I first heard the term "Random Dungeons" I thought, Wow! They are going to randomize the layout of the dungeons! Can you even imagine my level of disappointment? As most of you know by now, I only run dungeons and skirmishes I choose and those don't pay me AD.
Cryptic's idea of a better challenge is having a brute hit you over the head with a bigger hammer and adding a knock down effect. My idea of a bigger challenge is running a dungeon with so much content, detail, and surprises I want to return and do it again.
1) get rid of PvP...they have too small of a coding team now to deal with that+bug fixes+new content....not every game needs to be a PvP game!
2) fix at least the most annoying bugs!
3) stop using the community to be live beta testers
4) stop being greedy...no reason the BF sales weren't 40% other than greed! A game should get cheaper to play over the years...not more expensive!
5) change the scaling to be more newbie friendly rather than base it off the final endgame caps (60k caps not 80k).
6) make the endgame content harder WITHOUT making everything else harder too! There's no need to punish newbies to the point where they can't compete.
7) (edit) mark a player who hasn't completed the dungeon you're in as new with a red * or something....so we can explain the mechanics to them (or hope they speak the same language at least).
@originalsin- dexterity has nothing to do with movement in any version of d&d. It is for agility, reflexes, and balance (better reflex saves), could affect AC and affects and range attack rolls so should be a stat for rangers!!! Not for all classes. At the moment all classes focus DEXTERITY just for the MOVEMENT SPEED! They should give movement speed buff NOT in a STAT. And dexterity it isnt usefull to everyone as you say. I was playing more the D&D 3,5 and a bit of D&D 4 and Neverwinter is based in D&D 4.
https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Dexterity Dexterity and Intelligence are redundant with each other for the purpose of defense bonuses. For this reason, Dexterity may be less useful for characters who need Intelligence for attack rolls, class features, or skill checks.
The game takes from 5th edition now, phasing out 4th.
Dexterity may not be used for movement but it is used for initiative which is similar to the effects of movement speed since it’s a turn based game. Initiative determines who acts first in a fight, getting to the enemies first generally mean that you hit them first. The alternatives would be to speed up/slow down animations based on your dexterity. Almost every class wants to go early in the round. If you go before the enemy, you can disable them before they can act, if you go after, you might be disabled and lose your turn. Dexterity might be less useful than your main stat but it is still very important.
Intelligence does not impact your Defense at all (except for int saves but that rarely comes up). Most wizard spells that boost defense don’t actually use your modifiers.
Movement speed is not the problem, crit severity is. Dex is the only one that gives noticeable boosts to 2 relavent areas for everyone.
You may not see it as such, but scaling was asked for. Every time a new player came to the forums and complained that people were speed-running through the leveling dungeons and leaving them hanging behind with whatever hadn't been killed. So, now, everyone more or less has the same movement.
Endgamers are scaled down so as to not be the sole damage dealer in those dungeons.
And that kind of great thinking is what has greatly contributed to a decline in the player population. Because long term players want to continue to ride the struggle bus, by being scaled? Makes sense, lol.
There was other, more effective ways to handle the tinder timmy’s that complained about the disparity between them, and a long term BiS one. Scaling was not the fix.
I know how to scale the game, but no one ever like my opinions and ideas. So here is how I would scale these PUGs....
Everyone in the dungeon arrives with the same amount of health and stats. I know this makes everyone very generic and doesn't allow anyone to shine, but it is scaling. The game adds up the 5 players stats and divides by 5 to get the average. For example; Player 1 Health 180,000 Player 2 Health 122,000 Player 3 Health 8,000 Player 4 Health 90,000 Player 5 Health 10,000 =================== Total = 410,000 Divide by 5 = 82,000 Health
After all the stats are scaled this way the mobs get scaled to match accordingly. If they are weak mobs their health should be 50% of the party average, 75% for medium, and so on. End boss would also be scaled to the party average. This would mean running Tiamat or the Cloak Tower would be the same difficulty for everyone no matter what your item level, companion, or having best in slot. They could open all dungeons for all users regardless of item level. Five level 20 characters could walk into Strahd's castle and take him on, the same as five level 80 characters could.
My issue with the dungeons is not scaling, they are just boring and lifeless. People who queue up dungeons daily are just doing it for the fast grab AD. If Cryptic dropped the AD, no one would run these dungeons for fun or out of nostalgia. When I first heard the term "Random Dungeons" I thought, Wow! They are going to randomize the layout of the dungeons! Can you even imagine my level of disappointment? As most of you know by now, I only run dungeons and skirmishes I choose and those don't pay me AD.
Cryptic's idea of a better challenge is having a brute hit you over the head with a bigger hammer and adding a knock down effect. My idea of a bigger challenge is running a dungeon with so much content, detail, and surprises I want to return and do it again.
