Masterworks are easily outdated by new rewards, but I have an idea on how to keep them relevant.
Feedback Goal
Keep masterwork equipment up to date, regardless of the module.
Feedback Functionality
Taking Infernal Descent as an example - add an option to the armor/weapons aquired there where you can either "convert to refinement points" (current option) or "dismantle" (new). Dismantling gives a tradable "Avernus Ingot" or whatever you want to call it which can then be given / sold to masterwork crafters.
Crafters can then combine said ingots into an armor upgrade kit that only works on Masterforged stuff, which they can then sell/trade. Using said upgrade kit pushes the Masterforged equipment to the Ilevel and Stat Level of Infernal Descent (slightly better I would imagine actually).
You can even add a push your luck mechanic (ala refinement) if you want, where crafters can masterforge kits together into stronger kits (more and more chance to fail / loss of resources). But an Avernus Upgrade Kit IV is better than a Kit I, and a Kit CM (roman numerals) allows the wearer to punch the demonic ape across the map into the distant demonic siege engine - completing both BHEs at once! Ok I exaggerate, but you get the idea.
Repeat the process per new module.
Risks & Concerns
This is a very high level idea, the dev team would need to work out the nuts and bolts to see if its actually feasible. I don't actually craft stuff myself so I'm really just throwing ideas out there. Also, this is pointless if Cryptic decides to go for a horizontal progression system instead of the current a vertical one.
On the topic of Progression: As there's been some talk of having a horizontal progression system, can we get a show of hands of who here actually wants it? This means your character gets options to be more diverse but NOT more powerful - which is the current vertical system.
Theoretically in a horizontal progression it would be much easier from Cryptic to design new content if they didn't have to worry about players being too weak or too strong. New players (or at least, new level 80s) would also be as strong as old players (or pretty close) and not have a difficulty-wall blocking them from any content.
On the flip side, as someone who enjoys face stomping the once difficult weekly Baphomet and hates having my power taken away by things like scaling (which I feel is really dumb design - your reward for getting stronger is... getting weaker! Congrats!), I don't think I'd actually enjoy a horizontal progression at all. Secondly, if people aren't chasing gear and/or stats, is there enough content to keep them playing?
Hey Joseph,
Thanks for the post. I think we can have both exist in the experience. Also horizontal progression is generally more expensive than vertical progression.
Progression Issue: New players can get lost by the number of campaigns available.
Feedback Goal
Put an optional, easy way to keep players on track.
Feedback Functionality
Designate a guide NPC in Protector's Enclave who is introduced early on to new players. Sgt. Knox or Minsc could fill this role but ideally it should be someone who doesn't give quests / give many quests to be less confusing.
Whoever it is, when this NPC is asked for advice, s/he will simply check the players completed campaign lists and then suggest the oldest unfinished campaign first (unfinished in terms that the boons haven't been earned). "Our soldiers need more help in the Dread Ring," and "You should check what's happening in Barovia" and "Acquisitions Incorporated has requested your aid... again. I am so, very, profoundly sorry." are examples.
How smart you make the NPC depends on your resources too. "I think you should head to Caer-Konig next, after you upgrade your equipment."
Also, some random NPC text should remind people about this new NPC, even if it's unsolicited. Like, wandering NPCs suddenly spout "Hmm, I should check with [guide npc] what I should do today!"
Risks & Concerns
None really as it's just an info spout. It doesn't have to be used at all, but for players who have too many choices maybe having someone make the choice for them is all they really need.
Edit: Actually, there's a much better solution which I'll put as another post - short version is: A "Campaign" Campaign Window. :P
Hi Joseph,
We are actively working toward streamlining the player experience from 1-80 and the relevant systems that are part of it. This is detailed in CDP 1 for your reference. We will add this to our pool of thoughts as we work on the iniatative.
and expecting the Burnished weapon set bonus to be always active is less likely, because it relies on an other character. The Lionheart's effect only diminishes, the Burnished just does not work.
Speak for yourself, I trust the OPs I run with to keep it up 100% of the time.
Also, even -6% DPS is hardly negligible. People will notice it and if your class already underperforms, so you are less likely to be called in for ToMM, that's just an other multiplier on it.
Alsoalso, if it does not matter, then what is the exact problem by giving a new tiered set with "negligible" bonus? Because the majority of the playerbase getting bored out of the game because they can't gear up in any significant way is more on the problem than how easier or less respectable it would make ToMM. Because it doesn't. Players fail, because they die, so tightening the damage gap with ~2% by increasing a tier only pushes in people on the edge.
You just proved what I said, its less than 7%. Incidentally, the difference between the minimum and maximum weapon damage is more than 6%, by quite a lot actually. Players who do not have the set can do more damage than players who do have it simply because they may get lucky on weapon damage rolls. The difference is not noticeable in gameplay.
I bet you if I showed you 10 paingivers+act logs with the same people involved and only 1 of them didn't have the lionheart set where everyone is trying their hardest, you wouldn't be able to figure out who it was.
At the end of the day, the point was, the difference is already minor. If you make the reason 0, you are taking away a chase item = devaluing the effort of the people who went and beat tomm. You want a reward? Fine, add something that does NOT undermine their effort.
Well, I proved nothing, but I corrected your math by 1,05% up, which would actually put the numbers pretty close to 7% and said that relying on an other player where you can lose all of your buff is worse in my opinion than just learning to shift the least. Now, why I won't prove either side is that it's way more effort than reasonable for something that is pretty little of significance.
About the blindfold paingiver, that works up to 10-15%, depending on the classes or even without. So it's a stretch to say that because of that it's negligible.
And, my point was not to give away the chase item, which at some point inevitably have to happen, but that at the moment, people have nothing to chase whatsoever so giving them an insignificant upgrade is at least a thing to do. I would not want a better set than Lionheart, but quickfoots problem that he just left on 10 months of old gear is a problem. I disagree that he should be given a set as good as the Lionheart, but if you say that ~7% is not a big issue, what is your problem to cut it into 5%? It should be more irrevelant.
But more importantly, if your problem is ToMM chase items devaluing, the Lionheart set is the less important part of it. The Mad Mage artifact set is still looks like a third rate option and most people's problem roots in the fact that the legendary rings have a true marginal benefit, just bling, so people undercut others just to get rid of it, sometimes by 75%. Now that's whats undermining the effort and you only would need to be add like 0,5% or 1% to make the legendary rings have more value.
First of all, so you know where I’m coming from : I’m a ‘new’ player, with 6 months under my belt and am currently at VIP Rank 9. As player-type, I tend to get into a game with the content-player mindset, but find myself often reaching towards the end-game, BiS goals.
Feedback Overview
Content/Story streamlined (immersion) and accessible to all.
Character ‘building’ streamlined (tutorials) and the broad strokes should be explained as you level up.
Gear tiered, tied in with tiered content. Best-in-Slot (BiS) exists, but there is a tier below that, that is attainable (via different playstyles) and gives you access/possibility to join in on top tier.
Make crafting great again… Give crafting meaning by letting them craft specialized gear (for specific challenges), appearance items, buff items, … that are actually desirable.
Feedback Goal
The ultimate goal of this feedback is to have rewards that are desirable and attainable for the different types of players, giving them goals and enjoyment chasing those goals.
Feedback Functionality
Risks & Concerns
Obviously the bottom line for any MMO is to have an income (Zen) that warrants its existence AND to have a working and stable in-game economy. Any changes need to keep both of these in mind. (*) How do you keep people spending ZEN ? (1) VIP – the QoL is what you WANT to spend money on. (2) Bragging rights (cool looking stuff – mounts, companions, titles, … character changes (looks like hair, tattoos, pegleg ( 😊 ), … (3) LootBoxes (legal frame…) – containing the bragging rights to keep or sell to others 😊 (4) Other QoL – Bank slots, Inventory (bags/slots), Workshop bagspace/slots, character slots…
(*) How do you keep people spending AD ? Through the AH, lots of my proposals up will increase AH usage and fees will follow, also the collection fee is an AD sink, besides that… you still have a lot of current AD sinks that let you bypass grinds (tokens of patronage, companion upgrades, etc…)
It is easy to think ‘material gain/power gain’ when the word ‘reward’ is uttered, but I think it is much broader than that… That’s why I think you need to take into account the different kinds of players that populate Neverwinter or any MMO for that matter and the reasons they actually (enjoy) play(ing) the game. (These are just the ones I can think of, there may be many more I’m not aware of… also it is most likely that a lot of players fall into different, if not all of these categories, but that does not invalidate the thoughtprocess.)
The top-end player a.k.a BiS-player : These players strive to be the best of the best and will stop at nothing to get even the slightest edge for their character. Rewards needed : Very hard challenges (like ToMM) and bragging rights to show off besting these challenges. How ? Tiered content with Tiered reward structure (BiS items) and Cosmetic rewards (Titles, transmute items, unique skins on mounts/companions, …). Their grinds are besting the hardest content and getting the loot associated with it. (ToMM seems to be a very successful implementation of this, hats off ! I'm just going on hearsay though, I've never actually been there.)
The content player a.k.a ‘I’m the hero of my own story’-player : These players care less about the actual material rewards. (There is always some importance of course, but they are not in the race for BiS.) Instead the want to experience a story and be made part of it. Rewards needed : A good story throughout the leveling/questing. And at max-level, story driven dungeons. Content-wise there is so much good stuff in Neverwinter… but the lack of streamlining destroys the immersion (outleveling zones, campaigns and their stories run out of order, …) How ? Streamline the leveling experience story-wise. (Some players want to rush to level 80 (alts) that’s fine… but there should be an option to experience the story at is was meant to be experienced (turn of xp boosts, …).) Also, let them experience ALL the content. Yes, let them see ToMM… As some have suggested, make an entry level story mode for all content, without the phat loot, without some of the hard mechanics and that makes sense story-wise. (Don’t let them solo Halaster Blackcloak with a rusty dagger and come out on top, but have NPC’s assist them.. Makos, Celeste, Minsc/Boo.. as you do in the campaigns sometimes.. they are part of an army..)
The crafter/auctioneer player a.k.a ‘economy’-player : I know these are not exactly one and the same type of players, but both don’t really care about any of your ‘content’… any more than trying to find the angle to make a profit out of it 😊 Rewards needed : Unique items, looks, … Something in-demand, that they can corner the market with. (But that doesn’t give them the ability to keep players hostage when it comes to experiencing content..) How ? Besides all the possibilities for appearance changes and buff items (potions, …), there could be an addition of specialized gear to run specific challenges (e.g. +5% dmg in Tier x dungeons, …) I’ve also always liked the idea of crafters having to work together, instead of being mastercrafters in everything themselves. (Same as other players don’t solo dungeons, but need to rely on others too.)
