For our new CDP topic we would like to hear feedback on Rewards & Progression in Neverwinter. Some great discussions related to this came up in previous CDP topics but we are now looking to focus on:
Reward quality and time spent to obtain
Existing and new reward categories
Rewards throughout the progression of the game (leveling) vs. endgame rewards
Rewards via crafting (especially Masterwork)
While some of the topics above may spawn their own individual CDPs, we wanted to provide a broader scope for rewards and refine the topic as needed in the future.
For information on the purpose of CDP discussions, please go here.
Note: Using the feedback format below allows us to better identify commonalities/differences and generate summaries and proposals more efficiently. As a reminder, the format is for feedback proposals, not for discussions/replies to another user’s proposal.
NOTE: All off-topic posts will be removed. Due to the increase in off-topic comments, we will be more stringent about this.
Feedback Format Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback) Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish) Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter) Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum)
Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback)
Current rewards in the mind of a new player are quickly render obsolete, and therefore not worth the time/effort/money to acquire.
Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish)
Bring more meaning to rewards, or replace obsoleted gear with better items/ something useful such as AD, or ???
Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter)
Not sure how it would work in current design, as some items appear to be deeply embedded.
As someone whose has only 2 years into the game, I still have fresh memories of doing some of the campaigns. I did like getting new better gear when I completed a task, however it quickly became apparent that the bonuses(individual or set) were basically worthless once you finished the campaign. Case in point, the Sunset weapons from Barovia, not worth the effort once you finish the campaign. Also I avoided(and still do) any item that requires a "fuel"(such as voninblod, or black ice) to maintain it's bonus. Again, not worth the effort. I would like to see less rewards that require me to farm to maintain it, or farm to restore it. As a weekend warrior I barely have time to finish a mod before the next one is released. And someone starting from scratch, as a weekend warrior will find the task of getting to the latest content a nearly insurmountable task if they are trying to do so as a F2P player. I don't know too many people willing to spend $200.00 plus to buy all the buyout tokens in their first few weeks, especially when they are not an account wide unlock.
Which leads me to this, once a campaign is completed on one toon, it should be complete for all toons on that account. There is no point(other than for marginal boons) to run multiple toons thru each campaign when the story is exactly the same fo every single character class, and race. I enjoyed replaying the original Baldurs gate and its' sequel, as different classes, and alignments as the story was different everytime. Sure the end may have been the same(it's been awhile since I played it) but the journey was always different. In Neverwinter it becomes the same stuff different toon.
I for one would like to see greater rewards for the time/effort put in. Right now with a paladin with 67 boon points, the rewards form the last 2 mods have been largely lackluster. I also would prefer to see a rewards store for gear and such rather than having to run a million expeditions to get the gear I want.
And all, ALL rewards from all content, and I mean everything, should be unbound on pickup. I have gotten several comps, and mounts from events such as tales, cta, winterfest, etc... that are duplicates of what I already have, and are bound cahracter so they are worthless to me, cuz I can't equip them to an alt, nor can I sell them for AD. Once an item has been equipped, it should be account bound only, especially mounts and comps. Again, I have an overabundance of comps, or mounts on one toon that I now can't move to my alts(this was possible when I started playing, I remember moving at least 2 comps, and one mount to an alt after my main had better ones. I also want to sell all my vanity pets, I have no use for them, they are a trash reward IMHO, and I don't want or need 500 goristro pets.
Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum)
Making people mad for who knows what reason they might get mad for. Potentially unbalance the game(not that it has good balance now), damaging the in game econmoy. I'm sure I left something out, but I don't usually take notes about what I do and don't like about the state of the game, or how any ptoential changes I would like see could affect the game, while I'm in game...
Some players are saying the BiS gear is too hard to obtain and should be obtainable (or have a lesser counterpart obtainable) from an easier way. Those against them say that BiS gear should only be found in the hardest content available. This is sort of a compromise between the two.
Feedback Goal
BiS gear will still be exclusive to those who complete challenge but add a tradable "excellent consumable rewards" box to the "hardest content" chest. This way the BiS crowd get to show off their shineys but still can help others complete the dungeon, even if not by personally carrying anyone, by trading those other consumables on auction. The tradables should also be that good to that even after they complete their BiS set, they would still want to rerun the content.
Feedback Functionality
Adding the "excellent consumable rewards box" which should drop 100% of the time will need to be added to the loot table. When opening the box players can pick one item from a list what will help them most (all of which are obviously temporary and all bound to the character that opened them). What actual form these would take would be up to the devs but here are some ideas to get started:
-30 minutes temporary mainhand / offhand. -Hellpit 10 minute shield ability -Hellpit 10 minute regeneration -Revive scrolls -Grenades (Stun/Damage/whatever) -Icon of Major Blessing (HPx5000 as temp hp) -Icon of Major Curse (debuff where targetted enemy suffers lost HP in addition to damage) -Summon Elminster to one shot kill everything -Yeah obviously the last three are jokes. Why so serious? :P
There's just one caveat with the "excellent consumable rewards box": Characters who have finished the dungeon where it drops cannot open them, forcing them to trade it.
Risks & Concerns
Nothing guarantees that people won't just burn the boxes out of spite and elitism, but enough should make it through to the market - more and more as people complete the content - and the price will balance out. Obviously, the whole thing needs to start again with a new "even more excellent consumable rewards box" should an "even more hardest content!!1!" zone appear. Yes that was terrible grammar. Sorry.
Feedback Overview A system that rewards player after completing x number of dungeons/skirmishes/trials.
Feedback Goal Encouraging people to run more dungeons/skirmishes/trials and rewarding them.
Feedback Functionality Duration: Weekly 3 of each queue (3 dungeons / 3 skirmishes / 3 trials) will be displayed randomly every week. Each type will reward you with a number of 5 / 10 Progression Points that are added on your weekly progression bar and unlock a number of 4 rewards. The progression bar will be splited in 4, and each require 25 completion points to unlock one reward. From Dungeons type queue you may not get more than 25 progression points per week. ( 5 per run) From Skirmish type queue you may not get more than 25 progression points per week. (5 per run) From Trials type queue you may not get more than 50 progression points per week. (5 per run) You may get no more than 100 progression points every week. Every week the bar will be reseted and another 3 of each type of queue will randomly be available to choose from. The system should not be integrated in daily random queue.
Risks & Concerns
The rewards should match the effort of completing a total number of 15 queues otherwise the system won't be relevant and enjoyable. The random queues should have the same difficulty and should take similar time to be completed otherwise players will always choose the easyest and shortest one to complete. I don't mind if there will be some kind of challenges added to this system as long as the rewards will worth the effort. The rewards should be BTA and the Progression Bar should be account wide. That means if you want to continue to fill your progression bar, you may do that with any of your toon as long as he is eligible for the content. BTA will keep items to not be devalued on the market, and the rewards should be consumables like reagents, pres wards, companion tokens and a kind of currency that allows the player to obtain miscelaneous goodies like Epic Mounts, Companions, Appearence Items.
Correct me if I'm missing something here but I'm going to oversimplify this.
• Group BiS can beat ToMM and get Lionheart • Group NotBiS can't beat ToMM but wish they could get gear that was close to BiS gear through alternative means.
So we're, in this case, talking about Lionheart weapons and ToMM rings.
One can easily argue the clear alternative to BiS Lionheart weapons are the Burnished/Alabaster/Watcher weapons. All attainable through means that don't involve ToMM. All the next step down.
People don't want weapons that are the next step down because they're already there. They're arguing for weapons that are almost identical to BiS options without being challenged.
Not really missing anything but Burnished were 4 weeks of farming LoMM, Alabaster endless weeks of praying to RNG Jesus (until they increased the drop rates significantly), Mountaineer was in a pack of 5k Zen or so and Watcher needs a lot of grinding and RNG too. I'd even say it's harder to get Watcher set then Lionheart...
"Group NotBiS" needs something to improve so better weapons would be the obvious choice. "Group BiS" also currently don't have much to work for, up the stats and grab the new set from Citadel which you only really need in Citadel...
Progression curve is completely messed up currently.
At some point, there was a group that was able to beat ToMM without the weapons. Clearly that means the weapons are not needed to beat tomm. There is an element of "get good" in there somewhere. I also know for a fact that there are some very not BiS groups running ToMM at this moment and doing just fine. And much respect to those groups, I know that they spent months practicing and failing to learn the fight, so that they could do it.
What would a BIS group be? I must imagine that it is a group where there was no SW GF GWF and DC dps, since you referred to "NOW" they are doing well. The "NOW" are 2 modules after Mod 16, 1 after Mod 17. Almost 9 months. Even though we promised that the adjustments would be faster.
How many times have players from all of these classes complained about just being poorly adjusted in the MOD 16 preview? The players in these classes who continued to train and fail are indeed winners, perhaps even more than the groups with 4.5 or 6 CW that performed in the first weeks.
> @admiralwarlord#3792 said: > (Quote) > What would a BIS group be? I must imagine that it is a group where there was no SW GF GWF and DC dps, since you referred to "NOW" they are doing well. The "NOW" are 2 modules after Mod 16, 1 after Mod 17. Almost 9 months. Even though we promised that the adjustments would be faster. > > How many times have players from all of these classes complained about just being poorly adjusted in the MOD 16 preview? The players in these classes who continued to train and fail are indeed winners, perhaps even more than the groups with 4.5 or 6 CW that performed in the first weeks.
So you are saying we cant have rewarding and hard content because the devs are unable to balance all classes? Or what is yout point?
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
Talking about reasons to run content? Well, there's no real reason to play the game at all, except for enjoyment. Some people get enjoyment by being elite, some enjoy games for story lines and the progression of that story, some enjoy number crunching and theory crafting, some enjoy farming and crafting items, some enjoy fighting against other players, some enjoy the scenery and graphics, and many gain enjoyment from a mixture of things. At the end of the day, the only reason to run any dungeon is for enjoyment regardless if the enjoyment comes in any of the forms stated previously or others.
Introducing alternative weapon sets that are comparable to Lionheart weapons, albeit with different bonuses that would not be BiS for the meta, would not deter people from gaining enjoyment from running the hardest or easiest content in the game. In fact, it would open the doors for more people to partake in that enjoyment. Most groups wont accept people if they think that player would make the chance at success worse, or harder than they deem fit. Having alternative sets would increase the effectiveness of players who have not acquired Lionheart weaps yet (replace with X, Y, Z for future difficult content), and as a result increase the number of players who could then run ToMM and use the alternatives as stepping stones to get the BiS item. This is exactly how Alabaster weapons were treated by many, others stuck with Alabaster as they didn't see a need to spend resources to upgrade further being satisfied with what they had, and there's nothing wrong with that, it didn't stop them from running LoMM.
The only reason I could see in defending a stance in keeping the hardest content in the game available for fewer people is to maintain current status quo, and I doubt that is good for the game moving forward, as the current status quo is part of what got us to start discussing how to make the game better in the first place.
They did this in the past. Alternative weapons with a "bit worse" set bonus. I dont see this bad at all, for example 1 mod later.
> What would a BIS group be? I must imagine that it is a group where there was no SW GF GWF and DC dps, since you referred to "NOW" they are doing well. The "NOW" are 2 modules after Mod 16, 1 after Mod 17. Almost 9 months. Even though we promised that the adjustments would be faster.