I don't think you really thought this out. Whats the point in getting any gear at all if you are pinned against the party?
So 5 HAMSTER geared players comes out to an even lower average right? instead of 82k health they have 41k health. What then? Make the monsters based on that scale?
Basically what you are doing is attempting to turn NW into a FPS rendering all the gear chasing pointless because you don't get any stronger and if you do get stronger you are punished for doing so.
Oh look! I got a new piece of gear that gives me more health, too bad it all gets nullified anyways. Yay!
https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Dexterity Dexterity and Intelligence are redundant with each other for the purpose of defense bonuses. For this reason, Dexterity may be less useful for characters who need Intelligence for attack rolls, class features, or skill checks.
By the way, that wiki quote doesn’t seem to source where the information comes from.
I know how to scale the game, but no one ever like my opinions and ideas. So here is how I would scale these PUGs....
Everyone in the dungeon arrives with the same amount of health and stats. I know this makes everyone very generic and doesn't allow anyone to shine, but it is scaling. The game adds up the 5 players stats and divides by 5 to get the average. For example; Player 1 Health 180,000 Player 2 Health 122,000 Player 3 Health 8,000 Player 4 Health 90,000 Player 5 Health 10,000 =================== Total = 410,000 Divide by 5 = 82,000 Health
After all the stats are scaled this way the mobs get scaled to match accordingly. If they are weak mobs their health should be 50% of the party average, 75% for medium, and so on. End boss would also be scaled to the party average. This would mean running Tiamat or the Cloak Tower would be the same difficulty for everyone no matter what your item level, companion, or having best in slot. They could open all dungeons for all users regardless of item level. Five level 20 characters could walk into Strahd's castle and take him on, the same as five level 80 characters could.
My issue with the dungeons is not scaling, they are just boring and lifeless. People who queue up dungeons daily are just doing it for the fast grab AD. If Cryptic dropped the AD, no one would run these dungeons for fun or out of nostalgia. When I first heard the term "Random Dungeons" I thought, Wow! They are going to randomize the layout of the dungeons! Can you even imagine my level of disappointment? As most of you know by now, I only run dungeons and skirmishes I choose and those don't pay me AD.
Cryptic's idea of a better challenge is having a brute hit you over the head with a bigger hammer and adding a knock down effect. My idea of a bigger challenge is running a dungeon with so much content, detail, and surprises I want to return and do it again.
I don't think you really thought this out. Whats the point in getting any gear at all if you are pinned against the party?
So 5 HAMSTER geared players comes out to an even lower average right? instead of 82k health they have 41k health. What then? Make the monsters based on that scale?
Basically what you are doing is attempting to turn NW into a FPS rendering all the gear chasing pointless because you don't get any stronger and if you do get stronger you are punished for doing so.
Oh look! I got a new piece of gear that gives me more health, too bad it all gets nullified anyways. Yay!
I never understand why people need to dig down into vulgarity to attempt make their point. I am not talking about getting rewards here but the basic reason players seem to grind these stale dungeons is some very pathetic rewards. If you don't have fun playing --what I find rewarding-- then what is the point? As I said, "My issue with the dungeons is not scaling, they are just boring and lifeless." also I really don't care what Cryptic does at this point, it is their game.
If it was my game, you would get a lot better rewards, and it wouldn't be some first person shooter CoD wannabe. As for gear, nothing should be made completely useless. Go ahead grind you dungeons for 100K per day all you like. At the end of the day you have made $1.34 worth in Zen. Was it fun? You could just have drop some real cash on the Zen store and kept the people employed and servers up and running.
I know how to scale the game, but no one ever like my opinions and ideas. So here is how I would scale these PUGs....
Everyone in the dungeon arrives with the same amount of health and stats. I know this makes everyone very generic and doesn't allow anyone to shine, but it is scaling. The game adds up the 5 players stats and divides by 5 to get the average. For example; Player 1 Health 180,000 Player 2 Health 122,000 Player 3 Health 8,000 Player 4 Health 90,000 Player 5 Health 10,000 =================== Total = 410,000 Divide by 5 = 82,000 Health
After all the stats are scaled this way the mobs get scaled to match accordingly. If they are weak mobs their health should be 50% of the party average, 75% for medium, and so on. End boss would also be scaled to the party average. This would mean running Tiamat or the Cloak Tower would be the same difficulty for everyone no matter what your item level, companion, or having best in slot. They could open all dungeons for all users regardless of item level. Five level 20 characters could walk into Strahd's castle and take him on, the same as five level 80 characters could.