The social player a.k.a ‘I want to be part of’-player : To be fair, there is probably not a single player that falls squarely into this category alone… 😊 But it is an important part of an MMO. (Or we would all be playing plain RPG’s.) Rewards needed : Ways to be part of and fuction in a community. (Guilds, Alliances, Strongholds, Random Queues…) How ? There is a big opportunity here still in the entire Stronghold setup ! These players could be the ones working to get on a Stronghold/guild/alliance leaderboard…
The collector a.k.a the ‘hamster’-player : The player that wants every title, all full collections-tabs, every companion, every mount… Rewards needed : I don’t think we need to worry here… There is plenty to collect :P How ? Make items from the collection reclaimable from there ? (To avoid duplicating items across alts, you could make it similar to the appearance library as there could be a convert to reclaimable collection…) Collection stuff is neigh impossible if you want to keep the items now, as the inventory space to do so would be enormous. This could even be a (small) AD sink, you pay ONCE to convert the item, but gain the luxury of being able to claim it back later. (Some conversions should be free, like for story rewards… I know I have by accident discarded some of the artifact weapons from story and would like to reclaim them, but can’t… ) Oh and on this subject : Gear appearance changes should not require AD !!! You have already put in the time to get the gear, you destroyed it to have the appearance.. and then you have to pay if you want to wear it, change it ? Talk about greedy !
So this basically boils down to different paths/rewards for different types of players. This then also makes sense with the tiered dungeon/rewards approach. (Each dungeon comes in several difficulty levels…) I also very much like the idea of tokens/currency, but then simplified as already proposed by some before me. (1 type for the latest content and another for all the older content). As in the VIP-proposal, this offers versatility to the player and can be a bridge between categories, e.g. from content-player to BiS-player. (This store would be purely for gear… BoA. A bit as it is now, but then all in one single store with just two token categories. As already mentioned this could do away with all the zone specific currencies as well… I had two friends quit the game after a few levels because they got lost in all the currency/quests/zones…)
Closing remark : The problem with Neverwinter though is that a lot of your character power does not come from your gear, but is sprinkled over : Enchantments on your gear : ranks up to 15 Companions : Stats, skills, companion gear, bonding runestones, other runestones in the companion gear, all with ranks up to 15, companion rarity (up to legendary) Boons : I’m fine with the principle of it – Grinding for content (I don’t agree with supplementing the grind with those extra book drops, some of which have the lowest drop rate ever… *cough* Dwarven Spelunking *cough*… ) But for the love of god, make the grind more fun please… tie it in to something else… some of them like SKT sucks the soul out of you as a new player. Mounts : mount power, rarity (up to legendary), insignia’s (up to legendary) And with the exception of boons, almost everything exclusively translates to ‘grind for AD’ and/or ‘Buy Zen’. There are no alternative paths to take…
This is such a good post myrddyn. I love how you call out your player type and others and your progress in the game. I love how you are thinking about more than one type of player. I would like to dig into this post in Phase 2, specifically in regard to the different types of categories there can be in rewards and how they relate to the current game, evolved game and different player types at different points in there journey/progression.
I am a player with end game toons (36 of them) and I like to go back to old adventure zones and que in old dungeons so as to help and meet new players. Which is a reward in it self.
But,
I would like to see something in the dungeon que or next to quest entry points or at map quest areas, where I could stand in waiting and be flagged as a “Mercenary For Hire/Free” and a new player could hire me for free and I would group up with them. (The game would reward me with a chest at the end for helping or points or something relevant I could work towards)
Then I could run with new players and help them with whatever they need help with. I’ve put a lot of effort and $ into my toons. if my power is 207k, Combat advantage is 140k and most of my other stats well over cap, I should get some sort of bonus for having achieved this accomplishment no matter what dungeon I’m going in. In fact the dungeon dwellers should be saying, “oh snap... here comes so and so again!” And I should be rewarded in a way that recognizes the difference in my stats and the stats of the new player.
I’m never bored with old content because the people I play with are new every time and yes I like to show off my end game toons, especially the first toon I made, (I’m an Xbox player btw), my Hellbringer Warlock! Which is my favorite class to play.
Besides rAD, there’s nothing in game I really want, that I don’t already have, except to run content with people and have fun.
I love D&D and have been playing it in different ways as far back as when it was called Chainmail. When I found Neverwinter I feel in love with it all over again and your game is the only Xbox game I play. I can’t tell you how much I like your game except to say... I really like your game!
Anyway, I would like to some how be rewarded for helping new and less geared players reach their goals. Give me a title or fashion item or something to work towards maybe. Or better yet, reward me by unlocking a skill or power that will improve my class in end game content.
Thank you kindly and enjoy the ride because at the destination you have to get out
I'm sorry, I'm not sure if this is exactly "rewards" or not. My history is dedicated casual, 1 hour per day... 2-4 when I have a day off. A step or two below BiS. Play as a archer focused Ranger (so I'm pretty hosed currently when it comes to end game dungeons).
Feedback Overview:
Make meaningful rewards from crafting.
Feedback Goal:
To make the crafting system an integrated part of the game instead of simply just another "activity".
Feedback Functionality:
I don't have a huge experience with MMORPGs, but I know a lot of people think the standard for "crafting" is Runescape. In this system, the different areas you can level up all complement each other. You level up fishing to fish for better food. You level up cooking to be able to cook that food. You then use that food to restore health when fighting. You level up mining to mine better ores. You level up smelting to smelt the higher level ores. You level up smithing to turn those ores to weapons that you then can use when fighting or to sell, ect.
Right now crafting doesn't feel like it is part of the game. There is no desire to do it as it serves no benefit to the player except to sell some very specific items for gold. By making the crafting system a complement to the game you give the players more to do (as you stated was a desire).
This can extend into other reward discussions such as loot tables. Crafting supplies can be included in loot tables. Also, the desire to be able to have alternative methods of grinding rewards. Why can't someone craft a "near BiS" weapon/armor if they wish to focus/time sink on crafting at the highest levels?
Risks & Concerns:
Effect on economy if people can craft items they previously had to spend AD on. Dev work to balance loot tables. Complaints from people that like to farm dungeons thinking that dungeons are now not as "important".
Feedback Overview Crafting New Unique Gear From Old Gear Feedback Goal This would create a use for old gear that no longer has any appeal because of stats or functionality. I think of it as a type of salvaging the past to create a new and better tomorrow. Feedback Functionality Let's say a player likes the Thayan Book of the Dead as their primary artifact, but has obtained the newer Arcturia's Music Box. Crafting (splicing) these two items together allows the user to create a new and unique item. Where they decide which physical and mechanical characteristics to keep. Upgrading the old artifact and destroying the new to create it. For example; the pairing of the two items mentioned above, would result in either stats, or the physical attack being changed on the modified item. This could be applied to other items as well, depending on how far the developers are willing to take it. Leatherworking could make 12 slot bags, and then 2 bags plus other materials could turn them into a single 18 slot bag or 20 slot for the +1 quality. I realize the store sells bags, so the ingredients would have to be a bit of a chore to collect. Risks & Concerns My husband says the goal would be a database engineer's nightmare. I am not sure he fully understands what I mean, since he won't play the game long enough to find out. I believe the real concern here, from both players and developers, would be making customized items over powered. That can be controlled by the formula use to create the new item.
Hey Sandu,
Another cool idea! Let's drill into this category of idea in phase 2.
First we should discuss what player progression is NOT.
Player Progression is Not XP.
XP in Neverwinter is so easy to acquire that it only matters to new players going through the leveling zones. There are also several ways to boost XP, so even when leveling players are usually leveling up much faster than the content they're grinding through.
It's also very easy to get from level 70-80. I did the Undermountain campaign in 2 days. I heard others say they did it in 1 day. My alts leveled from 70-80 just by invoking for a week. - The take away here is that it's easy to get to level 80, and that's where the real game begins.
Player Progression is Not Campaign Zones.
With a few exceptions, campaign zones are a complete waste of time. They have no impact on a player improving their character other than 4 boon points. There is very little in the first 10 campaigns that actually matters. If you've already gotten your cap boons, a new campaign with 4 boon points will be worth about 1000 stat points - which is very little overall.
The percent Hunt gear from Chult and Ravenloft is quickly becoming irrelevant as stat caps keep going up. Old artifacts are mostly useless. The two things that stand out as still worth doing are Legacy campaigns from Sybella, and grinding Dread Ring Lairs for enchanting stones.
^ These are the resources that actually matter to a player trying to make their character better.
You'll notice I did not include RP. RP is generally so easy to acquire that a player doesn't need to grind for it. You can accumulate enough just with normal gameplay.
---
What does a Player Actually Need to Upgrade a Character?
Companions: A player needs 5 passive companions and 1 active companion. We'll assume they bought Epic companions (because that's the cheapest way to go) and they just need to upgrade them from purple to Legendary.
125 x 6 = 750 Companion Upgrade Tokens. ... Plus the cost to acquire the companions (Trade Bars for a Deep Crow, AD to buy off the AH, Zen to get from the store, whatever)
Bonding Runes: The cheapest way to get Rank 15 bondings is generally to buy Rank 13s off the AH, then upgrade them tha last 2 steps. Prices range from 650k-900k AD depending on platform.
Then upgrade from 13 to 14 is 3 Rank 6 Enchanting Stones and 2 Rank 6 Marks. The upgrade from Rank 14 to 15 needs 1 Rank 7 Mark.
Refining Stones you can get for free by running the Legacy quests from Sybella — we'll assume we were able to gind that out ... but you still need Wards for the upgrades.
The cost of Wards is entirely based on the Astral Diamond Exchange. The Exchange rate dictates what Wards cost.
^ All of this cost will then be multiplied by 3 because you need 3 Bonding Runes.
Enchantments/Runes Stones: Follow the process above for refining things up.
A player needs 6 Runestones to go in their Companion Equipment.
Players need 13 Offensive/Defensive enchantments to go in their gear.
They need 5 Utility enchantments for their gear.
They need a weapon enchantment.
They need an armor enchantment.
^ What is the take away from all this? – They need a ton of Wards. Even if they're buying enchantments, someone in the game has to refine those pieces up and that person is burninig Wards.
Assuming a player is grinding out refining stones with legacy quests, Dread Ring Lairs, and dungeon drops – they're still burning through thousands of Wards.
Mount Insignia: Where does one get mount insignia? Greens, Blues, and Purples drop randomly throughout the game. Legendary Insignia need to be 'refined' up. The process does not use wards, but you need lesser insignia to create an orange insignia.