>
> How many times have players from all of these classes complained about just being poorly adjusted in the MOD 16 preview? The players in these classes who continued to train and fail are indeed winners, perhaps even more than the groups with 4.5 or 6 CW that performed in the first weeks.
So you are saying we cant have rewarding and hard content because the devs are unable to balance all classes? Or what is yout point?
In no time did I get into the topic difficult conten. All I questioned was the fact that he cited disadvantaged classes in mod 16 as not Bis, as they are "at this moment and doing just fine."
Maybe I got it wrong, just as I'm sure you got my post wrong.
> @admiralwarlord#3792 said: > (Quote) > > In no time did I get into the topic difficult conten. All I questioned was the fact that he cited disadvantaged classes in mod 16 as not Bis, as they are "at this moment and doing just fine." > > Maybe I got it wrong, just as I'm sure you got my post wrong.
Im fairly certain sharp was talking about Gear when he said not BIS, and not classes.
Current issues are so relevant because we don't have anything to do aside grind (new(er) content) to allow minmaxing to allow running a dungeon that comes out whenever, and because seemingly we have to make that even easier so new players have faster access. We do not reenter old zones, because they are not relevent enough (= because they do not offer drops relevant to minmax for next dungeon). We farm 100k RAD using the fastest method possible to be able to buy items to minmax better. What we need is better, healthier methods to grind that are encouraging everybody to find their way again, like everybody used to have. You do not ultimately have to create new content to satisfy everybody at the same time (over time you would have to) if you can offer them more choices on finding their niche in economy.
This is why abandoning professions because of time-management-issues (to be able to make content to satisfy more people) is like shooting yourself in the leg.
Apologies for not reading all the posts, but I do have a real job, so if someone has stated the ideas below, consider it a +1. This is a mixture of some of the concepts of the posts I have read
I agree with Jules, alternate activities could help grow the game, and of course rewards are a key part of this, but what rewards:
Could be an alternative?
Not skew the desire for the top items, but possibly enhance the desire for them?
Factor in that if they are easily repeatable/findable, they lose their value?
Time limited boosters across all items - mounts, companions, equipment. We have this already in a form with the Overload Enchants on some pieces of equipment and food/potions, but what I am referring to more is crafting and reward drops like the masks from Halloween event. D&D is a magic world, where there is plenty variety from the permanent legendary item (so rare, so expensive!) down to the 1-shot fizzle (common and cheap). The whole point of legendary or mythic is that they are RARE - but we all want one! But, how about a boost to your mount (for example) that will grant it legendary capability - for 1 hr, 1 day, or 1 week? I guarantee we will take/use them, and they will have value - who wouldn't want to be king/queen for a day? OK, plenty wouldn't, but you get my drift!
These items (harness for mounts, replacement items for companions/us) could be crafted or chest rewards - the crafting is the same, but the results will vary. You will at the very least produce/find an item equivalent to BiS, but maybe it is the 1 hr version, or the 1-day version, etc. and RARELY - Jackpot!, you make/find the Legendary! I would say that the time-limited items cannot slot gems, but have stats equivalent to a top ring with R15 gems loaded for example, so you would replace your current ring with this one, and when it 'pop's in an hour/day/week, the original is slotted again.
Risks - work required to have temp boosts or temp mounts; the work in making time-limited versions (but you only have to focus on the BiS initially and going forward, not everything); game cannot handle multiple timers on various items. Danger that someone slots all short-term items and is left naked when they pop
Goal - create rewards that have short-term high value, but leave us wanting more - the more permanent version! The shorter lower-value timed items would be available in older content, while the week-long version would be in the latest content. Allows weekend warriors the chance to feel like meaningful contribution, while still trying to obtain permanent better stuff. Allows crafting to be viable, but not overpowering.
Might is not always right - the powerful sometimes forget that.
Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback) currently the crafting system is not shining, masterwork have old recipe and 'normal' crafting have not so useful gear.
Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish) make crafting a nice way to get useful gear so that veteran player can use again the workshop for crafting and new player can find useful invest in upgrading the professions, and both can use the crafted gear.
Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter)
masterwork in my opinion masterwork came from the stronghold so it should be bound to it, meaning: strongholds were (and are) a content developed for group of people to play, so the gear you craft with masterwork should be too. what player craft, for it to sell/be used, should be at the same level of the gear released within the last mod (in term of pure stat point) for every mod, and should have power that work for party, like the compy or the auras of paladin, for examples : X ring of the guild 'you get x when you are z or nearer to another party member, if other in your party wear a guild ring you get an additional y increase' . where x can be power, hp, defense, critical avoidance, damage resistance, outgoing healing, damage dealt, damage/heal shared between the party, whatever come to mind but with a limitation that you need to be in a party for it to work and companion should not be counted in the party. to craft the new gear one should need item that came from the stronghold (like it is, vendor for masterwork), new content (put a material as a reward of killing a zone boss/hunt) and dungeon (in chest and/or boss drop), end gamer run new content and get the best dungeon gear (ideally)
normal crafting a high level is attainable to all player (given a little bit of time, on a new character i reached lvl 50 in a profession in 3-4 days), it can be used to get gear that is not dungeon gated, but RNG gated: for examples : the ebonized ring, i run me and still don't get it, when i complete the campaign (with all the boons) i automatically get the recipe for the workshop to craft stuff that may come from me but to craft them i need campaign currency, ad, stuff that come from where the item should drop (in this case the rune etchling that usually you trade with zok is a good example, one per every type) and naturally classic crafting material in the right combination for each piece (an armor may meed more etchling an campaign currency than an helmet and a ring) same thing with the companion gear, i need to unlock tomm (complete mod 17) and get thing from the we and fe to craft different tier of companion gear (need the introduction of another item in the expedition end chest for the craft) the item crafted is account bound because you don't craft it to make ad, but to build you character without all the grind for not-so-bis item, and there is the need to complete the campaign and play content to craft thing.
the above picked up as examples the gear, but it can be applied to weapon and potion too: a new stronghold weapon and neck-belt set, new extraordinary potion for group content (always a party limitation), and mod 15 and 16 introduced a couple of interesting potion (the one that give you movement speed, critical severity, heroism, temporary hp)
Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum) -guild pieces will have a high price and shine only in party (but that is a good thing right? they aren't needed for simple pve play and are powerful so buy if you want to be farm a high level dungeon) -the introduction of campaign currency in the crafting system, i don't know if it's an easy thing but if we can use gold and ad, we used black ice, it should be doable.
i'm not that good at foresee problems that may come from my ideas, but i don't see any other in this one
At some point, there was a group that was able to beat ToMM without the weapons. Clearly that means the weapons are not needed to beat tomm. There is an element of "get good" in there somewhere. I also know for a fact that there are some very not BiS groups running ToMM at this moment and doing just fine. And much respect to those groups, I know that they spent months practicing and failing to learn the fight, so that they could do it.
Cool. I just wouldn't gatekeep an item like that by a trial without offering another decent option. Once you get it you basically proved you don't need it. They had better solutions in the past including Mod 16 where each set had an advantage over the other. Mod 18 could have added a new set, maybe a worse one, but maybe also situationally bis. Wouldn't take away the achievement of beating ToMM.
As Natsu pointed out, there is already a decent alternative. There is a 2% difference in weapon damage and a ~5% difference in the set bonus between the weapons from ToMM and the weapons outside of ToMM. Basically, during the course of a run, you cannot tell the difference between someone using it or using burnished because the variance in weapon damage on weapons makes a larger difference than the weapon upgrade. And we know this as a fact, because when we first acquired the weapons, some people in our group had them and some people did not and there was no perceptible difference in how players performed in the dungeon, comparing those who had to those who did not.
If you think that the weapons make that big of a difference, you are deluding yourself. Making the gap any closer than it already is and the weapons may as well be identical, at which point there is no reason to run ToMM.
Correct me if I'm missing something here but I'm going to oversimplify this.
• Group BiS can beat ToMM and get Lionheart • Group NotBiS can't beat ToMM but wish they could get gear that was close to BiS gear through alternative means.
So we're, in this case, talking about Lionheart weapons and ToMM rings.
One can easily argue the clear alternative to BiS Lionheart weapons are the Burnished/Alabaster/Watcher weapons. All attainable through means that don't involve ToMM. All the next step down.
People don't want weapons that are the next step down because they're already there. They're arguing for weapons that are almost identical to BiS options without being challenged.
Not really missing anything but Burnished were 4 weeks of farming LoMM, Alabaster endless weeks of praying to RNG Jesus (until they increased the drop rates significantly), Mountaineer was in a pack of 5k Zen or so and Watcher needs a lot of grinding and RNG too. I'd even say it's harder to get Watcher set then Lionheart...
"Group NotBiS" needs something to improve so better weapons would be the obvious choice. "Group BiS" also currently don't have much to work for, up the stats and grab the new set from Citadel which you only really need in Citadel...
Progression curve is completely messed up currently.
At some point, there was a group that was able to beat ToMM without the weapons. Clearly that means the weapons are not needed to beat tomm. There is an element of "get good" in there somewhere. I also know for a fact that there are some very not BiS groups running ToMM at this moment and doing just fine. And much respect to those groups, I know that they spent months practicing and failing to learn the fight, so that they could do it.
What would a BIS group be? I must imagine that it is a group where there was no SW GF GWF and DC dps, since you referred to "NOW" they are doing well. The "NOW" are 2 modules after Mod 16, 1 after Mod 17. Almost 9 months. Even though we promised that the adjustments would be faster.
How many times have players from all of these classes complained about just being poorly adjusted in the MOD 16 preview? The players in these classes who continued to train and fail are indeed winners, perhaps even more than the groups with 4.5 or 6 CW that performed in the first weeks.
Non BiS group as in both the equipment they were wearing was very non optimal (not R15s, no legendary mounts, etc) and the class composition was composed of GWF's, TR's, etc and they were completing it during M17, not just now after the changes, it just took them longer to learn the fight. They practiced ToMM every day in the evening, until they got it done.
One can not craft its way into the Pantheon of Heroes. Craft consumables, get rich, upgrade your enchants, upgrade my enchants for a fee, but you can not craft The Holy Retribution Sword. Because it is holy. .
Why not? SOMEBODY had to make it, and how do we know the Gods did not choose you, the MasterCrafter, as the tool they used to make it? You try, you make approximations of the real thing, try again, try again, and then, maybe, one day, divine light shone down and the Holy Retribution Sword was made - miraculously!
Yes, the majority of the work (99.5%) will be an imitation of the real thing, but people will pay for an illusion... just less for a shorter-lasting one.
Might is not always right - the powerful sometimes forget that.
Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback) dungeon reward are lacking, we are a 'little' tired of getting a peridot for completing lomm
Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish) propose an idea for getting better reward from dungeon
Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter) dungeon are run by 3 type of ppl: A)the one that want ad, B)the one that want stuff specifically from that dungeon, and C) ppl who would like to enjoy a dungeon with friend/guild mates and the possibility of a reward after a more or less complicated dungeon. A) they want only ad, the random queue system is perfect, run those dg get 100k rad and done B and C are not so easy. my idea is to create a place in pe for dungeon exploration. B&C) like the hunt system, they run the dungeon normally (every dungeon save the leveling ones) in the chest you get a coin for the dungeoneer. you go to the dungeoneer and there with the coin you choose some limitation to get better stuff from the dungeon that you will run (need a party with the number needed for the dungeon or trial). -examples of limitation may be: no rp, no ad in chest, noone can die, complete the dungeon under x min, stat diminuited (by x%), enchantment not working (weapon, armor, atk,def,utility) , mount insignia and mount insignia bonuses not working, can't use artifatc, pet not working etc -examples of gain for item needed for campaign : tuern, prophecy of madness,throne of the dwarven king : increase probability to get the tome needed for the campaign boon (after 50 run by the dungeoneer you can buy one form him) -examples of general gain: you get 10k/20k/30k rp, you can get a rank 10/11 base enchantment, you can get a rank 10 armor enchantment, you can get a rank 10 weapon enchantment, you can get a rank 10 runestone, increase the probability to get preservation wars, increase the probability to get a coalescent ward, increase the probability to get a green/blue/purple companion,increase the probability to get a blue/purple mount, choice your item type from random tier, item is bound to account (run tomm you get a +4 ring, you choose which +4 of all the +4 you can get from tomm, the item is bta) (probably the best and hardest gain i think) etc
the general gain shall depend on the tier of the dungeon and tier of linitation: for examples if i run elol for the rp bonus i'll get only 10k, if i run tong for the rp bonus i'll get 30k, if i run valindra's tower for the enchantment r10 i'll get a 3% probability to get one, and if i do that in cr the probability may rise up to 15%. each gain is bound to a limitation, a simple gain to an easy limitation (no ad --> 20k rp), an interesting gain to an hard limitation (you can get a rank 10/11 base enchantment -->enchantment not working). you can put up to 3 limitation on each run, the first will cost 3 dungeoneer coin, the second 6 the third 9.
Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum) i put numbers and percentages, but i don't know if they are high or low , i hope that my idea is clear.
pro: -you make old dungeons rewarding again, ensuring low level player to get what they want with a little less grinding, and giving a little challenge for veteran player to get nice thing -harder dungeons will be nice challenges for endgamer, with a not so bad probability of a reward -you can even get some title for completing a certain number of dungeon with the same limitation (searching for the same thing) or with different limitation, and special ones for ppl who completed a hard content one with a hard limitation. concerns: -all of this need a stable scaling so that player aren't underperforming in lower dungeons (can smoothly run them without a limitation) -the implementation need a lot of work, to change the loot table, probability to get particular items, limitation to the player etc -the real problem is that there is no certainty that ppl will use this method, i mean yes, you can get almost anything from the dungeon with a clear increase of probability and difficulty, but how many ppl will actually run them, the best would be that both the endgamer and casual player enjoy the system, and that endgamer will not 'farm' low lever dg with limitation but go to harder one, and casual player can run them , so a careful balancing between limitation put, probability of gain, scaling, and difficulty contents. -what you get should be unbound (if in the normal dungeon that item drop would be unbound), but if the system work there is a possibility that teese thing will saturate the ah? (other problem without a careful balance)
conclusion i haven't played the hunt because at that times i was too weak, but all the people that played them loved them; same thing for master expeditions. to get the dungeon more rewarding and challenging, make an hunt system where the player choose what to hunt (item, enchantment,refinemet, masterwork material,etc) by putting on them some limitation. my idea can be a completely impossible thing to do, or doable and not working.
One can not craft its way into the Pantheon of Heroes. Craft consumables, get rich, upgrade your enchants, upgrade my enchants for a fee, but you can not craft The Holy Retribution Sword. Because it is holy. .
well, i thought of that not for people to enter the pantheon of heroes, but for those inside . the thing is that i'd like to differentiate between: the ones that you get from pve, work always; the ones that you craft with masterwork, only when you are in a party and play together; so that one can consider the crafted ones, they have to have the same stat of the pve ones (crafted with +1 -->same stat, crafted without +1-->less stat) and are difficult to get the material so only the one in the pantheon can earn them if they want.
p.s. i love that name Pantheon of Heroes, it almost seems like something that exist in game, some sort of stone with the name of the player of the 3 first party that completed a dungeon or a trial
Feedback Overview Treasure chests with actual rewards. No such thing as junk from chests.
Feedback Goal Move away from lockboxes and keys. Anything that you can get in the game should be rewarded from playing the game, upon successfully completing contents, and opening treasure chests.
Feedback Functionality Having a meaningful reward system will quickly augments any class' perceived weaknesses and provide a quick fix to class balancing problems. Nerfing items is always a sweeter pill to take than nerfing classes. Allow the best PvE items to obtain from PvP to quickly revitalize the PvP scene. All items be made possible to drop as BtC, BtA or unbound. Character bound items should always have a higher chance to drop than Account bound items, and Account bound items should have a higher drop chance that unbound items. More set bonuses. Allow all crafted items to take on a random appearance, i.e. different particle effects, different colors, random bonuses, and heavy armor can look like robes, vice versa. All in game items should be craftable - this include companion gears, enchantments, mounts with the BtC/BtA/Unbound concept applying here too. Consolidate all tokens into a single currency that can be exchanged for all items and made this new currency drop from chests to allow player to slowly work their way towards their goal even if RnG doesn't favor them. Allow items to be salvage into this new currency and refinement points. Have random time-limited events (24/7 and not tied to Xmas or halloween etc) with guaranteed reward drop and publicized these events in game for player to queue them.
Risks & Concerns Possible loss of revenue from key and zen sales without first finding a suitable replacement revenue model/stream.
@jules The fact that you asked - And what to do after you get the item of your dreams from the dungeon? = proves my point.
Gear should not be a mean to replace content. Your mindset is = we got only 1 dungeon per year, so the gear from it better be so bad that it occupies my time until next year. . My mind set is - we got 4 dungeons per year , every dungeon drops a different piece of the set. The dungeons are so complex that I need half of the time to practice and it takes 3 hours to finish it as fast run. Yes, dungeon crawling, the only way a dungeon should be experienced. . Also , put a pres ward in the final chest. . For other items I liked Chult hunts, Barovia Hunts. I hate bags and boxes. . The LionHeart weapons should stay bound, I would bound artifacts sets too. Per character, not account. Just bc your main could do it, does not mean your alts are good enough. .
I thought you were headed in this direction, but to be honest: 1) Dungeon crawls are not NW. Most attempts in the past to get us to spend more time in dungeons failed. I can't afford 3 hours in a dungeon simply because I rarely am online for 3 hours, so let's assume this is just my personal opinion against something I can't do. 2) We won't suddenly get more content, no matter how often we shout into the void how more content would solve our problems (not what I think, but I get it. Not everybody enjoys the game the way I do) so, no; I do not want trash gear that I have to patch up with gems to be ok-ish. I want trade, I want a way to make guilds/alliance involved in the farming process, I want people to actually DO some stuff in this game instead of "anybody for RTQ???" I want to be able to talk about: Where do I get this from? Which boss drops that? Do you have any? Not: Anybody noticed where Juma is now? I want Trapper gear, not Ranger gear. (No, I do not want gear trapped to one paragon. Personally, I do not see much reason to have class specific gear at all if we already do not care for their individuality.) I want depth in how gear supports which kind dmg best (I can only talk about dps, its better this way ) and a discussion if you can sacrifice xy to be able to, for example, squeeze 2x more root damage out. 3) For me, personally: Economy and economy-related ways to make AD is what I like better, in some cases, than running the new dungeon as fast as I can just because it got out now and everybody is talking about it cmon cmon cmon juuuules lets try to run this as fast as we can - I just can't. This is not what I wanna do for an hour in the evening. On weekend/holidays, yeah, lets do it... Alright. But, my personal preferences aside (I will try, at least) do you dislike gear customization as well? In a way like others proposed, like @krailov on this page? Farming a handful of dungeons for 1 bis set up that is bis along all ranged dps/ all melee dps / all tanks / all healers seperately, is this the thing? I wouldn't enjoy that (personal preference from here on.. didn't work long) but I want to see the point that I'm obviously missing. You seem like you want to broadcast your endgame gear as a way of saying "Yo my main and xyz alt ran the latest content, I'm a beast", I want to be able to farm dungeons I like and trade/exchange with other players that like to run different dungeons. I just don't WANT to do some stuff. Do I have to do it as a part of some sort of endgame agenda?
What I can agree on, however: Chult and Barovia Hunts were very enjoyable. I had the BEST time in the game during early Barovia and salvage, of course. I thought salvage to be a much much more engaging way of playing, not because it offered more AD (nothing offers more RAD rn than just doing your RQs with all the other new people that have never set a foot into the campaigns, but can do it nonetheless) but because it felt more like progression. Probably doesn't make sense... However: Barovia Hunts are very very cool imo. To be able to choose your difficulty and reward levels, if you want to group up, farming and selling posters for hunts, it was cool. I still do them sometimes, mostly for transmutes now.
Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback):
The developers need to consider what the "end-game" for Neverwinter is.
Players are currently pushed towards the latest released campaign, or sometimes the one previous, to access a bundle of free 'starter' items for that campaign.. Previous campaigns therefore become trivial in terms of both challenge and rewards - with the exception of boons and potentially the weekly legacy campaign quests.
Current design choices (e.g. rewarding a set of 'starter gear') pushes players to go straight to the final zone, as there's little reward for them in the previous campaigns. This short circuits large parts of the developers' own game.
Once the developers have decided what / where the 'end-game' for Neverwinter is, they should design a reward structure appropriate to that.
The Mod 16 solution was to introduce scaling in all campaign zones. But this proved to be very unpopular with the players. Understandably so as players who had already completed these campaigns who then returned to them were now far weaker than they previously were, reversing their progression.
Scaling also introduced a whole host of problems with the dungeons. It would have been FAR better to have done a deep pass on all of them, adjusting their difficulty and making them only available to level 80 players.
Here's an example of what I would consider to be a sensible reward/progression system, involving the earlier campaigns:
You are given a set of bonding runestones of Rank ??. On completion of each campaign, you are given materials to upgrade the Bonding Runestones one rank.
Players who want to just buy materials to upgrade them can do so as they do now, but newer players without bundles of AD can work in-game and progress through older content to upgrade them so they are match-fit for the later campaigns.
This could be adjusted for whatever rewards are deemed appropriate - provided that they are meaningful and aid progression.
Where should the best items be available?
Personally, I think it should be from dungeons / trials. (And I don't think these items should be tradeable with players, or in fact bound-to-account and giftable to alts.)
However, with the exception of potentially the most recent dungeon/trial, this isn't always the case. For example, we have items dropping from random spawn encounters in Avernus. (Previously, we had this in Chult / Barovia / Master Expeditions, etc.)
Previously, we've had the best weapons as being available from mastercrafting, not requiring any PvE play at all. I don't mind mastercrafting having access to make the best weapons, but I think it should require components from the latest dungeon etc. as a crafting reagent. I don't mind if players trade these components via the Auction House.
How do older dungeons and trials fit in to the reward structure
The older dungeons and trials are only run for the AD reward. Understandably, players are therefore keen to run those instances with the shortest completion time and the best chance of success. So you get people leaving CR/CODG/LOMM - even Tiamat.
I'd rather see the dungeons placed in tiers of difficulty / time - with the reward in AD (assuming there are no other changes to rewards) - scaled accordingly. It's plainly ridiculous that the AD daily bonus is the same for running Temple of the Spider as it is Castle Ravenloft.
But at the same time, it's madness for a new level 80 player that has just reached the ilvl to queue for an epic dungeon to be dumped into TONG, without the power to be able to contribute to defeating the souls on the final encounter, or without the power to kill off their mimic on Arcturia.
I have several ideas that I have put in different paragraphs.