My issue with the dungeons is not scaling, they are just boring and lifeless. People who queue up dungeons daily are just doing it for the fast grab AD. If Cryptic dropped the AD, no one would run these dungeons for fun or out of nostalgia. When I first heard the term "Random Dungeons" I thought, Wow! They are going to randomize the layout of the dungeons! Can you even imagine my level of disappointment? As most of you know by now, I only run dungeons and skirmishes I choose and those don't pay me AD.
Cryptic's idea of a better challenge is having a brute hit you over the head with a bigger hammer and adding a knock down effect. My idea of a bigger challenge is running a dungeon with so much content, detail, and surprises I want to return and do it again.
I don't think you really thought this out. Whats the point in getting any gear at all if you are pinned against the party?
So 5 HAMSTER geared players comes out to an even lower average right? instead of 82k health they have 41k health. What then? Make the monsters based on that scale?
Basically what you are doing is attempting to turn NW into a FPS rendering all the gear chasing pointless because you don't get any stronger and if you do get stronger you are punished for doing so.
Oh look! I got a new piece of gear that gives me more health, too bad it all gets nullified anyways. Yay!
I never understand why people need to dig down into vulgarity to attempt make their point. I am not talking about getting rewards here but the basic reason players seem to grind these stale dungeons is some very pathetic rewards. If you don't have fun playing --what I find rewarding-- then what is the point? As I said, "My issue with the dungeons is not scaling, they are just boring and lifeless." also I really don't care what Cryptic does at this point, it is their game.
If it was my game, you would get a lot better rewards, and it wouldn't be some first person shooter CoD wannabe. As for gear, nothing should be made completely useless. Go ahead grind you dungeons for 100K per day all you like. At the end of the day you have made $1.34 worth in Zen. Was it fun? You could just have drop some real cash on the Zen store and kept the people employed and servers up and running.
I do agree with you that the dungeons could be different, but we start getting into the potential hypotheticals here. I've said for a long time not to put static spawn spots for monsters in dungeons, why always put them in the exact same spots, can't there be some fluidity to where things are placed? Also does it always need to be the same 5 monsters around the next corner and its always the same mob structure? Why not toss in some random monster lists, the dungeon has a list of available monsters and when you load in those nodes get populated with random numbers of random monsters off that list. That way when we get to a certain area in the dungeon it might be harder or easier based on those elements. In fact doubling up with not knowing where the monsters will even appear in the dungeon, maybe one run this corridor had nothing but next time its full of mobs. Just little things like that would breath a little bit of life into these stale repeated dungeons. So I agree with you there.
The original point I was making is arbitrary capping of the characters in a dungeon. You have to keep in mind what progression is and even cryptic has forgot what progression means to players. You can't take a huge $h!t on progression and think players are going to enjoy getting any reward, no matter how good it is. Rainer has made a spreadsheet based on what gear you should use when going into each campaign zone which means you should run crappier gear to get an advantage in certain areas because if you continue to use your end game gear in certain areas or certain older dungeons, you are actually performing worse.
To cast some positive light on this forum I will tell you what kind of module I would make, if I were King...
At the beginning of the module, I would have Sergeant Knox ask you to go out on patrol with him. "Hello Adventurer! It has been quite some time since we last shared a drink together. I am on duty and was wondering if you would care to go out on patrol with me? I don't expect it to be anything as exciting as your adventures in the Undermountain or journey to Chult. It is just some basic peacekeeping tasks in Blacklake, Tower District, and then we can drop in at the Broken Crown Inn for that drink." The introduction would have you travel to Blacklake (day time) map where much reconstruction and restoration has been done. As Knox explains the Nashers are no longer a threat with the defeat of Gyrion. Of course there are small cells of Nashers still around but we took over their main barracks and converted to our guard post. We no longer depend on mercenary soldiers as I have trained many since your absence. Knox does a few dialog quests in the area settling disputes between the commoners. Next you move on the Tower District and find the Many Arrow Orcs have been cleared out and the only problem is bar fights at the Fallen Tower Tavern. Which you fist fight (new feature) to break up a dispute between customers. Upon reaching Black Dagger's Broken Crown Inn a cut scene would have Knox drinking with you and saying how Lord Neverember's plans seem to be working and peace is possible for the future. But it is interrupted by Neverwinter guards telling Knox there is a disturbance in Blacklake. You journey back to find new level 80 enemies invading Blacklake.
The identity of the new enemies is not important, the point is they are not the Nashers. Things have changed, in this module you go out on patrols both weekly and daily to ensure the peace of the old maps. The maps are no longer inhabited by weak mobs. Clicking the travel map icon for Blacklake would prompt level 80's with the campaign active, if they were traveling to Blacklake of the past or the current time. This would be done to prevent clutter.
So, no more low level enemies on leveling maps? That doesn't work. Either you need 2 copies of each map, or you are mixing leveling mobs (and players) with end-game mobs (and players.) The alternative, of course, is scaling...