Random drops do not allow you to get the insignia you actually want. You might get some, but you'll need to suppliment those with other sources to get your legendary insignia.
The sources are: Zen store packs. These can drop orange insignia, and you need them for Brutality and other insignia types that do not drop in-game.
Lockboxes: can drop insignia packs.
Buy from the Auction House: depending on what you're looking for, this means someone else bought a pack from the Zen store or opened a lockbox.
The bottom line is that Mount Insignia are not something you're really grinding. They're something you're shopping for.
Other Stuff: Other stuff would be your Artifacts, your Weapon Set, your Belt and Neck piece. - This stuff all needs to get refined the same way as your enchantments, which means more refining stones and Wards.
Armor Reienforcement Kits/Consumables: This is the one area where you don't need to goto the Zen store to source wards or packs. Players can make kits and potions with professions. Foods and other buffs can be acquired from events and the stronghold.
----
Conclusion:
What's the point of this long-winded essay? What are we really talking about when we say 'player progression?'
We're mostly talking about Wards and the Zen/AD Exchange because that's the key to upgrading your stuff. That's the real bottleneck to your progression.
Which platform are you on? What's the Exchange Rate at? Those factors define the cost of Wards, companion token packs, and mount insignia packs.
The Exchange Rate and the health of the Economy directly affect how fast or slow your player progression will be.
Hi Sheeho,
Thanks for taking the time to make this post but I believe your core premise of what progression and what isn't progression is very blinkered/focused view. For example I have hit level 80 and am 23k item level. In my journey there were many rights of passage for me in regard to progression, for example unlocking new abilities, companions, mounts, entry to dungeons, trials, queues, and many more. Therefore while I understand your point in regard to your experience, player type and point in your journey I do not that that such a broad statement can be a framework for discussing rewards and progression in details. This said it certainly bears merit for a subset of players.
Thanks
Chris
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
edited February 2020
Here is my (updated) list of consolidated suggestions. https://guides.jannenw.info/2020/02/07/how-i-would-go-about-redesigning-neverwinter/ I apologize in advance, I don't expect anyone to read through all of this, but for anyone who does, I genuinely did try to come up with solutions to many of what are in my mind, problems in this game.
@quickfoot#7851@thefabricant : My only comment on this discussion is that both of you are missing an important point.
And also @thefabricant: @cwhitesidedev#9752''s note for magdalena applies to you as well and it's on the same page as your refusal to reason. You can't just say that you are credited and others should just deal with. Even the gap is definitely over 7% just by the 2 weapon effect because you can't equate situationally 5% base power with upmost 10% damage as 10-5 just because. You're not just seem arrogant, but very incorrect. Unless you have the data to prove otherwise. A thing that you have to provide, not ask others to look up for you wherever you mentioned it half a year ago.
But to the topic: Most players would not need a new tier weapon to close the gap, they need it to have anything to do. Mod18 is pretty barren of rewards worth to get as DPS. People would just take a new tier weapon set that gives 5% power, because at least they can upgrade their character. Mod16 was 10 months ago and people are running with the same weapons and disregarding the long needed demo nerf, the same artifact sets as well.
Giving a bare new tier weapon set would not decrease the value of the lionheart, not would make ToMM significantly easier as the problem is not the DPS, but the coordination, the skills needed and the huge difference between how ToMM is played and how every other content is played. I would not like to get a better set than Lionheart, because ToMM is harder than IC, even if IC requires more stats. But at least a sellable weapon set would be a great reward to run it after a month.
I see reading comprehension is hard. AT NO POINT DID I EQUATE 5% BASE POWER TO THE SET BONUS
The comparison I made was: +5% base power
vs:
+2% weapon damage +10% "increased" damage (which is not really 10% unless you never dodge)
The 2% weapon damage is "roughly" equal to the 5% base power (we can argue backwards and forwards about that, but the point is, its somewhere in that range).
How many buffs do you have without the weapon buffs? Probably ~70%. so you are going from 70% to 80%
1.8/1.7 = 1.05882352941 ~5.89%
This is assuming you never dodge and always have max stamina, which is a false assumption to begin with.
That is my point. It is negligible.
The gap is nowhere near 7%.
Please try to be respectful and civil in your conversation. Show respect to other CDP members. Doesn't matter how good anyone's ideas are if they cant be delivered properly and collaborated on. We are at the stage in the CDP now where unnecessary/unprofessional discussion just won't be acceptable. I hope you can see my point.
@quickfoot#7851@thefabricant : My only comment on this discussion is that both of you are missing an important point.
And also @thefabricant: @cwhitesidedev#9752''s note for magdalena applies to you as well and it's on the same page as your refusal to reason. You can't just say that you are credited and others should just deal with. Even the gap is definitely over 7% just by the 2 weapon effect because you can't equate situationally 5% base power with upmost 10% damage as 10-5 just because. You're not just seem arrogant, but very incorrect. Unless you have the data to prove otherwise. A thing that you have to provide, not ask others to look up for you wherever you mentioned it half a year ago.
But to the topic: Most players would not need a new tier weapon to close the gap, they need it to have anything to do. Mod18 is pretty barren of rewards worth to get as DPS. People would just take a new tier weapon set that gives 5% power, because at least they can upgrade their character. Mod16 was 10 months ago and people are running with the same weapons and disregarding the long needed demo nerf, the same artifact sets as well.
Giving a bare new tier weapon set would not decrease the value of the lionheart, not would make ToMM significantly easier as the problem is not the DPS, but the coordination, the skills needed and the huge difference between how ToMM is played and how every other content is played. I would not like to get a better set than Lionheart, because ToMM is harder than IC, even if IC requires more stats. But at least a sellable weapon set would be a great reward to run it after a month.
I see reading comprehension is hard. AT NO POINT DID I EQUATE 5% BASE POWER TO THE SET BONUS
The comparison I made was: +5% base power
vs:
+2% weapon damage +10% "increased" damage (which is not really 10% unless you never dodge)
The 2% weapon damage is "roughly" equal to the 5% base power (we can argue backwards and forwards about that, but the point is, its somewhere in that range).
How many buffs do you have without the weapon buffs? Probably ~70%. so you are going from 70% to 80%
1.8/1.7 = 1.05882352941 ~5.89%
This is assuming you never dodge and always have max stamina, which is a false assumption to begin with.
That is my point. It is negligible.
The gap is nowhere near 7%.
IF YOU REFUSE TO REASON PEOPLE WILL GO FOR THEIR OWN CONCLUSIONS
The average damage of Lionheart is more than 3% more than the burnished: 4047,5 ÷ 3927,5 = 1,03055... and expecting the Burnished weapon set bonus to be always active is less likely, because it relies on an other character. The Lionheart's effect only diminishes, the Burnished just does not work.
Also, even -6% DPS is hardly negligible. People will notice it and if your class already underperforms, so you are less likely to be called in for ToMM, that's just an other multiplier on it.
Alsoalso, if it does not matter, then what is the exact problem by giving a new tiered set with "negligible" bonus? Because the majority of the playerbase getting bored out of the game because they can't gear up in any significant way is more on the problem than how easier or less respectable it would make ToMM. Because it doesn't. Players fail, because they die, so tightening the damage gap with ~2% by increasing a tier only pushes in people on the edge.
This conversation is getting less and less valuable. Might be worth it for both of you to contribute on other discussions in this CDP.
Feedback Overview Streamline and lengthen the leveling process, create a unique journey for each new class or race or god affiliation and have choices have some meaning and introduce a class trainer. Remove boons and boost/enhance (and revalue) enchantments for balance. Make the rewards for campaigns reward/gear based.
Feedback Goal Key things that need to be implemented, a scaling system that allows for vertical progression but at the same time balances zones with the characters level. Allows more choices when party members questline differs from that of the main characters. Enrich the storylines and ultimately lengthen the progression process to allow players to become submerged into the storyline as well as properly learn their classes. This would organically create areas potentially unexplored and allow for new character creation of a different class and/or race to progress through the unvisited areas.
Removing boons and providing a class and/or God specific artifact as a reward. This reward would be a continuous benefit horizontally until more end-game specific artifacts can be achieved.
Feedback Functionality Each choice in the character selection screen would create a set of values to class based on their race and god affiliation. These values would be checked against which quest zones they will have access to from Knox. Currently when you advance through everyone would start with Blacklake and the remaining areas are covered in fog of war (not visible on the map). That should remain, the system should only reveal the quest zones as the Character progresses through vertical progression.
Using a Half-Orc Barbarian as an example, if they chose any God affiliation other than Corellon they would not be offered the questline that would take them to the Tower District, because they would be fighting other Orc’s. If they chose Corellon who is the God of the Elvin People that could override his class and racial choices. Also if someone in his party is a Wood-Elf Ranger with Corellon as their God the choice may also be available. Otherwise the Half-Orc Barbarian may only see the quest to take them to Blackdagger Ruins.
Based on this example, if a Half-Orc Barbarian chose Corellon God and went into the Blacklake District to fight Orc’s, their influencer rating would lower. Influencer ratings would affect Invoking Rewards - the higher the influencer rating, the better invoking rewards - the lower the influencer rating, the fewer rewards. This could even affect the amount of times you can invoke per day - 10% reduction in influencer ratings for your chosen God could be one less invoking your character can perform.
So to clarify - the God you choose and the actions you take will affect your gameplay during leveling. So the example, a Half-Orc Barbarian who has chosen Tempus (God of Warfare) once completed Blacklake would go to Knox and have a quest to Blackdagger Ruins available. In another case this Barbarian has partied with a Wood Elf Ranger with Corellon as his deity, when he goes to Knox Tower district would also show up but with his party mates name attached to it. If he chooses to do this quest rather than moving on to Blackdagger it would lower his race influencer number, making it more likely that as quest zones come up individually if Orcs are in it.
The idea with the influencers, in addition to the invoking rewards is to shorten the amount of zones needed to complete down to 6-8 rather than 17 or 19.
Removing boons would eliminate beginning player confusion about the correct path of boons to take, especially when many new players are unclear of what boon they should be slotting points into. We are currently in a ‘balanced stats’ era of Neverwinter and enchantments could easily be reworked, enhanced to achieve the same goal boons do but with less of a learning curve. Players currently have an enchantment quest early on and become readily aware how they work and affect stats.
Risks & Concerns
The additional storyline based on class/god choices would be a concern. Could we rely on the community to contribute to the storyline? This would require an in-depth and concise knowledge of D&D lore.
Boons are a player-based and campaign goal and may not be easily dismissed by the current community.
Thanks for reading.