I think masterwork should be the go to for crafter's as the clues in the name. You should be able to craft any bonus onto any gear. You should be able to upgrade old gears stats in tiers a bit like the chains from chult. This could be achieved using the currency from south seas trading after you have achieved a new level 5 workshop a new store opens up allowing you to use south sea credits to purchase materials in which you use to craft in your workshop to add 5% damage or other useful stuff like extra 5% defense to gear or upgrade gear from 10 gear score to above current bis. This would keep masterwork relevant as each new mod can add new mats to the new south seas store to increase the stat levels further to the new levels. Going further on down that line you could even have bonuses being added to mastercraft gear that do not stack that circumvent the caps ie critical strike is 50% cap but you could add a 5% bonus to one piece of gear but once added to your head it can't be added to any other piece of gear in that loadout etc. I think dungeons could drop masterwork resources as it allows non mastercrafters an alternative income source and an easy alternative to end chest rewards than refinement. The method of upgrading also gives normal crafting usefulness as it brings back non mastercrafters making money by being part of the supply chain. Make tier one masterwork materials craftable by everyone as makes professions rewardable.
Make mounts upgradable like companions using a insignia like system whereby (x green mounts + x blue mounts + x epic mounts = 1 x upgraded legendary mount) these could have stats of 7500 and a mount speed of 125% which is inbetween a epic and legendary so would still keep the value of lockboxes as is just below a legendary but give the auction house a boost as more cannon fodder rewards from dungeon chests ie green and blue mounts would be rewarding as you can upgrade them to increase your stats diversity to help cap the stats on your character.
Skill nodes should drop potions etc. with a 0.1% chance to give high level potions from mastercraft to make them worthwhile using gold to open them.
Give the ability to exchange gear or professions mats for guild marks at a special new vendor as level 20 guilds are maxed out in those coffers and will make running dungeons for these rewards actually rewarding.
The ability rolls on the main hand and offhand should be rolled out to all gear via basic crafting and would utilize the cube of augmentation which could drop in dungeons or be in the new vip store etc.
Give us better items in the trade bars store as the choice currently is scrolls or health stones.
Use the dungeon chest rewards system in the low level dungeons to increase guild boon stats or even boons stats with special items that only level 80 characters drop from the chest to encourage endgame players to play with lower level players to help level them up whilst increasing their own stats via RNG drops in end chests which you need a complete set of upgrade materials for each type of boon. ie power boon needs blue stone, red stone and purple stone where as hp boon need pink stone, blue stone and white stone etc. and guild boons need x blue stones, x white stones and so on for one tier upgrade. Or make them drop like a watcher a rare rng enemy that could only spawn at the end of cloak tower or cragmire crypts etc. to encourage rerunning old dungeons and content.
Have a rewards system for helping new players as a time clock system of grouping with players below level 80. ie once you've played 1 hour with a level x then you get 10 helpers currency that has its own reward store and have legendary mounts / forgehammer of gond in there for 300 hours helping etc. it all helps create a community feel to the game as the old saying goes friends who play together stay together increasing the player base .
Give zen market 100% off tokens mounts/companions as ultra rare drops in dungeon chests as an incentive to run. Or drop companion tokens / enchanted keys etc.
And this system is not very transparent to a new player. I would like to see an easily obtainable ‘base’ power, that incorporates all of the above and is attained and explained throughout your levelling experience. The rest (top percentages) are then subject to the grind. (The fact that a player knows to use an augment or not, should not have been left up to veterans/guildies to explain…) (And yes, I still feel the effect of an augment, and as a result your bonding runestones, and companion gear/runestones is way too powerful. And counterintuitive to ‘you’ being the hero in this story.. and not your bulette pup, polar bear cub or deepcrow hatchling.) I’ve only been playing 6 months myself, and truly, without veterans taking me by the hand and explaining all these places to look… I’d still be lost. And tbh I still am sometimes, just so much complexity in the system.
While the rest of @myrddyn#6504 s post is imo definitly worth a read too, I want to point this out: I enjoy the companion system we have now, and I enjoy the importance of it, however: It really is tough to understand for new players. What is an augment? And which companions are? I send them a link to rainers wiki because, how often can you talk about that? Then they are confused by the very extensive wiki ... This is something the game HAS to explain. How companions work, how the new slots work, that you have to pay attention what type the companion is because you only have so many offense slots... This is, I feel, not self-explanatory. How do stats transfer, what are bonding runestones? Sure: read the tooltips, hover over it, yeah, I know. But it is difficult to explain to people that do not have the funds to buy companions and runestones, that this is the first thing they should invest into. I know that there is some sort of bolster-explanation, but I know that I was hella confused on preview the first time. It is great once you get to know it (and have a few options in your comp inventory) but until you get there: Wtf are those vets talking about?? Why do I have to get a metallic sort of dog that looks weird?? Where does that even come from? (Buy the box, not the bulette pup.. Buy it at epic, not green... The upgrading process is a bit less transparent now than in the old system simply because you have to call the comp you want to upgrade, level it specifically, upgrade it, change back to your summoned comp... Also: Some comps you get as active, only few as summoned. If I have to explain the difference in Energon and Bulette as summoned again..
As far as I understand the discussion, most casual and semi-casual players (including players that have been bis at some point, but don't have the time to remain bis currently) are ok with the fact, that they cannot obtain the best endgame gear due to time constraints. What they would like, though, and I think that is a respectable opinion as well: - Have alternative ways to get gear that is not bis, but close enough to bis, so that they can play through all except the hardest content the way they like (e.g. with less challenge, e.g. "dumbed down and borring in your polite words)
Correct me if I'm missing something here but I'm going to oversimplify this.
• Group BiS can beat ToMM and get Lionheart • Group NotBiS can't beat ToMM but wish they could get gear that was close to BiS gear through alternative means.
So we're, in this case, talking about Lionheart weapons and ToMM rings.
One can easily argue the clear alternative to BiS Lionheart weapons are the Burnished/Alabaster/Watcher weapons. All attainable through means that don't involve ToMM. All the next step down.
People don't want weapons that are the next step down because they're already there. They're arguing for weapons that are almost identical to BiS options without being challenged.
And as far as the rings go.
Legendary rings are BiS. If you can't run ToMM the alternatives include: • buy them from the AH for a hefty fee (depending on which you want). • buy the epic version for a much cheaper and very affordable price • use the next step down, ebonized, etc, available through grinding
So again, there are multiple alternatives to the BiS legendary rings that are almost as good.
It seems to me that the game already caters to this: "Have alternative ways to get gear that is not bis, but close enough to bis, so that they can play through all except the hardest content the way they like"
A lot of people don't really understand that weapon damage is a major factor here, alabaster/burnished are not alternatives to Lionheart, they are alternatives to each other. I could care less about the rings, leave those in ToMM, the epic ones are cheap enough and damn near as good as the legendary ones (bragging rights).
The only reason I could see in defending a stance in keeping the hardest content in the game available for fewer people is to maintain current status quo, and I doubt that is good for the game moving forward, as the current status quo is part of what got us to start discussing how to make the game better in the first place.
One would think the actual point of keeping the hardest content in the game hard is so people have something to work towards.
I guess the devs didn't realize how many players would have an issue trying to improve and work towards a goal in a game where everyone could just walk through new content the first weekend.
We've talked about the current status quo in this and the previous cdp, they control the markets, and who gains access to group content by setting certain constraints on who they will invite; There are very few people doing "training" runs. It benefits the current status quo to limit the number of people running the latest content so they can further control the market.
Having alternatives to Lionheart weapons wouldn't mean players could steam roll new content, there are a lot of other factors in being effective. I'm not saying to make ToMM easier at all, I'm saying to give us alternatives to the BiS weapon set that is comparable. They could have new MW weaps, not easy or cheap to attain, and maybe something that's like the pioneer weaps, that is a little cheaper and easier to obtain. The thing is that these weapons would for most, be stepping stones to getting whatever current BiS weapons are. They've done this many times in the past, I don't know why people are so adamant about not doing this for lionheart weapons, except like I said, to keep the status quo as it is.
4
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
As far as I understand the discussion, most casual and semi-casual players (including players that have been bis at some point, but don't have the time to remain bis currently) are ok with the fact, that they cannot obtain the best endgame gear due to time constraints. What they would like, though, and I think that is a respectable opinion as well: - Have alternative ways to get gear that is not bis, but close enough to bis, so that they can play through all except the hardest content the way they like (e.g. with less challenge, e.g. "dumbed down and borring in your polite words)
Correct me if I'm missing something here but I'm going to oversimplify this.
• Group BiS can beat ToMM and get Lionheart • Group NotBiS can't beat ToMM but wish they could get gear that was close to BiS gear through alternative means.
So we're, in this case, talking about Lionheart weapons and ToMM rings.
One can easily argue the clear alternative to BiS Lionheart weapons are the Burnished/Alabaster/Watcher weapons. All attainable through means that don't involve ToMM. All the next step down.
People don't want weapons that are the next step down because they're already there. They're arguing for weapons that are almost identical to BiS options without being challenged.
And as far as the rings go.
Legendary rings are BiS. If you can't run ToMM the alternatives include: • buy them from the AH for a hefty fee (depending on which you want). • buy the epic version for a much cheaper and very affordable price • use the next step down, ebonized, etc, available through grinding
So again, there are multiple alternatives to the BiS legendary rings that are almost as good.
It seems to me that the game already caters to this: "Have alternative ways to get gear that is not bis, but close enough to bis, so that they can play through all except the hardest content the way they like"
A lot of people don't really understand that weapon damage is a major factor here, alabaster/burnished are not alternatives to Lionheart, they are alternatives to each other. I could care less about the rings, leave those in ToMM, the epic ones are cheap enough and damn near as good as the legendary ones (bragging rights).
The only reason I could see in defending a stance in keeping the hardest content in the game available for fewer people is to maintain current status quo, and I doubt that is good for the game moving forward, as the current status quo is part of what got us to start discussing how to make the game better in the first place.
One would think the actual point of keeping the hardest content in the game hard is so people have something to work towards.
I guess the devs didn't realize how many players would have an issue trying to improve and work towards a goal in a game where everyone could just walk through new content the first weekend.
We've talked about the current status quo in this and the previous cdp, they control the markets, and who gains access to group content by setting certain constraints on who they will invite; There are very few people doing "training" runs. It benefits the current status quo to limit the number of people running the latest content so they can further control the market.
Having alternatives to Lionheart weapons wouldn't mean players could steam roll new content, there are a lot of other factors in being effective. I'm not saying to make ToMM easier at all, I'm saying to give us alternatives to the BiS weapon set that is comparable. They could have new MW weaps, not easy or cheap to attain, and maybe something that's like the pioneer weaps, that is a little cheaper and easier to obtain. The thing is that these weapons would for most, be stepping stones to getting whatever current BiS weapons are. They've done this many times in the past, I don't know why people are so adamant about not doing this for lionheart weapons, except like I said, to keep the status quo as it is.
Except they are an alternative, because anyone can do the maths on it and the difference in weapon damage is 2%...