To cast some positive light on this forum I will tell you what kind of module I would make, if I were King...
At the beginning of the module, I would have Sergeant Knox ask you to go out on patrol with him. "Hello Adventurer! It has been quite some time since we last shared a drink together. I am on duty and was wondering if you would care to go out on patrol with me? I don't expect it to be anything as exciting as your adventures in the Undermountain or journey to Chult. It is just some basic peacekeeping tasks in Blacklake, Tower District, and then we can drop in at the Broken Crown Inn for that drink." The introduction would have you travel to Blacklake (day time) map where much reconstruction and restoration has been done. As Knox explains the Nashers are no longer a threat with the defeat of Gyrion. Of course there are small cells of Nashers still around but we took over their main barracks and converted to our guard post. We no longer depend on mercenary soldiers as I have trained many since your absence. Knox does a few dialog quests in the area settling disputes between the commoners. Next you move on the Tower District and find the Many Arrow Orcs have been cleared out and the only problem is bar fights at the Fallen Tower Tavern. Which you fist fight (new feature) to break up a dispute between customers. Upon reaching Black Dagger's Broken Crown Inn a cut scene would have Knox drinking with you and saying how Lord Neverember's plans seem to be working and peace is possible for the future. But it is interrupted by Neverwinter guards telling Knox there is a disturbance in Blacklake. You journey back to find new level 80 enemies invading Blacklake.
The identity of the new enemies is not important, the point is they are not the Nashers. Things have changed, in this module you go out on patrols both weekly and daily to ensure the peace of the old maps. The maps are no longer inhabited by weak mobs. Clicking the travel map icon for Blacklake would prompt level 80's with the campaign active, if they were traveling to Blacklake of the past or the current time. This would be done to prevent clutter.
So, no more low level enemies on leveling maps? That doesn't work. Either you need 2 copies of each map, or you are mixing leveling mobs (and players) with end-game mobs (and players.) The alternative, of course, is scaling...
Unless I am misreading this he said, "Clicking the travel map icon for Blacklake would prompt level 80's with the campaign active, if they were traveling to Blacklake of the past or the current time." which means it would be optional to go back to old maps and he also said the maps would be different, "Blacklake (day time) map where much reconstruction and restoration has been done", I think you skimmed over that part? From what I am reading, it is 2 separate maps with improvements and you only get the high end map if you have the campaign quest.
I know how to scale the game, but no one ever like my opinions and ideas. So here is how I would scale these PUGs....
Everyone in the dungeon arrives with the same amount of health and stats. I know this makes everyone very generic and doesn't allow anyone to shine, but it is scaling. The game adds up the 5 players stats and divides by 5 to get the average. For example; Player 1 Health 180,000 Player 2 Health 122,000 Player 3 Health 8,000 Player 4 Health 90,000 Player 5 Health 10,000 =================== Total = 410,000 Divide by 5 = 82,000 Health
After all the stats are scaled this way the mobs get scaled to match accordingly. If they are weak mobs their health should be 50% of the party average, 75% for medium, and so on. End boss would also be scaled to the party average. This would mean running Tiamat or the Cloak Tower would be the same difficulty for everyone no matter what your item level, companion, or having best in slot. They could open all dungeons for all users regardless of item level. Five level 20 characters could walk into Strahd's castle and take him on, the same as five level 80 characters could.
My issue with the dungeons is not scaling, they are just boring and lifeless. People who queue up dungeons daily are just doing it for the fast grab AD. If Cryptic dropped the AD, no one would run these dungeons for fun or out of nostalgia. When I first heard the term "Random Dungeons" I thought, Wow! They are going to randomize the layout of the dungeons! Can you even imagine my level of disappointment? As most of you know by now, I only run dungeons and skirmishes I choose and those don't pay me AD.
Cryptic's idea of a better challenge is having a brute hit you over the head with a bigger hammer and adding a knock down effect. My idea of a bigger challenge is running a dungeon with so much content, detail, and surprises I want to return and do it again.
I don't think you really thought this out. Whats the point in getting any gear at all if you are pinned against the party?
So 5 HAMSTER geared players comes out to an even lower average right? instead of 82k health they have 41k health. What then? Make the monsters based on that scale?
Basically what you are doing is attempting to turn NW into a FPS rendering all the gear chasing pointless because you don't get any stronger and if you do get stronger you are punished for doing so.
Oh look! I got a new piece of gear that gives me more health, too bad it all gets nullified anyways. Yay!
I never understand why people need to dig down into vulgarity to attempt make their point. I am not talking about getting rewards here but the basic reason players seem to grind these stale dungeons is some very pathetic rewards. If you don't have fun playing --what I find rewarding-- then what is the point? As I said, "My issue with the dungeons is not scaling, they are just boring and lifeless." also I really don't care what Cryptic does at this point, it is their game.