Just call me Enna... Enna Backpetal Cleric Enna F Backpetal Fighter
A bit off topic, but as Chris mentioned it a few posts up it kinda hit a nerve, and I guess it does link into rewards a bit.
Item level is a really terrible indicator in this game, and even after the adjustments made in m16 to make item level more representative of how well geared/strong a character is, it is still massively misleading.
There is a HUGE difference, between a character with 23k item level and poorly balanced stats, bad companion options, and a character with 20k item level and well balanced stats, and decent companion slot choices.
to put things into perspective, An augment companion with max bonding/runestones/ legendary rank accounts for around 50% of our stat pool 3x700 item level for bonding stones. 6x 66 for runestones 100 for summoned companion 100 x 6 for equip powers 1010 x 3 for top Companion equipment
For a Total of 6,226 item level, with best of everything. Assuming you have around 24k item level, thats barely 25% of your total, yet a good 50% of your character strength is coming from this, making item level a poor representation of character strength.
But it gets worse. the Companion Equip powers give 100 item level, regardless of the rank you have. a White companion, will still give 100, as does a legendary, Further miss representing strength.
To put simply, Item level on gear sucks, and just because you have item level 20k, doesnt mean you are ready to do LoMM, 24k doesnt mean you are ready to do ToMM. This is especially highlighted with LoMM being added into the RED queue list and the amount of failed groups.
Feedback Overview: Bring back class feature, encounter and daily bonuses to equipment.
Feedback Goal: Allow for more variance in builds and enhance gameplay beyond stat chasing.
Feedback Functionality: Back in mod 5 (I think it stopped in mod 6 if I remember correctly), epic pieces of equipment for classes would drop and they'd contain bonuses to certain feats and abilities, making them that much more versatile or frankly, making them relevant in the first place.
Let's be honest, someone, somewhere has to be looking at all of the class feats, encounter powers and at-wills knowingly placing them into the game understanding that no one in their right mind would use all of these abilities in the game due to blatantly obvious game design. With that being said, back in that mod, if you got an item that was meant for your class, it could have a range of augments placed on it that would impact class feats, encounters or dailies (maybe it was just class feats and encounters, I don't recall specifically).
Two and four set piece bonuses for your class could be an outstanding way to bring some variance back to equipment these days. Lets be honest, the gear as far as their stats and what bonuses you're getting, are frankly lazy. The dev's at the time really wanted to get away from these types of bonuses for some reason but, it could allow for build enhancements or it could make a previously useless feat/encounter/daily actually valid. ...... Risks & Concerns: There will be work to be done to make this work and to not have it spiral out of control, sure. But, it'll also offer the ability to toss in small increments of class balancing to the game in a way that doesn't require a fundamental rewrite of the class.
I agree, but one of the problems is bug checking and fixing, plus getting the set that changes every Mod. How about not making them set specific, but either 1) tying into the boon idea (put boon points into your classes capability to achieve the same as the set state would), or 2) having it tied to you class sigil, where you choose the changes based on increasing level?
That would wrap a few other concepts into existing items to give them a re-birth, while achieving goals of meaningful differentiation (yet balance). As they would not be tied to a set, the initial work/bug check fixing is the same, but as gear changes, these do not, so moves them onto the class life-cycle, not equipment.
Might is not always right - the powerful sometimes forget that.
I just want to say "Thanks" for taking the time to read this stuff. There's a vast array of ideas here, and it's exciting to see that maybe someone in management does cares.
No matter what direction development takes, Thank you for your time and efforts.
A bit off topic, but as Chris mentioned it a few posts up it kinda hit a nerve, and I guess it does link into rewards a bit.
Item level is a really terrible indicator in this game, and even after the adjustments made in m16 to make item level more representative of how well geared/strong a character is, it is still massively misleading.
There is a HUGE difference, between a character with 23k item level and poorly balanced stats, bad companion options, and a character with 20k item level and well balanced stats, and decent companion slot choices.
to put things into perspective, An augment companion with max bonding/runestones/ legendary rank accounts for around 50% of our stat pool 3x700 item level for bonding stones. 6x 66 for runestones 100 for summoned companion 100 x 6 for equip powers 1010 x 3 for top Companion equipment
For a Total of 6,226 item level, with best of everything. Assuming you have around 24k item level, thats barely 25% of your total, yet a good 50% of your character strength is coming from this, making item level a poor representation of character strength.
But it gets worse. the Companion Equip powers give 100 item level, regardless of the rank you have. a White companion, will still give 100, as does a legendary, Further miss representing strength.
To put simply, Item level on gear sucks, and just because you have item level 20k, doesnt mean you are ready to do LoMM, 24k doesnt mean you are ready to do ToMM. This is especially highlighted with LoMM being added into the RED queue list and the amount of failed groups.
il isn't the problem. it's that they didn't include new gear that could keep up with the old gear originally. some has been introduced now. it's easy to tell if a person has inflated il for stats or not though. the easy way around this would probably be to give back end stuff higher il consideration. bondings and empowereds and leg pets should probably add more to il than they do. because they are an important part of stats as well as one of the more serious investments in the game.
I just want to say "Thanks" for taking the time to read this stuff. There's a vast array of ideas here, and it's exciting to see that maybe someone in management does cares.
No matter what direction development takes, Thank you for your time and efforts.
Thank you Sheeho and to all of the CDP members and those you represent (Alliances, Guilds, Friends, Discord groups etc).
Chris
4
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
I just want to say "Thanks" for taking the time to read this stuff. There's a vast array of ideas here, and it's exciting to see that maybe someone in management does cares.
No matter what direction development takes, Thank you for your time and efforts.
Thank you Sheeho and to all of the CDP members and those you represent (Alliances, Guilds, Friends, Discord groups etc).
Hello! I've been playing NW since 2014. I'll just drop a humble opinion regarding Masterwork. To be completely honest crafting Masterwork weapons and gear has been completely irrelevant/not interesting to me all these years. I suspect to other players as well. It also becomes obsolete within the arrival of every new mod. That is what happens with every mod, but the difference is, millions of ad were spent just to craft weapons and gear.... lots of millions of ad..... wasted. That is the way i see it.
Now, what i suggest is.. Let us use |masterwork| to craft appearance/cosmetic items. Add demonic wings for instance. Add plenty of choices... You will figure something out.... I'd gladly pay ad/gold/zen to craft that stuff... Masterwork for me as it has been all these years, was and is, a complete waste of time, ad and resources. I never even touched it nor i will.
Our beliefs don't make us better people. Our actions do.
Hello! I've been playing NW since 2014. I'll just drop a humble opinion regarding Masterwork. To be completely honest crafting Masterwork weapons and gear has been completely irrelevant/not interesting to me all these years. I suspect to other players as well. It also becomes obsolete within the arrival of every new mod. That is what happens with every mod, but the difference is, millions of ad were spent just to craft weapons and gear.... lots of millions of ad..... wasted. That is the way i see it.
Now, what i suggest is.. Let us use |masterwork| to craft appearance/cosmetic items. Add demonic wings for instance. Add plenty of choices... You will figure something out.... I'd gladly pay ad/gold/zen to craft that stuff... Masterwork for me as it has been all these years, was and is, a complete waste of time, ad and resources. I never even touched it nor i will.
while I don't disagree that transmutes would be a good thing to add to the bag.. I think many including myself would disagree with you on the rest.
Feedback overview: Mastercrafting rewards upgrades should provide alternative BIS or close to BIS items as possible. One option could be the creation of customizable gear or gear slots. These gear slots could be used on current gear / weapons/ jewelry etc as well as items created by mastercrafters. Insignia mods and companion jewelry could also be part of the new crafting recipes.
Feedback goal: The goal of this new system would be to provide customizable gear or slot items to players which would be not only on opportunity for more levels of character customization but to also allow an ability for mastercrafters to make viable/sellable items for each mod or game update.
Feedback functionality: Mod items or enchants craftable by mastercrafters would be added to profession recipes for each new module or update. There could be an option for mastercrafters to do quests to receive these items. New professions lines for pet gear and insignias could also be incorporated in these new recipes. For example there could be a gear slot item to increase encounter powers by 5% or perhaps even mod slots to increase amplitude of an encounter or give additional stat bonuses. These new enchants would be sellable on the AH as BOE.
Feedback Goal Reaching meta endgame character requires roughly 90m astral diamonds, and without counting any rng luck involved in the process would mean 900 days of capping rad and refining (2,5 years approx). With all thats to be done for a mid-endgame player is to do 2 or 3 quests and random qs every day (normally about 1,5hours of playtime). This turns nwo into a casual game rather than what you would expect in a typical mmorpg. Allow more grinding options for the hardcore player to do what they do in other games and not quit the game of boredom
Feedback Functionality Currently, the only core grinding content would be to do the dungeons in dread ring (a waay outdated module), and an eventual codg which everyday is less rewarding. What we are doing at the moment is logging everyday, refine our diamonds and pray to have some lucky rng drop that would give us some more wealth. This is turning into an idle mobile game as you get to the cap of your character. Most of the mmorpg players are used to grind hours in any game to get a bit wealthier every second they spend, even if it takes a lot of time to get some serious ammount, but here is something that just can't be done, take for example these juma boxes. Even though they are heavily rng dedpendant, ppl saw an opportunity to grind them and get some profit (and an army of chickens), but then devs decided to rework the heroic encounters and as you see now (having less than half of the instances open as before) people got tired because it's just not worth the effort. ME's in last module are another example, horrible rewards, a rare rng jackpot and limited to 3 per day. It is like your business model won't allow for people to grind some content. Please allow some more grinding in future content
Edit: A personal experience, when my warlock class was not useful by mod 16/17, i thought about making another character. Leveled it up, did some campaigns, but as i was playing i realized how much time of waiting for the days to pass by it would take me to get it to the same level as my warlock main. There was no way i could speed things up for it apart from finishing campaigns earlier with tokens, but the gear would still be missing. And that made me abandon that character, my options there were to keep on with my warlock and wait for it to be useful again or quit the game completely. I did the first one on that time, but I surely will do the 2nd option if that happens again to me.
Ok I had this ready to go when I heard the next topic will be rewards. I went over it a bit when VIP was moved in and than finally gave up when I learned it was rewards AND progression with profession thrown in at the very end.
On top of that life thru me another huge curveball and while the mrs. rests I am trying to get some of my ideas out here as I think this process is extremely important to the game. I have not been able to be as active urging everyone to participate this time and hope others can take up that torch.