Feedback Overview Reward Quality and Time Spent - Random Queues (RQs)
Feedback Goal Random Queues are likely the content, that is run by almost every non-bis player. The topic of "reward quality and time spent in RQs" did not receive much notice in this thread so far. I think it is a very important topic for the silent minority, that seldom or never posts on the forums (casual and new players). The objective is to make the dev team aware about issues - from the perspective of an underrepresented group
Feedback Functionality
Currently, there is a huge discrepancy between the time and effort spent and the rewards obtained. This is particularly true for the dungeon queues (epic and leveling), partly for the skirmish queue, not so much for the trial queue. Scaling has negatively contributed to this discrepancy (but I will not talk about scaling here)
As an example, lets talk about the epic dungeon queue. I do not even run it anymore, because: - difficulty level between the dungeons varies dramatically - rewards (except rAD) are useless (even for "new" players in the range 70-80) - no sense of progression: old low tier dungeons like Malabog's Castle (MC) are more tedious, time-consuming and "difficult" than mid-tier dungeons like Castle Never (CN)
If you put all dungeons into a single queue, the rewards and difficulty must be similar. If the difficulty differs from one dungeon to the next, there must be a well-defined difficulty progression, that is easy to understand for a new player Currently this is not the case.
Potential solutions: - rewards should be streamlined, for instance: - remove all old chests (with useless rewards) - have new chests, that give the same rewards for every dungeon (simplest possible version) - more complicated version: have three tiers of rewards, depending on the average time spent to complete and the average failure rate - the loottable(s) for the new chest need to be updated every mod, to remain relevant - if there is only a single chest (simple version), a single loottable needs to be updated every mod - if there are three tiers of rewards (70%, 80%, 90%), three loottables need to be updated - the new chest(s) must contain rewards that are meaningful for the current mod - not bis-items (100% - those should be reserved for completion of the dungeon of the current mod) - but items that are close to bis (in the range 70%-90% of the "power" of bis items).
Risks & Concerns
None that I can think of, except: bis-players might be upset, that casuals can catch up to 70-90% of their power too quickly
We've talked about the current status quo in this and the previous cdp, they control the markets, and who gains access to group content by setting certain constraints on who they will invite; There are very few people doing "training" runs. It benefits the current status quo to limit the number of people running the latest content so they can further control the market.
Having alternatives to Lionheart weapons wouldn't mean players could steam roll new content, there are a lot of other factors in being effective. I'm not saying to make ToMM easier at all, I'm saying to give us alternatives to the BiS weapon set that is comparable. They could have new MW weaps, not easy or cheap to attain, and maybe something that's like the pioneer weaps, that is a little cheaper and easier to obtain. The thing is that these weapons would for most, be stepping stones to getting whatever current BiS weapons are. They've done this many times in the past, I don't know why people are so adamant about not doing this for lionheart weapons, except like I said, to keep the status quo as it is.
What does the status quo have to do with anything? I'm still running ToMM without Lionhearts (damn you RNG give me my pally MH already!). The group I run with regularly cycles in1-2 people. Our core don't all have Lionheart. We still manage beat it.
The so called status quo groups you keep complaining about didn't stop us from beating it. We made our own group. We learned the mechanics. We put in the work. We're not all BiS. Did we heavily invest into our toons? Yes. But you don't have to be all ranked up to 15s to beat it.
Make your own training groups and stop complaining about the status quo making it impossible for anyone else to get in on the action. My point was that nothing is stopping players from improving and doing it themselves. The only one preventing players from getting into a group are the players not making their own group.
This is the same story every time something is too hard for certain players. "oh the BiS crowd are the only ones that can beat Edemo/FBI/CR/etc." The argument holds as much weight now as it has in every one of those mods.
As far as I understand the discussion, most casual and semi-casual players (including players that have been bis at some point, but don't have the time to remain bis currently) are ok with the fact, that they cannot obtain the best endgame gear due to time constraints. What they would like, though, and I think that is a respectable opinion as well: - Have alternative ways to get gear that is not bis, but close enough to bis, so that they can play through all except the hardest content the way they like (e.g. with less challenge, e.g. "dumbed down and borring in your polite words)
Correct me if I'm missing something here but I'm going to oversimplify this.
• Group BiS can beat ToMM and get Lionheart • Group NotBiS can't beat ToMM but wish they could get gear that was close to BiS gear through alternative means.
So we're, in this case, talking about Lionheart weapons and ToMM rings.
One can easily argue the clear alternative to BiS Lionheart weapons are the Burnished/Alabaster/Watcher weapons. All attainable through means that don't involve ToMM. All the next step down.
People don't want weapons that are the next step down because they're already there. They're arguing for weapons that are almost identical to BiS options without being challenged.
And as far as the rings go.
Legendary rings are BiS. If you can't run ToMM the alternatives include: • buy them from the AH for a hefty fee (depending on which you want). • buy the epic version for a much cheaper and very affordable price • use the next step down, ebonized, etc, available through grinding
So again, there are multiple alternatives to the BiS legendary rings that are almost as good.
It seems to me that the game already caters to this: "Have alternative ways to get gear that is not bis, but close enough to bis, so that they can play through all except the hardest content the way they like"
A lot of people don't really understand that weapon damage is a major factor here, alabaster/burnished are not alternatives to Lionheart, they are alternatives to each other. I could care less about the rings, leave those in ToMM, the epic ones are cheap enough and damn near as good as the legendary ones (bragging rights).
The only reason I could see in defending a stance in keeping the hardest content in the game available for fewer people is to maintain current status quo, and I doubt that is good for the game moving forward, as the current status quo is part of what got us to start discussing how to make the game better in the first place.
One would think the actual point of keeping the hardest content in the game hard is so people have something to work towards.
I guess the devs didn't realize how many players would have an issue trying to improve and work towards a goal in a game where everyone could just walk through new content the first weekend.
We've talked about the current status quo in this and the previous cdp, they control the markets, and who gains access to group content by setting certain constraints on who they will invite; There are very few people doing "training" runs. It benefits the current status quo to limit the number of people running the latest content so they can further control the market.
Having alternatives to Lionheart weapons wouldn't mean players could steam roll new content, there are a lot of other factors in being effective. I'm not saying to make ToMM easier at all, I'm saying to give us alternatives to the BiS weapon set that is comparable. They could have new MW weaps, not easy or cheap to attain, and maybe something that's like the pioneer weaps, that is a little cheaper and easier to obtain. The thing is that these weapons would for most, be stepping stones to getting whatever current BiS weapons are. They've done this many times in the past, I don't know why people are so adamant about not doing this for lionheart weapons, except like I said, to keep the status quo as it is.
Except they are an alternative, because anyone can do the maths on it and the difference in weapon damage is 2%...
It's 3% on TR's. I'm sure there is more to the story then just 2%-3% more weapon damage = 2%-3% more dps, there is a whole formula, you know this. Also the statement that the buff is about 5% difference is misleading, 5% more power doesn't equal 5% more dps, and not to mention I think it's based on unbuffed power, but I haven't bothered checking it out other than glancing at my character sheet when the burnished buff procs. In my experience, with the same class, and power levels, a TR with Lionheart weapons can consistently do ~20% more damage than me with burnished weapons.
If your main concern is that alternatives would mean people wouldn't run ToMM, past experience has proved otherwise with different sets and dungeons.
Even if there isn't a significant difference in dps between Lionheart and Burnished, perception matters, especially with the way people invite others into difficult group content.
As far as I understand the discussion, most casual and semi-casual players (including players that have been bis at some point, but don't have the time to remain bis currently) are ok with the fact, that they cannot obtain the best endgame gear due to time constraints. What they would like, though, and I think that is a respectable opinion as well: - Have alternative ways to get gear that is not bis, but close enough to bis, so that they can play through all except the hardest content the way they like (e.g. with less challenge, e.g. "dumbed down and borring in your polite words)
Correct me if I'm missing something here but I'm going to oversimplify this.
• Group BiS can beat ToMM and get Lionheart • Group NotBiS can't beat ToMM but wish they could get gear that was close to BiS gear through alternative means.
So we're, in this case, talking about Lionheart weapons and ToMM rings.
One can easily argue the clear alternative to BiS Lionheart weapons are the Burnished/Alabaster/Watcher weapons. All attainable through means that don't involve ToMM. All the next step down.
People don't want weapons that are the next step down because they're already there. They're arguing for weapons that are almost identical to BiS options without being challenged.
And as far as the rings go.
Legendary rings are BiS. If you can't run ToMM the alternatives include: • buy them from the AH for a hefty fee (depending on which you want). • buy the epic version for a much cheaper and very affordable price • use the next step down, ebonized, etc, available through grinding
So again, there are multiple alternatives to the BiS legendary rings that are almost as good.
It seems to me that the game already caters to this: "Have alternative ways to get gear that is not bis, but close enough to bis, so that they can play through all except the hardest content the way they like"
A lot of people don't really understand that weapon damage is a major factor here, alabaster/burnished are not alternatives to Lionheart, they are alternatives to each other. I could care less about the rings, leave those in ToMM, the epic ones are cheap enough and damn near as good as the legendary ones (bragging rights).
The only reason I could see in defending a stance in keeping the hardest content in the game available for fewer people is to maintain current status quo, and I doubt that is good for the game moving forward, as the current status quo is part of what got us to start discussing how to make the game better in the first place.
One would think the actual point of keeping the hardest content in the game hard is so people have something to work towards.
I guess the devs didn't realize how many players would have an issue trying to improve and work towards a goal in a game where everyone could just walk through new content the first weekend.
We've talked about the current status quo in this and the previous cdp, they control the markets, and who gains access to group content by setting certain constraints on who they will invite; There are very few people doing "training" runs. It benefits the current status quo to limit the number of people running the latest content so they can further control the market.
Having alternatives to Lionheart weapons wouldn't mean players could steam roll new content, there are a lot of other factors in being effective. I'm not saying to make ToMM easier at all, I'm saying to give us alternatives to the BiS weapon set that is comparable. They could have new MW weaps, not easy or cheap to attain, and maybe something that's like the pioneer weaps, that is a little cheaper and easier to obtain. The thing is that these weapons would for most, be stepping stones to getting whatever current BiS weapons are. They've done this many times in the past, I don't know why people are so adamant about not doing this for lionheart weapons, except like I said, to keep the status quo as it is.
Except they are an alternative, because anyone can do the maths on it and the difference in weapon damage is 2%...
It's 3% on TR's. I'm sure there is more to the story then just 2%-3% more weapon damage = 2%-3% more dps, there is a whole formula, you know this. Also the statement that the buff is about 5% difference is misleading, 5% more power doesn't equal 5% more dps, and not to mention I think it's based on unbuffed power, but I haven't bothered checking it out other than glancing at my character sheet when the burnished buff procs. In my experience, with the same class, and power levels, a TR with Lionheart weapons can consistently do ~20% more damage than me with burnished weapons.
If your main concern is that alternatives would mean people wouldn't run ToMM, past experience has proved otherwise with different sets and dungeons.
Even if there isn't a significant difference in dps between Lionheart and Burnished, perception matters, especially with the way people invite others into difficult group content.
The difference in damage between the 2 weapons is negligible, when I first acquired the weapons on live I made a thread complaining about it. Anyone who takes the time to do the maths will realize that. You cannot notice the difference between someone who is using them and someone who is using burnished.
You know what perception issue exists? The perception issue right now, where there is someone in this thread arguing a gap of at at most 7% should be closed, which is smaller than the variance on weapons.
We've talked about the current status quo in this and the previous cdp, they control the markets, and who gains access to group content by setting certain constraints on who they will invite; There are very few people doing "training" runs. It benefits the current status quo to limit the number of people running the latest content so they can further control the market.