If it was my game, you would get a lot better rewards, and it wouldn't be some first person shooter CoD wannabe. As for gear, nothing should be made completely useless. Go ahead grind you dungeons for 100K per day all you like. At the end of the day you have made $1.34 worth in Zen. Was it fun? You could just have drop some real cash on the Zen store and kept the people employed and servers up and running.
I do agree with you that the dungeons could be different, but we start getting into the potential hypotheticals here. I've said for a long time not to put static spawn spots for monsters in dungeons, why always put them in the exact same spots, can't there be some fluidity to where things are placed? Also does it always need to be the same 5 monsters around the next corner and its always the same mob structure? Why not toss in some random monster lists, the dungeon has a list of available monsters and when you load in those nodes get populated with random numbers of random monsters off that list. That way when we get to a certain area in the dungeon it might be harder or easier based on those elements. In fact doubling up with not knowing where the monsters will even appear in the dungeon, maybe one run this corridor had nothing but next time its full of mobs. Just little things like that would breath a little bit of life into these stale repeated dungeons. So I agree with you there.
The original point I was making is arbitrary capping of the characters in a dungeon. You have to keep in mind what progression is and even cryptic has forgot what progression means to players. You can't take a huge $h!t on progression and think players are going to enjoy getting any reward, no matter how good it is. Rainer has made a spreadsheet based on what gear you should use when going into each campaign zone which means you should run crappier gear to get an advantage in certain areas because if you continue to use your end game gear in certain areas or certain older dungeons, you are actually performing worse.
Yes, random spawns, collapsing passages, and shifting walls would go very far in making the dungeons a bit more tolerable. I think by now, you must have heard me voice my opinion, that the Foundry was much more entertaining than running these same dungeons. A major problem with the Foundry was the lack of control needed to create better dungeons than what we did before it was removed. Maybe this is why Cryptic rejects the idea of a randomized dungeon.
Progression still works, if they only use this method for scaling the dungeons. Think about it like this; You are this big beefy tank and you want to get through that tough dungeon. This handicap method gives you a good reason to invite the low rank player into your party. Instead of seeing people standing in PE shouting for level 80's with BiS to join a party, it would be better to have the average Joe join the team. As for rewards those really need to be better.
I forget who suggested this; but gear (especially old gear) needs to be recycled through professions. Collect x amount of blue trash armor and put it with a few odds and ends and out pops new gear of the current item level. Gear and weapons would still be needed for the progression in campaigns and content. As long as they plan to bribe these greedy little monkey to grind those dungeons, they need something to adjust the players and monsters to function on the same fighting level. At this point, they can't afford to take rAD rewards from the dungeons, but I don't get my rAD from these dungeons.
I have been playing campaigns and trading currency for rAD. I find it more rewarding and I don't have to run the same dungeons over and over. Ravenloft is double currency starts on Thursday, I plan to hit Barovian weeklies on this Thursday. One character can get the following;
The weeklies give 100 coins 25 omens, they are Lighting Fires, Dark Heroics, Company of Wolves, Bonegrinder, Shadow of Strahd, and the Daily Vigil grants you 150 more coins. This comes to a total of 650 coins and 125 Omens, the campaign store exchanges 100 coins + 2 omens for 1000 rAD. This leaves you 113 omens and 50 coins after you collect 6000 rAD. The store also gives you 100 coins for 20 omens, that is another 5K for a total of 11,000 rAD. If you have bAD, then you add +50% for 16,500. And this is just the weekly tasks that any character can hammer out in a couple of hours at most. The daily repeatables pay out 20 coins and 5 omens.
Ever since they removed salvage, the rAD in the campaign stores is about most "fun" method to earn rAD. You won't get very rich but you can have fun doing it. Average Dragon Runs in Well of the Dragons will fetch you 100 coins 1000 rAD from the store, but the better reward is the dragon coffers. If you don't need them to finish the campaign, they sell very well in the AH.
Oh my, another wall of text. Sorry about that, I get to thinking and just cannot stop.
@originalsin - at the moment they have made dexterity with movement speed to be the secondary stat you have to take so that you can move. Cause other way you will fall behind in every dungeon. Thats not the right way to do it. Cryptic decreased even more the customization of characters. Before mod16 there were wizards that used dexterity in pvp for the deflect. There were wizards in pve with int/char and there were wizards with wisdom/char. Nowadays even if you need another stat, other than dexterity. Some classes benefit more froth dexterity stat, still Cryptic force us to play dexterity in every class. You cant play another stat, because you will fall behind in dungeons. You cant move without dexterity, its like everyone is wearing a plate armor without dexterity. Tank, dps, heal, they want to put everyone in the same, no customization.