So here goes. First I think the collections tab needs to be updated, especially the by location section. It still has spots that tell you to go to the old seal vendors that are no longer in game to buy things. And sure would be nice to know where to buy things need for progression systems like refinement. Along with this the rewards for the various campaign stores need to updated. Wonder how many players still dont know about the gear that levels with you from some campaigns? A section with crafting could be implemented or crafting things added to what is available in each campaign area.
Now the reward quality and time spent IS the risk vs reward meat and potatoes of the game IMO. If I am going to spend hours on end trying to defeat the hardest end game content I should be getting my hands on the best rewards. I do understand the need for rng. (I spent 50 runs on the very worst dungeon in another game going after a helmet to get into the next tier of content. Once I got the helmet the very first run of next tier gave me a better helmet) O the cruel RNG.
IMO risk vs reward is not giving me the choice of endless stacks of numbers just to see if it makes a difference. I want to know what stats I need at a minimum so I am not inspecting the floor every second. I also like to know what the max is or the point of diminishing returns so I am not wasting endless amounts of time number crunching a spreadsheet. I dont necessarily need the info given directly but knowing before hand this is not even there deflates the meaning of risk reward for me.
You see along with updates to the overall arc of the game from 1 to endgame I think an additional system for campaigns needs to be addressed. Early on you are given some sprinkling of campaign and a bunch of zones with story mixed and matched. Than the closer to endgame the more campaigns. It feels like you are given a bunch of straws, spit wods and posters of the things to do in game and given free rain to see what sticks.
Risk vs reward, progression in dungeons we have systems already in game with regular dungeons, epic and the k team. AND player toggles of hardcore reduced item level. But what do you get. The same loot table, the same reward for increased difficulty. Except the k team which if you do complete you get outdated rewards for increased difficulty.
Move kteam to Rhix, put the guy back to work and give people a chance at something like a juma bag or juma bag type currency for increased difficulty on dungeons. Increased risk – increased reward. You could give them regular items plus the juma bag currency or just a bag and the rng chance at those rewards.
Now as for crafting I think it should remain a character based system only moved more to a well character driven system. Why do we have the ability to collect herbs, animal bones, fish, dig, skill nodes etc if we are not going to use them for anything really? All those systems could be put to use by a player to craft items.
We have had several iterations of hunt systems, imagine having to do something like that for crafting ingredients.
I would like it to be even expanded and bring back the old black ice/voninblod type of empowerment only with items to be crafted and put on gear. DO not misunderstand I hated to have to keep farming and repower stuff endlessly but I think it would be very cool to craft items to empower my gear for the frozen north. Or some sort of fire resist for hell. Something that gave a bonus in chult. None of this would be required and you could still use whatever gear you wanted but if you had that specific empowerement you got a small advantage for that specific campaign and its dungeons/skirmished etc.
Now think if you had stats minimum and caps that matched scaling with zones/dungeons and combined those with campaigns and you could put in an empowerment to that old black ice gear for when you had to do a kessel retreat or had to do some legacy stuff.
Now think for a minute if gear was stored on a loadout and you could collect sets for campaigns and have it empowered for whatever resist/buff/debuff needed for the campaigns matching dungeon/skirmish/trial.
I think I might be tempted to get more loadouts and collect the old gear with the empowerement and save the setup for when I did do that content. More so if that content received a rework and I had to go back thru it anyway.
I am on the fence on masterwork as half of me wants to see it just go and the other half understands why only a few do it. I do not believe it should be used to craft anything BIS in game. I am not against being able to have a chance at crafting items equal to or less than BIS gear.
On the above crafting examples I made. Imagine if the masterwork items actually was obtained from some other sort of gathering like those treasure maps from river district or fishing up the item needed for mastercrafting. Imagine the empowerment item that came from masterwork was twice or better than the one crafted from non masterwork.
I would like to give more examples and better details but the walls of text are probably a blur already.
Apologies for not following the exact posting guidelines, will try harder in the future.
3
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
Feedback Overview
Rewards:
From personal perceptive there are 4 types of rewards: 1. Things I want really want, long term. (for some, could be BiS item, could be looks) 2. Short term goal - An item I aim to get, but I know it will be replaced by item above, if I can get that one. 3. Something I don't really aim to get, but if it drops, I can find it some use, or sell, or something - it will not be discarded on sight. 4. Trash - completely irrelevant trash in the context of where I am- an item that is insult to injury - you got trash and now you need to find it in a god awful inventory with no search, and discard it.
Feedback Goal
Remove the Trash please.
Feedback Functionality
Items have their place. Getting blakjaw clan stuff in ME is one thing, getting those in Citadel or ToMM is purely insult. I'll rather have the damn 300 RP (or 150 don't remember) straight as RP, than do inventory cleanup every 2 runs. I'm not inventory sanitation department.
Progression and Rewards have been discussed many times in different threads both here and on reddit. From reading this CDP and those threads over the years on this and other forums I can say that progression and rewards mean many different things to different people depending on where they are in the game.
These are the main areas I usually see when people discuss progression and rewards in relation to Neverwinter.
Early game rewards and progression as it relates to new players
Mid game rewards and progression as it relates to campaigns and boons
Late game / end game rewards and progression as it relates to equipment, upgrades and content
Progression and rewards in all content as it relates to perceived "nerfs" and reward gating
Perceived loss of, or negative progression as it relates to Scaling
It is impossible for me to discuss all of these areas in 200 words or less so I will divide my response up into seperate posts.
Feedback Goal
To discuss how progression and rewards are experienced in the early game by new players and provide ideas for improving both experiences.
Feedback Functionality
From an early game "New" player perspective gaining levels in this game gives very little sense of accomplishment. Leveling happens so quickly that players often outlevel the content and rewards before they are even finished with quests in a given area in most cases. This sometimes leads new players to rush to 80 often skipping content instead of enjoying the early game and learning game mechanics.
An example of the extreme ends of the spectrum in my experience is a Korean MMORPG I used to play in which leveling was so slow that everyone around you would send a PM or Tell when they saw the extravagant level up animations when a player near them finally made the next level. This in itself gave players a sense of accomplishment and progression because the mere act of leveling was celebrated and important to everyone. It often took weeks to earn one level and you could lose progress if you died. In Neverwinter you can literally go from level 1-80 in two weeks or less without even trying. New players are rarely congratulated upon leveling and are often told that the real game starts at level 70.
Two weeks or less is not long enough to actually experience and enjoy the content from 1-60 much less 1-80. Leveling so quickly makes all of the gear and items you earn as rewards irrelevant moments or hours after you earn it. The new player barely has enough time and experience to learn their class before they reach level 80. What is the point of leveling so quickly?
I have heard new players complain that they outleveled the Tower District before even finishing that content. This means that they are on the road to being over level for all content after the Tower District. How is that fun? Early game areas are some of the best content in this game and many of the games tutorials are in this content. There is a rich story line to be found here and many of the areas are very detailed and well made. Sadly, many players skip over several of the areas because of outdated rewards and being over level for the content.
I once made a new character and was actually over level for the first trial in the Blacklake District just by doing the quests in Protectors enclave and the Blacklake district! It was a 2x experience weekend but that is my point. If I had been a new player I would have missed the tutorial for the Queue system and not experienced my fist trial! This is only one example of how being overlevel breaks content and contributes to confusion but there are many more.
Suggestions:
Revamp the leveling curve in the early game so that it is not possible to overlevel for an area before you have completed the quests for that area. (Discussed in the Accessibility CDP)
Structure early game rewards in a way that they prepare the player for the next area and also teach them the more complicated concepts like stats / counter stats, refinement, enchants, mounts and companions and other important game mechanics. Introduce new players to Wanderer's Fortune mount insignia bonuses and QuarterMaster's enchants early so that they collect much needed refinement as they play through the early game. Consider giving these items as quest rewards in the early game along with a short tutorial.
Consider excluding new accounts from 2x events and XP boosts until they have completed the training / tutorial content and have reached their first campaign.
The free bags available through quests in the early game should be HIGHLIGHTED so that new players know to be on the lookout for them in later quest lines. As far as I remember I had to research this outside of the game to find them all. For example when you get your first free bag in the Blacklake district give a pop up that tells the new player that there are several more free bags available through early game quests.
Inform new players about the Dragon bone and Ensorcelled weapon sets that level with them. Consider making these sets available earlier in the quest line as rewards or use them to introduce the auction house. Let them know that several items like this exist in the game.
Risks & Concerns
If leveling takes more time it may anger players that make armies of alts. I argue that these players have access to items and knowledge that will allow them to speed through this content regardless of the changes I propose. Since they are on an existing account they should also not be subject to the 2x event and XP boost restrictions. To be honest they don't even need to do this content anyway because they can skip everything after level 11 and just invoke to 80.
Feedback Overview - an update to the profession system for crafters (idea A ) - an update to event currencies/rewards (idea B ) - chase items for 'average mid-end-game players' (idea C )
Feedback Goal - Idea A would target players, who want to purely craft items and take the role of a crafter with some gameplay a new goal and something to do in this game. - Idea B would target long time players (who have done a lot of events), which have gathered a lot of event currencies in their bags and rework the capped place in the currency bag ('other currencies') - Idea C would target players, who have played this game for years and have therefore achieved endgame status, have finished everything, but are not the elite players (due to lack of skill or commitment they do not participate in ToMM as an example). It would give them something to do, something to collect.
Feedback Functionality - Idea A would be as following: There would be a new kind of profession system, which could be a 'new' masterwork but without the requirement to have masterwork rank 5. Every player can start it and choose an area where the player wants to craft stuff. The areas could be the same as the existing profession system (artificing, ...) or could be different. If it is different the areas could be as following: + Fashion (items which belong to the fashion appearance - could use existing items from either fashion or gear and new items) + Appearance (items which belong to the gear appearance - pure cosmetical items from older gear/equipment without stats but with nice cosmetics, could include new items as well) + Weapons (weapons which have worse stats than the current BiS weapons (now lionheart) - but have interesting set boni (combined mainhand and offhand), such as a buff for group members or movement speed bonus (meaning weapons with nice stats, but worse than current BiS/endgame weapons and buffs/set boni which benefit support characters or can make a run more interesting))
Orb (Mainhand) - 960 item level - 'normal/usual' stat distribution - set boni The set boni could be similar as thefabricant suggested at ✪ Part 6 – Chase Items - page one of this thread.
+ Armor (armor with the same idea as weapons - maybe split to different types of armor) + ... To be not exploitable it would a longer recipe chain with the items before the last recipe being account bound. Therefore, players who want to craft stuff and sell it can still sell crafting material for the step before the last step. I am unsure if it would be better to have the results (items) being account bound or unbound (→ Risks & Concern). The system would need to implemented that players can only choose two or three areas to craft stuff. This way a player cannot craft everything and would have to decide what to do. This would increase 'specialization' among players and give the players a way to individualize their characters more. The items which are used for the crafting process would be items, which are found in the open world (or similiar to idea C).