Having alternatives to Lionheart weapons wouldn't mean players could steam roll new content, there are a lot of other factors in being effective. I'm not saying to make ToMM easier at all, I'm saying to give us alternatives to the BiS weapon set that is comparable. They could have new MW weaps, not easy or cheap to attain, and maybe something that's like the pioneer weaps, that is a little cheaper and easier to obtain. The thing is that these weapons would for most, be stepping stones to getting whatever current BiS weapons are. They've done this many times in the past, I don't know why people are so adamant about not doing this for lionheart weapons, except like I said, to keep the status quo as it is.
What does the status quo have to do with anything? I'm still running ToMM without Lionhearts (damn you RNG give me my pally MH already!). The group I run with regularly cycles in1-2 people. Our core don't all have Lionheart. We still manage beat it.
The so called status quo groups you keep complaining about didn't stop us from beating it. We made our own group. We learned the mechanics. We put in the work. We're not all BiS. Did we heavily invest into our toons? Yes. But you don't have to be all ranked up to 15s to beat it.
Make your own training groups and stop complaining about the status quo making it impossible for anyone else to get in on the action. My point was that nothing is stopping players from improving and doing it themselves. The only one preventing players from getting into a group are the players not making their own group.
This is the same story every time something is too hard for certain players. "oh the BiS crowd are the only ones that can beat Edemo/FBI/CR/etc." The argument holds as much weight now as it has in every one of those mods.
Not everyone wants to be a leader. If there weren't players like me looking to join groups, no groups would form because everyone would be a leader. Not everyone is lucky enough to be in a guild or an alliance that has enough player that are ready to run ToMM, not to mention that I live on the other side of the world from most of my alliance members, timing never works out. Which means I need to look elsewhere.
Honestly, I think the timing on difficult content couldn't have been worse, when most of the veteran players have left.
Comments
Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback)
Current rewards in the mind of a new player are quickly render obsolete, and therefore not worth the time/effort/money to acquire.
Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish)
Bring more meaning to rewards, or replace obsoleted gear with better items/ something useful such as AD, or ???
Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter)
Not sure how it would work in current design, as some items appear to be deeply embedded.
As someone whose has only 2 years into the game, I still have fresh memories of doing some of the campaigns. I did like getting new better gear when I completed a task, however it quickly became apparent that the bonuses(individual or set) were basically worthless once you finished the campaign. Case in point, the Sunset weapons from Barovia, not worth the effort once you finish the campaign. Also I avoided(and still do) any item that requires a "fuel"(such as voninblod, or black ice) to maintain it's bonus. Again, not worth the effort. I would like to see less rewards that require me to farm to maintain it, or farm to restore it. As a weekend warrior I barely have time to finish a mod before the next one is released. And someone starting from scratch, as a weekend warrior will find the task of getting to the latest content a nearly insurmountable task if they are trying to do so as a F2P player. I don't know too many people willing to spend $200.00 plus to buy all the buyout tokens in their first few weeks, especially when they are not an account wide unlock.
Which leads me to this, once a campaign is completed on one toon, it should be complete for all toons on that account. There is no point(other than for marginal boons) to run multiple toons thru each campaign when the story is exactly the same fo every single character class, and race. I enjoyed replaying the original Baldurs gate and its' sequel, as different classes, and alignments as the story was different everytime. Sure the end may have been the same(it's been awhile since I played it) but the journey was always different. In Neverwinter it becomes the same stuff different toon.
I for one would like to see greater rewards for the time/effort put in. Right now with a paladin with 67 boon points, the rewards form the last 2 mods have been largely lackluster. I also would prefer to see a rewards store for gear and such rather than having to run a million expeditions to get the gear I want.
And all, ALL rewards from all content, and I mean everything, should be unbound on pickup. I have gotten several comps, and mounts from events such as tales, cta, winterfest, etc... that are duplicates of what I already have, and are bound cahracter so they are worthless to me, cuz I can't equip them to an alt, nor can I sell them for AD. Once an item has been equipped, it should be account bound only, especially mounts and comps. Again, I have an overabundance of comps, or mounts on one toon that I now can't move to my alts(this was possible when I started playing, I remember moving at least 2 comps, and one mount to an alt after my main had better ones. I also want to sell all my vanity pets, I have no use for them, they are a trash reward IMHO, and I don't want or need 500 goristro pets.
Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum)
Making people mad for who knows what reason they might get mad for. Potentially unbalance the game(not that it has good balance now), damaging the in game econmoy. I'm sure I left something out, but I don't usually take notes about what I do and don't like about the state of the game, or how any ptoential changes I would like see could affect the game, while I'm in game...
Some players are saying the BiS gear is too hard to obtain and should be obtainable (or have a lesser counterpart obtainable) from an easier way. Those against them say that BiS gear should only be found in the hardest content available. This is sort of a compromise between the two.
Feedback Goal
BiS gear will still be exclusive to those who complete challenge but add a tradable "excellent consumable rewards" box to the "hardest content" chest. This way the BiS crowd get to show off their shineys but still can help others complete the dungeon, even if not by personally carrying anyone, by trading those other consumables on auction. The tradables should also be that good to that even after they complete their BiS set, they would still want to rerun the content.
Feedback Functionality
Adding the "excellent consumable rewards box" which should drop 100% of the time will need to be added to the loot table. When opening the box players can pick one item from a list what will help them most (all of which are obviously temporary and all bound to the character that opened them). What actual form these would take would be up to the devs but here are some ideas to get started:
-30 minutes temporary mainhand / offhand.
-Hellpit 10 minute shield ability
-Hellpit 10 minute regeneration
-Revive scrolls
-Grenades (Stun/Damage/whatever)
-Icon of Major Blessing (HPx5000 as temp hp)
-Icon of Major Curse (debuff where targetted enemy suffers lost HP in addition to damage)
-Summon Elminster to one shot kill everything
-Yeah obviously the last three are jokes. Why so serious? :P
There's just one caveat with the "excellent consumable rewards box": Characters who have finished the dungeon where it drops cannot open them, forcing them to trade it.
Risks & Concerns
Nothing guarantees that people won't just burn the boxes out of spite and elitism, but enough should make it through to the market - more and more as people complete the content - and the price will balance out. Obviously, the whole thing needs to start again with a new "even more excellent consumable rewards box" should an "even more hardest content!!1!" zone appear. Yes that was terrible grammar. Sorry.
A system that rewards player after completing x number of dungeons/skirmishes/trials.
Feedback Goal
Encouraging people to run more dungeons/skirmishes/trials and rewarding them.
Feedback Functionality
Duration: Weekly
3 of each queue (3 dungeons / 3 skirmishes / 3 trials) will be displayed randomly every week. Each type will reward you with a number of 5 / 10 Progression Points that are added on your weekly progression bar and unlock a number of 4 rewards.
The progression bar will be splited in 4, and each require 25 completion points to unlock one reward.
From Dungeons type queue you may not get more than 25 progression points per week. ( 5 per run)
From Skirmish type queue you may not get more than 25 progression points per week. (5 per run)
From Trials type queue you may not get more than 50 progression points per week. (5 per run)
You may get no more than 100 progression points every week.
Every week the bar will be reseted and another 3 of each type of queue will randomly be available to choose from.
The system should not be integrated in daily random queue.
Risks & Concerns
The rewards should match the effort of completing a total number of 15 queues otherwise the system won't be relevant and enjoyable.
The random queues should have the same difficulty and should take similar time to be completed otherwise players will always choose the easyest and shortest one to complete. I don't mind if there will be some kind of challenges added to this system as long as the rewards will worth the effort.
The rewards should be BTA and the Progression Bar should be account wide. That means if you want to continue to fill your progression bar, you may do that with any of your toon as long as he is eligible for the content.
BTA will keep items to not be devalued on the market, and the rewards should be consumables like reagents, pres wards,
companion tokens and a kind of currency that allows the player to obtain miscelaneous goodies like Epic Mounts, Companions, Appearence Items.
How many times have players from all of these classes complained about just being poorly adjusted in the MOD 16 preview? The players in these classes who continued to train and fail are indeed winners, perhaps even more than the groups with 4.5 or 6 CW that performed in the first weeks.
> (Quote)
> What would a BIS group be? I must imagine that it is a group where there was no SW GF GWF and DC dps, since you referred to "NOW" they are doing well. The "NOW" are 2 modules after Mod 16, 1 after Mod 17. Almost 9 months. Even though we promised that the adjustments would be faster.
>
> How many times have players from all of these classes complained about just being poorly adjusted in the MOD 16 preview? The players in these classes who continued to train and fail are indeed winners, perhaps even more than the groups with 4.5 or 6 CW that performed in the first weeks.
So you are saying we cant have rewarding and hard content because the devs are unable to balance all classes? Or what is yout point?
Pay to win, is acces with real money to items or things that are only avaliable with real money and not with ingame currency.
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In no time did I get into the topic difficult conten. All I questioned was the fact that he cited disadvantaged classes in mod 16 as not Bis, as they are "at this moment and doing just fine."
Maybe I got it wrong, just as I'm sure you got my post wrong.
> (Quote)
>
> In no time did I get into the topic difficult conten. All I questioned was the fact that he cited disadvantaged classes in mod 16 as not Bis, as they are "at this moment and doing just fine."
>
> Maybe I got it wrong, just as I'm sure you got my post wrong.
Im fairly certain sharp was talking about Gear when he said not BIS, and not classes.
I agree with Jules, alternate activities could help grow the game, and of course rewards are a key part of this, but what rewards:
- Could be an alternative?
- Not skew the desire for the top items, but possibly enhance the desire for them?
- Factor in that if they are easily repeatable/findable, they lose their value?
Time limited boosters across all items - mounts, companions, equipment. We have this already in a form with the Overload Enchants on some pieces of equipment and food/potions, but what I am referring to more is crafting and reward drops like the masks from Halloween event. D&D is a magic world, where there is plenty variety from the permanent legendary item (so rare, so expensive!) down to the 1-shot fizzle (common and cheap). The whole point of legendary or mythic is that they are RARE - but we all want one! But, how about a boost to your mount (for example) that will grant it legendary capability - for 1 hr, 1 day, or 1 week? I guarantee we will take/use them, and they will have value - who wouldn't want to be king/queen for a day? OK, plenty wouldn't, but you get my drift!These items (harness for mounts, replacement items for companions/us) could be crafted or chest rewards - the crafting is the same, but the results will vary. You will at the very least produce/find an item equivalent to BiS, but maybe it is the 1 hr version, or the 1-day version, etc. and RARELY - Jackpot!, you make/find the Legendary! I would say that the time-limited items cannot slot gems, but have stats equivalent to a top ring with R15 gems loaded for example, so you would replace your current ring with this one, and when it 'pop's in an hour/day/week, the original is slotted again.
Risks - work required to have temp boosts or temp mounts; the work in making time-limited versions (but you only have to focus on the BiS initially and going forward, not everything); game cannot handle multiple timers on various items. Danger that someone slots all short-term items and is left naked when they pop
Goal - create rewards that have short-term high value, but leave us wanting more - the more permanent version! The shorter lower-value timed items would be available in older content, while the week-long version would be in the latest content. Allows weekend warriors the chance to feel like meaningful contribution, while still trying to obtain permanent better stuff. Allows crafting to be viable, but not overpowering.
Might is not always right - the powerful sometimes forget that.
The Small Bandcurrently the crafting system is not shining, masterwork have old recipe and 'normal' crafting have not so useful gear.
Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish)
make crafting a nice way to get useful gear so that veteran player can use again the workshop for crafting and new player can find useful invest in upgrading the professions, and both can use the crafted gear.
Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter)
masterwork
in my opinion masterwork came from the stronghold so it should be bound to it, meaning: strongholds were (and are) a content developed for group of people to play, so the gear you craft with masterwork should be too.
what player craft, for it to sell/be used, should be at the same level of the gear released within the last mod (in term of pure stat point) for every mod, and should have power that work for party, like the compy or the auras of paladin, for examples : X ring of the guild 'you get x when you are z or nearer to another party member, if other in your party wear a guild ring you get an additional y increase' .
where x can be power, hp, defense, critical avoidance, damage resistance, outgoing healing, damage dealt, damage/heal shared between the party, whatever come to mind but with a limitation that you need to be in a party for it to work and companion should not be counted in the party.
to craft the new gear one should need item that came from the stronghold (like it is, vendor for masterwork), new content (put a material as a reward of killing a zone boss/hunt) and dungeon (in chest and/or boss drop), end gamer run new content and get the best dungeon gear (ideally)
normal crafting
a high level is attainable to all player (given a little bit of time, on a new character i reached lvl 50 in a profession in 3-4 days), it can be used to get gear that is not dungeon gated, but RNG gated: for examples : the ebonized ring, i run me and still don't get it, when i complete the campaign (with all the boons) i automatically get the recipe for the workshop to craft stuff that may come from me but to craft them i need campaign currency, ad, stuff that come from where the item should drop (in this case the rune etchling that usually you trade with zok is a good example, one per every type) and naturally classic crafting material in the right combination for each piece (an armor may meed more etchling an campaign currency than an helmet and a ring)
same thing with the companion gear, i need to unlock tomm (complete mod 17) and get thing from the we and fe to craft different tier of companion gear (need the introduction of another item in the expedition end chest for the craft)
the item crafted is account bound because you don't craft it to make ad, but to build you character without all the grind for not-so-bis item, and there is the need to complete the campaign and play content to craft thing.
the above picked up as examples the gear, but it can be applied to weapon and potion too: a new stronghold weapon and neck-belt set, new extraordinary potion for group content (always a party limitation), and mod 15 and 16 introduced a couple of interesting potion (the one that give you movement speed, critical severity, heroism, temporary hp)
Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum)
-guild pieces will have a high price and shine only in party (but that is a good thing right? they aren't needed for simple pve play and are powerful so buy if you want to be farm a high level dungeon)
-the introduction of campaign currency in the crafting system, i don't know if it's an easy thing but if we can use gold and ad, we used black ice, it should be doable.
i'm not that good at foresee problems that may come from my ideas, but i don't see any other in this one
If you think that the weapons make that big of a difference, you are deluding yourself. Making the gap any closer than it already is and the weapons may as well be identical, at which point there is no reason to run ToMM. Non BiS group as in both the equipment they were wearing was very non optimal (not R15s, no legendary mounts, etc) and the class composition was composed of GWF's, TR's, etc and they were completing it during M17, not just now after the changes, it just took them longer to learn the fight. They practiced ToMM every day in the evening, until they got it done.
Yes, the majority of the work (99.5%) will be an imitation of the real thing, but people will pay for an illusion... just less for a shorter-lasting one.
Might is not always right - the powerful sometimes forget that.
The Small Banddungeon reward are lacking, we are a 'little' tired of getting a peridot for completing lomm
Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish)
propose an idea for getting better reward from dungeon
Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter)
dungeon are run by 3 type of ppl: A)the one that want ad, B)the one that want stuff specifically from that dungeon, and C) ppl who would like to enjoy a dungeon with friend/guild mates and the possibility of a reward after a more or less complicated dungeon.
A) they want only ad, the random queue system is perfect, run those dg get 100k rad and done
B and C are not so easy.
my idea is to create a place in pe for dungeon exploration.
B&C) like the hunt system, they run the dungeon normally (every dungeon save the leveling ones) in the chest you get a coin for the dungeoneer.
you go to the dungeoneer and there with the coin you choose some limitation to get better stuff from the dungeon that you will run (need a party with the number needed for the dungeon or trial).
-examples of limitation may be: no rp, no ad in chest, noone can die, complete the dungeon under x min, stat diminuited (by x%), enchantment not working (weapon, armor, atk,def,utility) , mount insignia and mount insignia bonuses not working, can't use artifatc, pet not working etc
-examples of gain for item needed for campaign :
tuern, prophecy of madness,throne of the dwarven king : increase probability to get the tome needed for the campaign boon (after 50 run by the dungeoneer you can buy one form him)
-examples of general gain: you get 10k/20k/30k rp, you can get a rank 10/11 base enchantment, you can get a rank 10 armor enchantment, you can get a rank 10 weapon enchantment, you can get a rank 10 runestone, increase the probability to get preservation wars, increase the probability to get a coalescent ward, increase the probability to get a green/blue/purple companion,increase the probability to get a blue/purple mount, choice your item type from random tier, item is bound to account (run tomm you get a +4 ring, you choose which +4 of all the +4 you can get from tomm, the item is bta) (probably the best and hardest gain i think) etc
the general gain shall depend on the tier of the dungeon and tier of linitation: for examples if i run elol for the rp bonus i'll get only 10k, if i run tong for the rp bonus i'll get 30k, if i run valindra's tower for the enchantment r10 i'll get a 3% probability to get one, and if i do that in cr the probability may rise up to 15%.
each gain is bound to a limitation, a simple gain to an easy limitation (no ad --> 20k rp), an interesting gain to an hard limitation (you can get a rank 10/11 base enchantment -->enchantment not working).
you can put up to 3 limitation on each run, the first will cost 3 dungeoneer coin, the second 6 the third 9.
Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum)
i put numbers and percentages, but i don't know if they are high or low , i hope that my idea is clear.
pro:
-you make old dungeons rewarding again, ensuring low level player to get what they want with a little less grinding, and giving a little challenge for veteran player to get nice thing
-harder dungeons will be nice challenges for endgamer, with a not so bad probability of a reward
-you can even get some title for completing a certain number of dungeon with the same limitation (searching for the same thing) or with different limitation, and special ones for ppl who completed a hard content one with a hard limitation.
concerns:
-all of this need a stable scaling so that player aren't underperforming in lower dungeons (can smoothly run them without a limitation)
-the implementation need a lot of work, to change the loot table, probability to get particular items, limitation to the player etc
-the real problem is that there is no certainty that ppl will use this method, i mean yes, you can get almost anything from the dungeon with a clear increase of probability and difficulty, but how many ppl will actually run them, the best would be that both the endgamer and casual player
enjoy the system, and that endgamer will not 'farm' low lever dg with limitation but go to harder one, and casual player can run them , so a careful balancing between limitation put, probability of gain, scaling, and difficulty contents.
-what you get should be unbound (if in the normal dungeon that item drop would be unbound), but if the system work there is a possibility that teese thing will saturate the ah? (other problem without a careful balance)
conclusion
i haven't played the hunt because at that times i was too weak, but all the people that played them loved them; same thing for master expeditions.
to get the dungeon more rewarding and challenging, make an hunt system where the player choose what to hunt (item, enchantment,refinemet, masterwork material,etc) by putting on them some limitation.
my idea can be a completely impossible thing to do, or doable and not working.
the thing is that i'd like to differentiate between: the ones that you get from pve, work always; the ones that you craft with masterwork, only when you are in a party and play together; so that one can consider the crafted ones, they have to have the same stat of the pve ones (crafted with +1 -->same stat, crafted without +1-->less stat) and are difficult to get the material so only the one in the pantheon can earn them if they want.
p.s. i love that name Pantheon of Heroes, it almost seems like something that exist in game, some sort of stone with the name of the player of the 3 first party that completed a dungeon or a trial
Treasure chests with actual rewards. No such thing as junk from chests.
Feedback Goal
Move away from lockboxes and keys. Anything that you can get in the game should be rewarded from playing the game, upon successfully completing contents, and opening treasure chests.
Feedback Functionality
Having a meaningful reward system will quickly augments any class' perceived weaknesses and provide a quick fix to class balancing problems. Nerfing items is always a sweeter pill to take than nerfing classes. Allow the best PvE items to obtain from PvP to quickly revitalize the PvP scene. All items be made possible to drop as BtC, BtA or unbound. Character bound items should always have a higher chance to drop than Account bound items, and Account bound items should have a higher drop chance that unbound items. More set bonuses. Allow all crafted items to take on a random appearance, i.e. different particle effects, different colors, random bonuses, and heavy armor can look like robes, vice versa. All in game items should be craftable - this include companion gears, enchantments, mounts with the BtC/BtA/Unbound concept applying here too. Consolidate all tokens into a single currency that can be exchanged for all items and made this new currency drop from chests to allow player to slowly work their way towards their goal even if RnG doesn't favor them. Allow items to be salvage into this new currency and refinement points. Have random time-limited events (24/7 and not tied to Xmas or halloween etc) with guaranteed reward drop and publicized these events in game for player to queue them.
Risks & Concerns
Possible loss of revenue from key and zen sales without first finding a suitable replacement revenue model/stream.
1) Dungeon crawls are not NW. Most attempts in the past to get us to spend more time in dungeons failed. I can't afford 3 hours in a dungeon simply because I rarely am online for 3 hours, so let's assume this is just my personal opinion against something I can't do.
2) We won't suddenly get more content, no matter how often we shout into the void how more content would solve our problems (not what I think, but I get it. Not everybody enjoys the game the way I do) so, no; I do not want trash gear that I have to patch up with gems to be ok-ish. I want trade, I want a way to make guilds/alliance involved in the farming process, I want people to actually DO some stuff in this game instead of "anybody for RTQ???"
I want to be able to talk about: Where do I get this from? Which boss drops that? Do you have any? Not: Anybody noticed where Juma is now?
I want Trapper gear, not Ranger gear. (No, I do not want gear trapped to one paragon. Personally, I do not see much reason to have class specific gear at all if we already do not care for their individuality.) I want depth in how gear supports which kind dmg best (I can only talk about dps, its better this way
3) For me, personally: Economy and economy-related ways to make AD is what I like better, in some cases, than running the new dungeon as fast as I can just because it got out now and everybody is talking about it cmon cmon cmon juuuules lets try to run this as fast as we can - I just can't. This is not what I wanna do for an hour in the evening. On weekend/holidays, yeah, lets do it... Alright.
But, my personal preferences aside (I will try, at least) do you dislike gear customization as well? In a way like others proposed, like @krailov on this page? Farming a handful of dungeons for 1 bis set up that is bis along all ranged dps/ all melee dps / all tanks / all healers seperately, is this the thing?
I wouldn't enjoy that (personal preference from here on.. didn't work long) but I want to see the point that I'm obviously missing.
You seem like you want to broadcast your endgame gear as a way of saying "Yo my main and xyz alt ran the latest content, I'm a beast", I want to be able to farm dungeons I like and trade/exchange with other players that like to run different dungeons.
I just don't WANT to do some stuff. Do I have to do it as a part of some sort of endgame agenda?
What I can agree on, however: Chult and Barovia Hunts were very enjoyable. I had the BEST time in the game during early Barovia and salvage, of course. I thought salvage to be a much much more engaging way of playing, not because it offered more AD (nothing offers more RAD rn than just doing your RQs with all the other new people that have never set a foot into the campaigns, but can do it nonetheless) but because it felt more like progression. Probably doesn't make sense...