Movement shouldnt be affected from one stat. You cant change my mind on that. I dont feel its right.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
So, no more low level enemies on leveling maps? That doesn't work. Either you need 2 copies of each map, or you are mixing leveling mobs (and players) with end-game mobs (and players.) The alternative, of course, is scaling...
The third option is to lock out the end-gamers from the leveling queue.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
So, no more low level enemies on leveling maps? That doesn't work. Either you need 2 copies of each map, or you are mixing leveling mobs (and players) with end-game mobs (and players.) The alternative, of course, is scaling...
The third option is to lock out the end-gamers from the leveling queue.
Third option would never work since there is not enough fresh blood in the game for the leveling dungeons to proc. New players would never be able to run them. But i assume you said that in jest
I think by now, you must have heard me voice my opinion, that the Foundry was much more entertaining than running these same dungeons. A major problem with the Foundry was the lack of control needed to create better dungeons than what we did before it was removed. Maybe this is why Cryptic rejects the idea of a randomized dungeon.
I agree and I even said Cryptic missed a great opportunity here. They could have held contests using the foundry where players select the best foundry dungeon within a time frame and that dungeon gets voiced dialog and becomes a dungeon queue in the game. We could technically have hundreds of dungeons to run by now if they had taken advantage of a tool like that.
Foundry woulda been free labor. All they would have needed to do was update it and add in a few things to make them less stale. But 100% missed opportunity there and they removed it.
This is why I say, cryptic are not game developers, they have gotten lucky that a game hasn't met some of the aspects that NW has as its strengths yet. As soon as there is a competing game that comes along with similar features that are NW strengths players will jump ship. They have gotten extremely lucky up to this point.
Comments
Similarly give stronghold vendors useful items.
Make events thatcan bedone in party / in stronghold for useful rewards because currently there is no need to play with friends, guild mates except one epic duengon.
My Rogues; from dark to darkest of intentions.
Will Robert Snooks was robbing people to support his image as a rich noble. The Harpers "found" him and blackmailed him to work for them. He still pretends to be a rich noble.
Goro Thay is an alias used by a Drow mercenary who kills most of the people they work with and will happily use you as a meat shield. When tasked to retrieve the crown from the Nashers they made multiple copies before returning it, one of those ending up in the hands of Gyrion.
Nicholas Magnus trained by a Manshoon clone is from low Netherese ranking. His flimflam and ties to being head of a new black network, with several former members of the Zhentarim, has this odd criminal boss leading the "Order of the Manshoon". He has gone as far to name himself the heir apparent until the Manshoon returns to kill him.
Aero Ironcrown was a human long ago before she made her demonic pact with Asmodeus the Lord of Nessus and rightful ruler. She made a deal with Asmodeus ages ago and never waivers from it. Currently Vhex (her demon lover) and Aero pose as "dragon slayers" in Neverwinter. Any other odd tasks given to Aero and Vhex are twisted into their dark desires. They turned many fallen Templars in Chult to loyal subjects of Asmodeus, the few they could not turn died and were replaced with doppelgangers.
Humans are the most common race, at over 80%
Faerun's total sentient population is about 66 million, halflings are most common demihuman with 3.5 million, followed closely by Dwarves. Elves and Orcs are rare outside of their known habitats. Gnomes are lower yet. Thesk is the only nation with more than 5% Gnomes.
The most populated nations are Mulhorand (5.4 M), Calimhsan (5.3 M), Thay (4.9 M), Unther (4.2 M) and Tethyr (3.8 M).
The Vilhon Reach is the cradle of human civilization, has a total population between (5.5 M to 10 M).
Thay is home to over half of Faerun's Orcs, nearly three quarters of its Goblins and 80% of its Gnolls. Thay's population (4.9 M), 88% Human, 4% Halfling, 2% Dwarves, 1% Orcs, 1% Gnolls, 1% Goblins, 1% Lizardfolk.
All the proportions given in the book add up to 99% for a 1% variable of unknown.
I understand everyone wants to pick the non human races and that's cool. I have 8 characters and play 4 Humans (50%), 1 Elf, 1 Half Elf, 1 Tiefling, and 1 Drow. Even my personal demographics are out of kilter. I know you mean you want more choice. However if they really based this on the working world of Toril's Faerun, you would get even less choice. Only 19 to 20% of the game would be able to pick something outside of the human race. That would absolutely suck.
I'm not a fan of arbitrary hard caps or forced ceiling stats where if you are a player who is clever enough to experiment with equipment and manage to get exceptional results for it, you are now nullified because of a cap ceiling that artificially negates all your effort to squeeze out some special amount of "power".