- Idea B would be as following: Currently there is a cap on event currencies in the bag 'other currencies'. This leads to players which have some currencies left from some events, such as the winter festival and having capped bags. They now have to delete some currency there (not all currencies are able to be deleted such as the Neverwinter Renown) if they want to earn some new currency of new events or campaigns. The cap could be removed and/or the event currencies/rewards given to a seperate place which is split from the campaign stuff. This could lead to a better difference between what is the main game (campaigns) and what are events. Event currency could be reworked as well, but josephskyrim gave good ideas for that anyway at page one of this thread.
- Idea C would be as following: Current quests which are repeatable, like weekly quests for legacy campaigns could get a end chest (or new quest reward) which contains a chase item. Chase item in this regard is defined as a item, which is rare, has a nice cosmetic (not a must), perhaps has a rare gear bonus (such as movement speed or damage buff only to allies or 'every ally is healed 200k HP once every 20 seconds - cooldown after 2min 30seconds' or ...). A chase item does not have BiS stats and has only situational use (not for every class, not for every playstyle). A variant of this idea would be to implement chests/nodes in the world maps (or instanced quests such as expeditions - but with infinite repeatability) which require solo players (!) to go difficult ways (nostura module or lair of lostmauth - one of the ways before the second boss) and/or to fight difficult fights (difficult in this context means - 2-5 monsters, one a 'mini boss', which takes 1min (?) to kill, but is possible to kill with a tank/heal character as well in the time and is possible to be 'tanked' by dps characters as well) to get chase items (such as before defined). The chests/nodes could contain material for crafting (idea A) as well.
Risks & Concerns Idea A: - The results of the crafting (the items, such as fashion or weapons) could be unbound - this could be a risk as some players might try to craft the items as cheap as possible and therefore minimizing the benefit to craft it for other player. If the items (the result of the crafting) are account bound the crafters could show their items and use them with the advantage that their are possible not many of them and they help the group in ways which do not necessary is 'biggest dps, best tank, best heal' giving a goal to players who do not want to chase the BiS items all the time. - The implementation would require much time and could potentially only influence a subset of all players. Idea B: - Risk could be that some players now store all currency for later events and hope for better rewards then. Idea C: - The implementation would take some time and quest rewards/chests/nodes would have to be balanced in regards to the aim of the system. - Rewards would perhaps have to modified after new modules, depending if the level increased or much better gear has been introduced
Thanks for reading this I wanted to give my opinion on this topic, the ideas are a starting point and can certainly be improved.
Mid game rewards and progression as it relates to campaigns and boons.
Feedback Goal
To discuss how progression and rewards are experienced in the mid game and provide ideas for improving both experiences.
Feedback Functionality
From a Mid game perspective time gating and the lack of a clear path to follow when approaching campaigns leads to players becoming confused, lost and bored with content. If a new player has 8 - 12 hours to spend playing over a weekend allow them to spend that time productively. This will allow them to progress along one path instead of starting several areas because they are waiting for time gates.
Campaign rewards are often years out of date and have no purpose in the current game, BUT there is often no way for the new player to tell that those rewards are outdated until after they have wasted hours grinding them out. I don't even want to think about the number of times I have had to tell new players to ignore all of the side quests for weapons and armor in the early campaigns. Not only this though, due to the changes in MOD 16 the boons you earn from each of these areas equate to ~ 1% of overall stats in any given area and contribute very little to your overall build. So now we have to answer the question of whether or not it is even worth doing the campaigns at all.
Suggestions:
Boons need to mean something since there is a considerable grind involved. If the developers do not want to give more stats then use boons as a way to make unique builds in the spirit of pre MOD 16 but better. There have been many suggestions along this line in this CDP.
Time gating needs to be removed from campaigns. An argument can be made to keep time gating for the most current MOD, but the early game and legacy campaigns should be able to be completed without artificial hindrances. Let me grind if I want to in order to complete a campaign quickly.
The many weapon and armor sets available through early campaigns could be made relevant again, but this would require constant updating which is not feasible. Instead of updating all of these items for each MOD maybe they could be used in Master crafting recipes to make higher tier weapons and armor that is entry level for current content. Maybe make it better than, or on par with the free gear given in Barovia and Undermountain? This way only the stats of the crafted gear needs to be adjusted for new content and new players have something to work for instead of getting the gear for free. If this is not feasible then maybe remove the grind associated with the gear and make it transmutes? Maybe remove it altogether and replace it with tokens or items that can be traded for current gear or items in the Superstore mentioned in the VIP CDP.
Time gates = No fun and hinder progression. Endless grind for outdated items = No Fun and cheapens rewards. Boons that have little or no impact on class builds and contribute ~ 1% to your overall stats = No Fun and useless in the current state of the game.
Risks & Concerns
Removing time gating may allow for unforeseen bottlenecks in content. Players may not be inclined to spend zen on completion tokens on their first character.
Updating or changing rewards in campaign areas would be labor intensive and may have an adverse effect on the games economy.
Changes to boons may make the game more complex and may allow for "bad" choices to be made leading to broken or inefficient builds.
Comments
Chris
Thanks for the post. I think we can have both exist in the experience. Also horizontal progression is generally more expensive than vertical progression.
Thanks
Chris
We are actively working toward streamlining the player experience from 1-80 and the relevant systems that are part of it. This is detailed in CDP 1 for your reference. We will add this to our pool of thoughts as we work on the iniatative.
Thanks
Chris
About the blindfold paingiver, that works up to 10-15%, depending on the classes or even without. So it's a stretch to say that because of that it's negligible.
And, my point was not to give away the chase item, which at some point inevitably have to happen, but that at the moment, people have nothing to chase whatsoever so giving them an insignificant upgrade is at least a thing to do. I would not want a better set than Lionheart, but quickfoots problem that he just left on 10 months of old gear is a problem. I disagree that he should be given a set as good as the Lionheart, but if you say that ~7% is not a big issue, what is your problem to cut it into 5%? It should be more irrevelant.
But more importantly, if your problem is ToMM chase items devaluing, the Lionheart set is the less important part of it. The Mad Mage artifact set is still looks like a third rate option and most people's problem roots in the fact that the legendary rings have a true marginal benefit, just bling, so people undercut others just to get rid of it, sometimes by 75%. Now that's whats undermining the effort and you only would need to be add like 0,5% or 1% to make the legendary rings have more value.
Chris
Feedback Overview:
Make meaningful rewards from crafting.
Feedback Goal:
To make the crafting system an integrated part of the game instead of simply just another "activity".
Feedback Functionality:
I don't have a huge experience with MMORPGs, but I know a lot of people think the standard for "crafting" is Runescape. In this system, the different areas you can level up all complement each other. You level up fishing to fish for better food. You level up cooking to be able to cook that food. You then use that food to restore health when fighting. You level up mining to mine better ores. You level up smelting to smelt the higher level ores. You level up smithing to turn those ores to weapons that you then can use when fighting or to sell, ect.
Right now crafting doesn't feel like it is part of the game. There is no desire to do it as it serves no benefit to the player except to sell some very specific items for gold. By making the crafting system a complement to the game you give the players more to do (as you stated was a desire).
This can extend into other reward discussions such as loot tables. Crafting supplies can be included in loot tables. Also, the desire to be able to have alternative methods of grinding rewards. Why can't someone craft a "near BiS" weapon/armor if they wish to focus/time sink on crafting at the highest levels?
Risks & Concerns:
Effect on economy if people can craft items they previously had to spend AD on. Dev work to balance loot tables. Complaints from people that like to farm dungeons thinking that dungeons are now not as "important".
Another cool idea! Let's drill into this category of idea in phase 2.
Thanks
Chris
Thanks for taking the time to make this post but I believe your core premise of what progression and what isn't progression is very blinkered/focused view. For example I have hit level 80 and am 23k item level. In my journey there were many rights of passage for me in regard to progression, for example unlocking new abilities, companions, mounts, entry to dungeons, trials, queues, and many more. Therefore while I understand your point in regard to your experience, player type and point in your journey I do not that that such a broad statement can be a framework for discussing rewards and progression in details. This said it certainly bears merit for a subset of players.
Thanks
Chris
https://guides.jannenw.info/2020/02/07/how-i-would-go-about-redesigning-neverwinter/
I apologize in advance, I don't expect anyone to read through all of this, but for anyone who does, I genuinely did try to come up with solutions to many of what are in my mind, problems in this game.
Thanks
Chris
Chris
Streamline and lengthen the leveling process, create a unique journey for each new class or race or god affiliation and have choices have some meaning and introduce a class trainer. Remove boons and boost/enhance (and revalue) enchantments for balance. Make the rewards for campaigns reward/gear based.
Feedback Goal
Key things that need to be implemented, a scaling system that allows for vertical progression but at the same time balances zones with the characters level. Allows more choices when party members questline differs from that of the main characters. Enrich the storylines and ultimately lengthen the progression process to allow players to become submerged into the storyline as well as properly learn their classes. This would organically create areas potentially unexplored and allow for new character creation of a different class and/or race to progress through the unvisited areas.
Removing boons and providing a class and/or God specific artifact as a reward. This reward would be a continuous benefit horizontally until more end-game specific artifacts can be achieved.
Feedback Functionality
Each choice in the character selection screen would create a set of values to class based on their race and god affiliation. These values would be checked against which quest zones they will have access to from Knox. Currently when you advance through everyone would start with Blacklake and the remaining areas are covered in fog of war (not visible on the map). That should remain, the system should only reveal the quest zones as the Character progresses through vertical progression.
Using a Half-Orc Barbarian as an example, if they chose any God affiliation other than Corellon they would not be offered the questline that would take them to the Tower District, because they would be fighting other Orc’s. If they chose Corellon who is the God of the Elvin People that could override his class and racial choices. Also if someone in his party is a Wood-Elf Ranger with Corellon as their God the choice may also be available. Otherwise the Half-Orc Barbarian may only see the quest to take them to Blackdagger Ruins.
Based on this example, if a Half-Orc Barbarian chose Corellon God and went into the Blacklake District to fight Orc’s, their influencer rating would lower. Influencer ratings would affect Invoking Rewards - the higher the influencer rating, the better invoking rewards - the lower the influencer rating, the fewer rewards. This could even affect the amount of times you can invoke per day - 10% reduction in influencer ratings for your chosen God could be one less invoking your character can perform.