However: Barovia Hunts are very very cool imo. To be able to choose your difficulty and reward levels, if you want to group up, farming and selling posters for hunts, it was cool. I still do them sometimes, mostly for transmutes now.
The developers need to consider what the "end-game" for Neverwinter is.
Players are currently pushed towards the latest released campaign, or sometimes the one previous, to access a bundle of free 'starter' items for that campaign.. Previous campaigns therefore become trivial in terms of both challenge and rewards - with the exception of boons and potentially the weekly legacy campaign quests.
Current design choices (e.g. rewarding a set of 'starter gear') pushes players to go straight to the final zone, as there's little reward for them in the previous campaigns. This short circuits large parts of the developers' own game.
Once the developers have decided what / where the 'end-game' for Neverwinter is, they should design a reward structure appropriate to that.
The Mod 16 solution was to introduce scaling in all campaign zones. But this proved to be very unpopular with the players. Understandably so as players who had already completed these campaigns who then returned to them were now far weaker than they previously were, reversing their progression.
Scaling also introduced a whole host of problems with the dungeons. It would have been FAR better to have done a deep pass on all of them, adjusting their difficulty and making them only available to level 80 players.
Here's an example of what I would consider to be a sensible reward/progression system, involving the earlier campaigns:
You are given a set of bonding runestones of Rank ??. On completion of each campaign, you are given materials to upgrade the Bonding Runestones one rank.
Players who want to just buy materials to upgrade them can do so as they do now, but newer players without bundles of AD can work in-game and progress through older content to upgrade them so they are match-fit for the later campaigns.
This could be adjusted for whatever rewards are deemed appropriate - provided that they are meaningful and aid progression.
Where should the best items be available?
Personally, I think it should be from dungeons / trials. (And I don't think these items should be tradeable with players, or in fact bound-to-account and giftable to alts.)
However, with the exception of potentially the most recent dungeon/trial, this isn't always the case. For example, we have items dropping from random spawn encounters in Avernus. (Previously, we had this in Chult / Barovia / Master Expeditions, etc.)
Previously, we've had the best weapons as being available from mastercrafting, not requiring any PvE play at all. I don't mind mastercrafting having access to make the best weapons, but I think it should require components from the latest dungeon etc. as a crafting reagent. I don't mind if players trade these components via the Auction House.
How do older dungeons and trials fit in to the reward structure
The older dungeons and trials are only run for the AD reward. Understandably, players are therefore keen to run those instances with the shortest completion time and the best chance of success. So you get people leaving CR/CODG/LOMM - even Tiamat.
I'd rather see the dungeons placed in tiers of difficulty / time - with the reward in AD (assuming there are no other changes to rewards) - scaled accordingly. It's plainly ridiculous that the AD daily bonus is the same for running Temple of the Spider as it is Castle Ravenloft.
But at the same time, it's madness for a new level 80 player that has just reached the ilvl to queue for an epic dungeon to be dumped into TONG, without the power to be able to contribute to defeating the souls on the final encounter, or without the power to kill off their mimic on Arcturia.
I think masterwork should be the go to for crafter's as the clues in the name. You should be able to craft any bonus onto any gear. You should be able to upgrade old gears stats in tiers a bit like the chains from chult. This could be achieved using the currency from south seas trading after you have achieved a new level 5 workshop a new store opens up allowing you to use south sea credits to purchase materials in which you use to craft in your workshop to add 5% damage or other useful stuff like extra 5% defense to gear or upgrade gear from 10 gear score to above current bis. This would keep masterwork relevant as each new mod can add new mats to the new south seas store to increase the stat levels further to the new levels. Going further on down that line you could even have bonuses being added to mastercraft gear that do not stack that circumvent the caps ie critical strike is 50% cap but you could add a 5% bonus to one piece of gear but once added to your head it can't be added to any other piece of gear in that loadout etc. I think dungeons could drop masterwork resources as it allows non mastercrafters an alternative income source and an easy alternative to end chest rewards than refinement. The method of upgrading also gives normal crafting usefulness as it brings back non mastercrafters making money by being part of the supply chain. Make tier one masterwork materials craftable by everyone as makes professions rewardable.
Make mounts upgradable like companions using a insignia like system whereby (x green mounts + x blue mounts + x epic mounts = 1 x upgraded legendary mount) these could have stats of 7500 and a mount speed of 125% which is inbetween a epic and legendary so would still keep the value of lockboxes as is just below a legendary but give the auction house a boost as more cannon fodder rewards from dungeon chests ie green and blue mounts would be rewarding as you can upgrade them to increase your stats diversity to help cap the stats on your character.
Skill nodes should drop potions etc. with a 0.1% chance to give high level potions from mastercraft to make them worthwhile using gold to open them.
Give the ability to exchange gear or professions mats for guild marks at a special new vendor as level 20 guilds are maxed out in those coffers and will make running dungeons for these rewards actually rewarding.
The ability rolls on the main hand and offhand should be rolled out to all gear via basic crafting and would utilize the cube of augmentation which could drop in dungeons or be in the new vip store etc.
Give us better items in the trade bars store as the choice currently is scrolls or health stones.
Use the dungeon chest rewards system in the low level dungeons to increase guild boon stats or even boons stats with special items that only level 80 characters drop from the chest to encourage endgame players to play with lower level players to help level them up whilst increasing their own stats via RNG drops in end chests which you need a complete set of upgrade materials for each type of boon. ie power boon needs blue stone, red stone and purple stone where as hp boon need pink stone, blue stone and white stone etc. and guild boons need x blue stones, x white stones and so on for one tier upgrade. Or make them drop like a watcher a rare rng enemy that could only spawn at the end of cloak tower or cragmire crypts etc. to encourage rerunning old dungeons and content.
Have a rewards system for helping new players as a time clock system of grouping with players below level 80. ie once you've played 1 hour with a level x then you get 10 helpers currency that has its own reward store and have legendary mounts / forgehammer of gond in there for 300 hours helping etc. it all helps create a community feel to the game as the old saying goes friends who play together stay together increasing the player base .
Give zen market 100% off tokens mounts/companions as ultra rare drops in dungeon chests as an incentive to run. Or drop companion tokens / enchanted keys etc.
I enjoy the companion system we have now, and I enjoy the importance of it, however: It really is tough to understand for new players. What is an augment? And which companions are? I send them a link to rainers wiki because, how often can you talk about that? Then they are confused by the very extensive wiki ... This is something the game HAS to explain. How companions work, how the new slots work, that you have to pay attention what type the companion is because you only have so many offense slots... This is, I feel, not self-explanatory. How do stats transfer, what are bonding runestones? Sure: read the tooltips, hover over it, yeah, I know. But it is difficult to explain to people that do not have the funds to buy companions and runestones, that this is the first thing they should invest into. I know that there is some sort of bolster-explanation, but I know that I was hella confused on preview the first time. It is great once you get to know it (and have a few options in your comp inventory) but until you get there: Wtf are those vets talking about?? Why do I have to get a metallic sort of dog that looks weird?? Where does that even come from? (Buy the box, not the bulette pup.. Buy it at epic, not green... The upgrading process is a bit less transparent now than in the old system simply because you have to call the comp you want to upgrade, level it specifically, upgrade it, change back to your summoned comp... Also: Some comps you get as active, only few as summoned. If I have to explain the difference in Energon and Bulette as summoned again..
We've talked about the current status quo in this and the previous cdp, they control the markets, and who gains access to group content by setting certain constraints on who they will invite; There are very few people doing "training" runs. It benefits the current status quo to limit the number of people running the latest content so they can further control the market.
Having alternatives to Lionheart weapons wouldn't mean players could steam roll new content, there are a lot of other factors in being effective. I'm not saying to make ToMM easier at all, I'm saying to give us alternatives to the BiS weapon set that is comparable. They could have new MW weaps, not easy or cheap to attain, and maybe something that's like the pioneer weaps, that is a little cheaper and easier to obtain. The thing is that these weapons would for most, be stepping stones to getting whatever current BiS weapons are. They've done this many times in the past, I don't know why people are so adamant about not doing this for lionheart weapons, except like I said, to keep the status quo as it is.
Reward Quality and Time Spent - Random Queues (RQs)
Feedback Goal
Random Queues are likely the content, that is run by almost every non-bis player.
The topic of "reward quality and time spent in RQs" did not receive much notice in this thread so far.
I think it is a very important topic for the silent minority, that seldom or never posts on the forums (casual and new players).
The objective is to make the dev team aware about issues - from the perspective of an underrepresented group
Feedback Functionality
Currently, there is a huge discrepancy between the time and effort spent and the rewards obtained.
This is particularly true for the dungeon queues (epic and leveling), partly for the skirmish queue, not so much for the trial queue.
Scaling has negatively contributed to this discrepancy (but I will not talk about scaling here)
As an example, lets talk about the epic dungeon queue.
I do not even run it anymore, because:
- difficulty level between the dungeons varies dramatically
- rewards (except rAD) are useless (even for "new" players in the range 70-80)
- no sense of progression: old low tier dungeons like Malabog's Castle (MC) are more tedious, time-consuming and "difficult" than mid-tier dungeons like Castle Never (CN)
If you put all dungeons into a single queue, the rewards and difficulty must be similar.
If the difficulty differs from one dungeon to the next, there must be a well-defined difficulty progression, that is easy to understand for a new player
Currently this is not the case.
Potential solutions:
- rewards should be streamlined, for instance:
- remove all old chests (with useless rewards)
- have new chests, that give the same rewards for every dungeon (simplest possible version)
- more complicated version: have three tiers of rewards, depending on the average time spent to complete and the average failure rate
- the loottable(s) for the new chest need to be updated every mod, to remain relevant
- if there is only a single chest (simple version), a single loottable needs to be updated every mod
- if there are three tiers of rewards (70%, 80%, 90%), three loottables need to be updated
- the new chest(s) must contain rewards that are meaningful for the current mod
- not bis-items (100% - those should be reserved for completion of the dungeon of the current mod)
- but items that are close to bis (in the range 70%-90% of the "power" of bis items).
Risks & Concerns
None that I can think of, except:
bis-players might be upset, that casuals can catch up to 70-90% of their power too quickly
The so called status quo groups you keep complaining about didn't stop us from beating it. We made our own group. We learned the mechanics. We put in the work. We're not all BiS. Did we heavily invest into our toons? Yes. But you don't have to be all ranked up to 15s to beat it.
Make your own training groups and stop complaining about the status quo making it impossible for anyone else to get in on the action. My point was that nothing is stopping players from improving and doing it themselves. The only one preventing players from getting into a group are the players not making their own group.
This is the same story every time something is too hard for certain players. "oh the BiS crowd are the only ones that can beat Edemo/FBI/CR/etc." The argument holds as much weight now as it has in every one of those mods.
If your main concern is that alternatives would mean people wouldn't run ToMM, past experience has proved otherwise with different sets and dungeons.
Even if there isn't a significant difference in dps between Lionheart and Burnished, perception matters, especially with the way people invite others into difficult group content.
Anyway, thankyou for stating the obvious :-)
You know what perception issue exists? The perception issue right now, where there is someone in this thread arguing a gap of at at most 7% should be closed, which is smaller than the variance on weapons.
Honestly, I think the timing on difficult content couldn't have been worse, when most of the veteran players have left.