I honestly think players enjoy games more when they can discover ways in which to mix and match their gear to get an edge over the competition or their fellow players who play the same class.
When games resort to making scaling they are essentially trying to force strong characters into becoming weaker to fulfill some sort of reward per minute threshold. If a player can obtain rewards faster than this threshold they need to be limited in some way.
My proof that cryptic has this mentality is Malabogs Castle. Its absurd how many gates are now in effect in that dungeon. There is a section where you run 10 feet, run into a gate, wait for the party and 5 second count down, to enter into an area that has NOTHING but a run to the next gate, to wait for your party and another 5 second count down to then run another short distance for another gate and not exaggerating, another gate a short distance a way.
The reason they put these gates in, was to arbitrarily increase the time by which this dungeon can be ran. So that it meets the time frame of the other dungeons so it meets the threshold of X number of minutes per reward, and in this case the reward is often rough AD. So its x minutes per rough ad. This means the game is broken when development resorts to these systems.
That dungeon is just plain silly now and goes completely against the spirit of DnD.
And when I say it goes against the spirit of DnD, that second to last gate in malabogs when we could jump through the openings of the gate was awesome, simply awesome from the perspective of this large place of Giants where they have large gates that would stop giants but these tiny adventurers can fit between the bars. This is the spirit of DnD that cryptic keeps removing from the game.
Another example was from Lair of Mage Mage where players would gather under the pillar to avoid the falling stones. This IS the spirit of DnD where players find a clever solution to a problem. But NO cryptic has to remove this and force players to play in a very specific way, the way in which they demand.
The game really needs multiple ways to obtain the same goal. It needs to remove all these nonsensical gates like the dungeons were in the early days when we could jump over walls and find short cuts. That is the spirit of DnD not stopping every ten feet to wait at a gate for 5 seconds and then repeat that.
There are of course many other examples of this where the creative problem solving is just removed from the game and we are left with ONE way to solve a problem and its their way to solve the problem.
Endgamers are scaled down so as to not be the sole damage dealer in those dungeons.
Everyone in the dungeon arrives with the same amount of health and stats. I know this makes everyone very generic and doesn't allow anyone to shine, but it is scaling. The game adds up the 5 players stats and divides by 5 to get the average. For example;
Player 1 Health 180,000
Player 2 Health 122,000
Player 3 Health 8,000
Player 4 Health 90,000
Player 5 Health 10,000
===================
Total = 410,000
Divide by 5 = 82,000 Health
After all the stats are scaled this way the mobs get scaled to match accordingly. If they are weak mobs their health should be 50% of the party average, 75% for medium, and so on. End boss would also be scaled to the party average. This would mean running Tiamat or the Cloak Tower would be the same difficulty for everyone no matter what your item level, companion, or having best in slot. They could open all dungeons for all users regardless of item level. Five level 20 characters could walk into Strahd's castle and take him on, the same as five level 80 characters could.
My issue with the dungeons is not scaling, they are just boring and lifeless. People who queue up dungeons daily are just doing it for the fast grab AD. If Cryptic dropped the AD, no one would run these dungeons for fun or out of nostalgia. When I first heard the term "Random Dungeons" I thought, Wow! They are going to randomize the layout of the dungeons! Can you even imagine my level of disappointment? As most of you know by now, I only run dungeons and skirmishes I choose and those don't pay me AD.
Cryptic's idea of a better challenge is having a brute hit you over the head with a bigger hammer and adding a knock down effect. My idea of a bigger challenge is running a dungeon with so much content, detail, and surprises I want to return and do it again.
2) fix at least the most annoying bugs!
3) stop using the community to be live beta testers
4) stop being greedy...no reason the BF sales weren't 40% other than greed! A game should get cheaper to play over the years...not more expensive!
5) change the scaling to be more newbie friendly rather than base it off the final endgame caps (60k caps not 80k).
6) make the endgame content harder WITHOUT making everything else harder too! There's no need to punish newbies to the point where they can't compete.
7) (edit) mark a player who hasn't completed the dungeon you're in as new with a red * or something....so we can explain the mechanics to them (or hope they speak the same language at least).
The game takes from 5th edition now, phasing out 4th.
Dexterity may not be used for movement but it is used for initiative which is similar to the effects of movement speed since it’s a turn based game. Initiative determines who acts first in a fight, getting to the enemies first generally mean that you hit them first. The alternatives would be to speed up/slow down animations based on your dexterity. Almost every class wants to go early in the round. If you go before the enemy, you can disable them before they can act, if you go after, you might be disabled and lose your turn. Dexterity might be less useful than your main stat but it is still very important.
Intelligence does not impact your Defense at all (except for int saves but that rarely comes up). Most wizard spells that boost defense don’t actually use your modifiers.