So to clarify - the God you choose and the actions you take will affect your gameplay during leveling. So the example, a Half-Orc Barbarian who has chosen Tempus (God of Warfare) once completed Blacklake would go to Knox and have a quest to Blackdagger Ruins available. In another case this Barbarian has partied with a Wood Elf Ranger with Corellon as his deity, when he goes to Knox Tower district would also show up but with his party mates name attached to it. If he chooses to do this quest rather than moving on to Blackdagger it would lower his race influencer number, making it more likely that as quest zones come up individually if Orcs are in it.
The idea with the influencers, in addition to the invoking rewards is to shorten the amount of zones needed to complete down to 6-8 rather than 17 or 19.
Removing boons would eliminate beginning player confusion about the correct path of boons to take, especially when many new players are unclear of what boon they should be slotting points into. We are currently in a ‘balanced stats’ era of Neverwinter and enchantments could easily be reworked, enhanced to achieve the same goal boons do but with less of a learning curve. Players currently have an enchantment quest early on and become readily aware how they work and affect stats.
Risks & Concerns
The additional storyline based on class/god choices would be a concern. Could we rely on the community to contribute to the storyline? This would require an in-depth and concise knowledge of D&D lore.
Boons are a player-based and campaign goal and may not be easily dismissed by the current community.
Thanks for reading.
Enna Backpetal Cleric
Enna F Backpetal Fighter
Twitch Me Baby One More Time
Item level is a really terrible indicator in this game, and even after the adjustments made in m16 to make item level more representative of how well geared/strong a character is, it is still massively misleading.
There is a HUGE difference, between a character with 23k item level and poorly balanced stats, bad companion options, and a character with 20k item level and well balanced stats, and decent companion slot choices.
to put things into perspective,
An augment companion with max bonding/runestones/ legendary rank accounts for around 50% of our stat pool
3x700 item level for bonding stones.
6x 66 for runestones
100 for summoned companion
100 x 6 for equip powers
1010 x 3 for top Companion equipment
For a Total of 6,226 item level, with best of everything. Assuming you have around 24k item level, thats barely 25% of your total, yet a good 50% of your character strength is coming from this, making item level a poor representation of character strength.
But it gets worse. the Companion Equip powers give 100 item level, regardless of the rank you have. a White companion, will still give 100, as does a legendary, Further miss representing strength.
To put simply, Item level on gear sucks, and just because you have item level 20k, doesnt mean you are ready to do LoMM, 24k doesnt mean you are ready to do ToMM. This is especially highlighted with LoMM being added into the RED queue list and the amount of failed groups.
1) tying into the boon idea (put boon points into your classes capability to achieve the same as the set state would), or
2) having it tied to you class sigil, where you choose the changes based on increasing level?
That would wrap a few other concepts into existing items to give them a re-birth, while achieving goals of meaningful differentiation (yet balance). As they would not be tied to a set, the initial work/bug check fixing is the same, but as gear changes, these do not, so moves them onto the class life-cycle, not equipment.
Might is not always right - the powerful sometimes forget that.
The Small BandThere's a vast array of ideas here, and it's exciting to see that maybe someone in management does cares.
No matter what direction development takes, Thank you for your time and efforts.
Chris
Now, what i suggest is.. Let us use |masterwork| to craft appearance/cosmetic items. Add demonic wings for instance. Add plenty of choices... You will figure something out.... I'd gladly pay ad/gold/zen to craft that stuff... Masterwork for me as it has been all these years, was and is, a complete waste of time, ad and resources. I never even touched it nor i will.
Mastercrafting rewards upgrades should provide alternative BIS or close to BIS items as possible. One option could be the creation of customizable gear or gear slots. These gear slots could be used on current gear / weapons/ jewelry etc as well as items created by mastercrafters. Insignia mods and companion jewelry could also be part of the new crafting recipes.
Feedback goal:
The goal of this new system would be to provide customizable gear or slot items to players which would be not only on opportunity for more levels of character customization but to also allow an ability for mastercrafters to make viable/sellable items for each mod or game update.
Feedback functionality:
Mod items or enchants craftable by mastercrafters would be added to profession recipes for each new module or update. There could be an option for mastercrafters to do quests to receive these items. New professions lines for pet gear and insignias could also be incorporated in these new recipes. For example there could be a gear slot item to increase encounter powers by 5% or perhaps even mod slots to increase amplitude of an encounter or give additional stat bonuses. These new enchants would be sellable on the AH as BOE.
Chris
Allow more grinding options
Feedback Goal
Reaching meta endgame character requires roughly 90m astral diamonds, and without counting any rng luck involved in the process would mean 900 days of capping rad and refining (2,5 years approx). With all thats to be done for a mid-endgame player is to do 2 or 3 quests and random qs every day (normally about 1,5hours of playtime). This turns nwo into a casual game rather than what you would expect in a typical mmorpg. Allow more grinding options for the hardcore player to do what they do in other games and not quit the game of boredom
Feedback Functionality
Currently, the only core grinding content would be to do the dungeons in dread ring (a waay outdated module), and an eventual codg which everyday is less rewarding. What we are doing at the moment is logging everyday, refine our diamonds and pray to have some lucky rng drop that would give us some more wealth. This is turning into an idle mobile game as you get to the cap of your character.
Most of the mmorpg players are used to grind hours in any game to get a bit wealthier every second they spend, even if it takes a lot of time to get some serious ammount, but here is something that just can't be done, take for example these juma boxes. Even though they are heavily rng dedpendant, ppl saw an opportunity to grind them and get some profit (and an army of chickens), but then devs decided to rework the heroic encounters and as you see now (having less than half of the instances open as before) people got tired because it's just not worth the effort. ME's in last module are another example, horrible rewards, a rare rng jackpot and limited to 3 per day. It is like your business model won't allow for people to grind some content. Please allow some more grinding in future content
Edit: A personal experience, when my warlock class was not useful by mod 16/17, i thought about making another character. Leveled it up, did some campaigns, but as i was playing i realized how much time of waiting for the days to pass by it would take me to get it to the same level as my warlock main. There was no way i could speed things up for it apart from finishing campaigns earlier with tokens, but the gear would still be missing. And that made me abandon that character, my options there were to keep on with my warlock and wait for it to be useful again or quit the game completely. I did the first one on that time, but I surely will do the 2nd option if that happens again to me.
On top of that life thru me another huge curveball and while the mrs. rests I am trying to get some of my ideas out here as I think this process is extremely important to the game. I have not been able to be as active urging everyone to participate this time and hope others can take up that torch.
So here goes. First I think the collections tab needs to be updated, especially the by location section. It still has spots that tell you to go to the old seal vendors that are no longer in game to buy things. And sure would be nice to know where to buy things need for progression systems like refinement. Along with this the rewards for the various campaign stores need to updated. Wonder how many players still dont know about the gear that levels with you from some campaigns? A section with crafting could be implemented or crafting things added to what is available in each campaign area.
Now the reward quality and time spent IS the risk vs reward meat and potatoes of the game IMO. If I am going to spend hours on end trying to defeat the hardest end game content I should be getting my hands on the best rewards. I do understand the need for rng. (I spent 50 runs on the very worst dungeon in another game going after a helmet to get into the next tier of content. Once I got the helmet the very first run of next tier gave me a better helmet) O the cruel RNG.
IMO risk vs reward is not giving me the choice of endless stacks of numbers just to see if it makes a difference. I want to know what stats I need at a minimum so I am not inspecting the floor every second. I also like to know what the max is or the point of diminishing returns so I am not wasting endless amounts of time number crunching a spreadsheet. I dont necessarily need the info given directly but knowing before hand this is not even there deflates the meaning of risk reward for me.
You see along with updates to the overall arc of the game from 1 to endgame I think an additional system for campaigns needs to be addressed. Early on you are given some sprinkling of campaign and a bunch of zones with story mixed and matched. Than the closer to endgame the more campaigns. It feels like you are given a bunch of straws, spit wods and posters of the things to do in game and given free rain to see what sticks.
Risk vs reward, progression in dungeons we have systems already in game with regular dungeons, epic and the k team. AND player toggles of hardcore reduced item level. But what do you get. The same loot table, the same reward for increased difficulty. Except the k team which if you do complete you get outdated rewards for increased difficulty.
Move kteam to Rhix, put the guy back to work and give people a chance at something like a juma bag or juma bag type currency for increased difficulty on dungeons. Increased risk – increased reward. You could give them regular items plus the juma bag currency or just a bag and the rng chance at those rewards.
Now as for crafting I think it should remain a character based system only moved more to a well character driven system. Why do we have the ability to collect herbs, animal bones, fish, dig, skill nodes etc if we are not going to use them for anything really? All those systems could be put to use by a player to craft items.
We have had several iterations of hunt systems, imagine having to do something like that for crafting ingredients.
I would like it to be even expanded and bring back the old black ice/voninblod type of empowerment only with items to be crafted and put on gear. DO not misunderstand I hated to have to keep farming and repower stuff endlessly but I think it would be very cool to craft items to empower my gear for the frozen north. Or some sort of fire resist for hell. Something that gave a bonus in chult. None of this would be required and you could still use whatever gear you wanted but if you had that specific empowerement you got a small advantage for that specific campaign and its dungeons/skirmished etc.
Now think if you had stats minimum and caps that matched scaling with zones/dungeons and combined those with campaigns and you could put in an empowerment to that old black ice gear for when you had to do a kessel retreat or had to do some legacy stuff.
Now think for a minute if gear was stored on a loadout and you could collect sets for campaigns and have it empowered for whatever resist/buff/debuff needed for the campaigns matching dungeon/skirmish/trial.
I think I might be tempted to get more loadouts and collect the old gear with the empowerement and save the setup for when I did do that content. More so if that content received a rework and I had to go back thru it anyway.
I am on the fence on masterwork as half of me wants to see it just go and the other half understands why only a few do it. I do not believe it should be used to craft anything BIS in game. I am not against being able to have a chance at crafting items equal to or less than BIS gear.
On the above crafting examples I made. Imagine if the masterwork items actually was obtained from some other sort of gathering like those treasure maps from river district or fishing up the item needed for mastercrafting. Imagine the empowerment item that came from masterwork was twice or better than the one crafted from non masterwork.
I would like to give more examples and better details but the walls of text are probably a blur already.
Apologies for not following the exact posting guidelines, will try harder in the future.
Feedback Overview
Rewards:From personal perceptive there are 4 types of rewards:
1. Things I want really want, long term. (for some, could be BiS item, could be looks)
2. Short term goal - An item I aim to get, but I know it will be replaced by item above, if I can get that one.
3. Something I don't really aim to get, but if it drops, I can find it some use, or sell, or something - it will not be discarded on sight.
4. Trash - completely irrelevant trash in the context of where I am- an item that is insult to injury - you got trash and now you need to find it in a god awful inventory with no search, and discard it.
Feedback Goal
Remove the Trash please.Feedback Functionality
Items have their place. Getting blakjaw clan stuff in ME is one thing, getting those in Citadel or ToMM is purely insult. I'll rather have the damn 300 RP (or 150 don't remember) straight as RP, than do inventory cleanup every 2 runs. I'm not inventory sanitation department.Risks & Concerns
None.Feedback Overview
Progression and Rewards have been discussed many times in different threads both here and on reddit.From reading this CDP and those threads over the years on this and other forums I can say that progression and rewards mean many different things to different people depending on where they are in the game.
These are the main areas I usually see when people discuss progression and rewards in relation to Neverwinter.
- Early game rewards and progression as it relates to new players
- Mid game rewards and progression as it relates to campaigns and boons
- Late game / end game rewards and progression as it relates to equipment, upgrades and content
- Progression and rewards in all content as it relates to perceived "nerfs" and reward gating
- Perceived loss of, or negative progression as it relates to Scaling
It is impossible for me to discuss all of these areas in 200 words or less so I will divide my response up into seperate posts.Feedback Goal
To discuss how progression and rewards are experienced in the early game by new players and provide ideas for improving both experiences.Feedback Functionality
From an early game "New" player perspective gaining levels in this game gives very little sense of accomplishment. Leveling happens so quickly that players often outlevel the content and rewards before they are even finished with quests in a given area in most cases. This sometimes leads new players to rush to 80 often skipping content instead of enjoying the early game and learning game mechanics.An example of the extreme ends of the spectrum in my experience is a Korean MMORPG I used to play in which leveling was so slow that everyone around you would send a PM or Tell when they saw the extravagant level up animations when a player near them finally made the next level. This in itself gave players a sense of accomplishment and progression because the mere act of leveling was celebrated and important to everyone. It often took weeks to earn one level and you could lose progress if you died. In Neverwinter you can literally go from level 1-80 in two weeks or less without even trying. New players are rarely congratulated upon leveling and are often told that the real game starts at level 70.
Two weeks or less is not long enough to actually experience and enjoy the content from 1-60 much less 1-80. Leveling so quickly makes all of the gear and items you earn as rewards irrelevant moments or hours after you earn it. The new player barely has enough time and experience to learn their class before they reach level 80. What is the point of leveling so quickly?
I have heard new players complain that they outleveled the Tower District before even finishing that content. This means that they are on the road to being over level for all content after the Tower District. How is that fun? Early game areas are some of the best content in this game and many of the games tutorials are in this content. There is a rich story line to be found here and many of the areas are very detailed and well made. Sadly, many players skip over several of the areas because of outdated rewards and being over level for the content.
I once made a new character and was actually over level for the first trial in the Blacklake District just by doing the quests in Protectors enclave and the Blacklake district! It was a 2x experience weekend but that is my point. If I had been a new player I would have missed the tutorial for the Queue system and not experienced my fist trial! This is only one example of how being overlevel breaks content and contributes to confusion but there are many more.
Suggestions:
Risks & Concerns
If leveling takes more time it may anger players that make armies of alts. I argue that these players have access to items and knowledge that will allow them to speed through this content regardless of the changes I propose. Since they are on an existing account they should also not be subject to the 2x event and XP boost restrictions. To be honest they don't even need to do this content anyway because they can skip everything after level 11 and just invoke to 80.- an update to the profession system for crafters (idea A )
- an update to event currencies/rewards (idea B )
- chase items for 'average mid-end-game players' (idea C )
Feedback Goal
- Idea A would target players, who want to purely craft items and take the role of a crafter with some gameplay a new goal and something to do in this game.
- Idea B would target long time players (who have done a lot of events), which have gathered a lot of event currencies in their bags and rework the capped place in the currency bag ('other currencies')
- Idea C would target players, who have played this game for years and have therefore achieved endgame status, have finished everything, but are not the elite players (due to lack of skill or commitment they do not participate in ToMM as an example). It would give them something to do, something to collect.
Feedback Functionality
- Idea A would be as following:
There would be a new kind of profession system, which could be a 'new' masterwork but without the requirement to have masterwork rank 5. Every player can start it and choose an area where the player wants to craft stuff. The areas could be the same as the existing profession system (artificing, ...) or could be different. If it is different the areas could be as following:
+ Fashion (items which belong to the fashion appearance - could use existing items from either fashion or gear and new items)
+ Appearance (items which belong to the gear appearance - pure cosmetical items from older gear/equipment without stats but with nice cosmetics, could include new items as well)
+ Weapons (weapons which have worse stats than the current BiS weapons (now lionheart) - but have interesting set boni (combined mainhand and offhand), such as a buff for group members or movement speed bonus (meaning weapons with nice stats, but worse than current BiS/endgame weapons and buffs/set boni which benefit support characters or can make a run more interesting))
The set boni could be similar as thefabricant suggested at ✪ Part 6 – Chase Items - page one of this thread.
+ Armor (armor with the same idea as weapons - maybe split to different types of armor)
+ ...
To be not exploitable it would a longer recipe chain with the items before the last recipe being account bound. Therefore, players who want to craft stuff and sell it can still sell crafting material for the step before the last step. I am unsure if it would be better to have the results (items) being account bound or unbound (→ Risks & Concern).
The system would need to implemented that players can only choose two or three areas to craft stuff. This way a player cannot craft everything and would have to decide what to do. This would increase 'specialization' among players and give the players a way to individualize their characters more.
The items which are used for the crafting process would be items, which are found in the open world (or similiar to idea C).
- Idea B would be as following:
Currently there is a cap on event currencies in the bag 'other currencies'. This leads to players which have some currencies left from some events, such as the winter festival and having capped bags. They now have to delete some currency there (not all currencies are able to be deleted such as the Neverwinter Renown) if they want to earn some new currency of new events or campaigns. The cap could be removed and/or the event currencies/rewards given to a seperate place which is split from the campaign stuff. This could lead to a better difference between what is the main game (campaigns) and what are events. Event currency could be reworked as well, but josephskyrim gave good ideas for that anyway at page one of this thread.
- Idea C would be as following:
Current quests which are repeatable, like weekly quests for legacy campaigns could get a end chest (or new quest reward) which contains a chase item. Chase item in this regard is defined as a item, which is rare, has a nice cosmetic (not a must), perhaps has a rare gear bonus (such as movement speed or damage buff only to allies or 'every ally is healed 200k HP once every 20 seconds - cooldown after 2min 30seconds' or ...). A chase item does not have BiS stats and has only situational use (not for every class, not for every playstyle).
A variant of this idea would be to implement chests/nodes in the world maps (or instanced quests such as expeditions - but with infinite repeatability) which require solo players (!) to go difficult ways (nostura module or lair of lostmauth - one of the ways before the second boss) and/or to fight difficult fights (difficult in this context means - 2-5 monsters, one a 'mini boss', which takes 1min (?) to kill, but is possible to kill with a tank/heal character as well in the time and is possible to be 'tanked' by dps characters as well) to get chase items (such as before defined). The chests/nodes could contain material for crafting (idea A) as well.
Risks & Concerns
Idea A:
- The results of the crafting (the items, such as fashion or weapons) could be unbound - this could be a risk as some players might try to craft the items as cheap as possible and therefore minimizing the benefit to craft it for other player. If the items (the result of the crafting) are account bound the crafters could show their items and use them with the advantage that their are possible not many of them and they help the group in ways which do not necessary is 'biggest dps, best tank, best heal' giving a goal to players who do not want to chase the BiS items all the time.
- The implementation would require much time and could potentially only influence a subset of all players.
Idea B:
- Risk could be that some players now store all currency for later events and hope for better rewards then.
Idea C:
- The implementation would take some time and quest rewards/chests/nodes would have to be balanced in regards to the aim of the system.
- Rewards would perhaps have to modified after new modules, depending if the level increased or much better gear has been introduced
Thanks for reading this
Feedback Overview
Mid game rewards and progression as it relates to campaigns and boons.Feedback Goal
To discuss how progression and rewards are experienced in the mid game and provide ideas for improving both experiences.Feedback Functionality
From a Mid game perspective time gating and the lack of a clear path to follow when approaching campaigns leads to players becoming confused, lost and bored with content. If a new player has 8 - 12 hours to spend playing over a weekend allow them to spend that time productively. This will allow them to progress along one path instead of starting several areas because they are waiting for time gates.Campaign rewards are often years out of date and have no purpose in the current game, BUT there is often no way for the new player to tell that those rewards are outdated until after they have wasted hours grinding them out. I don't even want to think about the number of times I have had to tell new players to ignore all of the side quests for weapons and armor in the early campaigns. Not only this though, due to the changes in MOD 16 the boons you earn from each of these areas equate to ~ 1% of overall stats in any given area and contribute very little to your overall build. So now we have to answer the question of whether or not it is even worth doing the campaigns at all.
Suggestions:
- Boons need to mean something since there is a considerable grind involved. If the developers do not want to give more stats then use boons as a way to make unique builds in the spirit of pre MOD 16 but better. There have been many suggestions along this line in this CDP.
- Time gating needs to be removed from campaigns. An argument can be made to keep time gating for the most current MOD, but the early game and legacy campaigns should be able to be completed without artificial hindrances. Let me grind if I want to in order to complete a campaign quickly.
- The many weapon and armor sets available through early campaigns could be made relevant again, but this would require constant updating which is not feasible. Instead of updating all of these items for each MOD maybe they could be used in Master crafting recipes to make higher tier weapons and armor that is entry level for current content. Maybe make it better than, or on par with the free gear given in Barovia and Undermountain? This way only the stats of the crafted gear needs to be adjusted for new content and new players have something to work for instead of getting the gear for free. If this is not feasible then maybe remove the grind associated with the gear and make it transmutes? Maybe remove it altogether and replace it with tokens or items that can be traded for current gear or items in the Superstore mentioned in the VIP CDP.
Time gates = No fun and hinder progression. Endless grind for outdated items = No Fun and cheapens rewards. Boons that have little or no impact on class builds and contribute ~ 1% to your overall stats = No Fun and useless in the current state of the game.Risks & Concerns
Removing time gating may allow for unforeseen bottlenecks in content. Players may not be inclined to spend zen on completion tokens on their first character.Updating or changing rewards in campaign areas would be labor intensive and may have an adverse effect on the games economy.
Changes to boons may make the game more complex and may allow for "bad" choices to be made leading to broken or inefficient builds.