Movement speed is not the problem, crit severity is. Dex is the only one that gives noticeable boosts to 2 relavent areas for everyone.
There was other, more effective ways to handle the tinder timmy’s that complained about the disparity between them, and a long term BiS one. Scaling was not the fix.
So 5 HAMSTER geared players comes out to an even lower average right? instead of 82k health they have 41k health. What then? Make the monsters based on that scale?
Basically what you are doing is attempting to turn NW into a FPS rendering all the gear chasing pointless because you don't get any stronger and if you do get stronger you are punished for doing so.
Oh look! I got a new piece of gear that gives me more health, too bad it all gets nullified anyways. Yay!
If it was my game, you would get a lot better rewards, and it wouldn't be some first person shooter CoD wannabe. As for gear, nothing should be made completely useless. Go ahead grind you dungeons for 100K per day all you like. At the end of the day you have made $1.34 worth in Zen. Was it fun? You could just have drop some real cash on the Zen store and kept the people employed and servers up and running.
The original point I was making is arbitrary capping of the characters in a dungeon. You have to keep in mind what progression is and even cryptic has forgot what progression means to players. You can't take a huge $h!t on progression and think players are going to enjoy getting any reward, no matter how good it is. Rainer has made a spreadsheet based on what gear you should use when going into each campaign zone which means you should run crappier gear to get an advantage in certain areas because if you continue to use your end game gear in certain areas or certain older dungeons, you are actually performing worse.
From what I am reading, it is 2 separate maps with improvements and you only get the high end map if you have the campaign quest.
Progression still works, if they only use this method for scaling the dungeons. Think about it like this; You are this big beefy tank and you want to get through that tough dungeon. This handicap method gives you a good reason to invite the low rank player into your party. Instead of seeing people standing in PE shouting for level 80's with BiS to join a party, it would be better to have the average Joe join the team. As for rewards those really need to be better.
I forget who suggested this; but gear (especially old gear) needs to be recycled through professions. Collect x amount of blue trash armor and put it with a few odds and ends and out pops new gear of the current item level. Gear and weapons would still be needed for the progression in campaigns and content. As long as they plan to bribe these greedy little monkey to grind those dungeons, they need something to adjust the players and monsters to function on the same fighting level. At this point, they can't afford to take rAD rewards from the dungeons, but I don't get my rAD from these dungeons.
I have been playing campaigns and trading currency for rAD. I find it more rewarding and I don't have to run the same dungeons over and over. Ravenloft is double currency starts on Thursday, I plan to hit Barovian weeklies on this Thursday. One character can get the following;
The weeklies give 100 coins 25 omens, they are Lighting Fires, Dark Heroics, Company of Wolves, Bonegrinder, Shadow of Strahd, and the Daily Vigil grants you 150 more coins. This comes to a total of 650 coins and 125 Omens, the campaign store exchanges 100 coins + 2 omens for 1000 rAD. This leaves you 113 omens and 50 coins after you collect 6000 rAD. The store also gives you 100 coins for 20 omens, that is another 5K for a total of 11,000 rAD. If you have bAD, then you add +50% for 16,500. And this is just the weekly tasks that any character can hammer out in a couple of hours at most. The daily repeatables pay out 20 coins and 5 omens.
Ever since they removed salvage, the rAD in the campaign stores is about most "fun" method to earn rAD. You won't get very rich but you can have fun doing it. Average Dragon Runs in Well of the Dragons will fetch you 100 coins 1000 rAD from the store, but the better reward is the dragon coffers. If you don't need them to finish the campaign, they sell very well in the AH.
Oh my, another wall of text. Sorry about that, I get to thinking and just cannot stop.
Cause other way you will fall behind in every dungeon.
Thats not the right way to do it.
Cryptic decreased even more the customization of characters.
Before mod16 there were wizards that used dexterity in pvp for the deflect. There were wizards in pve with int/char and there were wizards with wisdom/char.
Nowadays even if you need another stat, other than dexterity.
Some classes benefit more froth dexterity stat, still Cryptic force us to play dexterity in every class.
You cant play another stat, because you will fall behind in dungeons.
You cant move without dexterity, its like everyone is wearing a plate armor without dexterity.
Tank, dps, heal, they want to put everyone in the same, no customization.
Movement shouldnt be affected from one stat. You cant change my mind on that. I dont feel its right.
Foundry woulda been free labor. All they would have needed to do was update it and add in a few things to make them less stale. But 100% missed opportunity there and they removed it.
This is why I say, cryptic are not game developers, they have gotten lucky that a game hasn't met some of the aspects that NW has as its strengths yet. As soon as there is a competing game that comes along with similar features that are NW strengths players will jump ship. They have gotten extremely lucky up to this point.