CDP Topic: Rewards & Progression

fluffy6977 · February 2020

rjc9000 said:

maturutuki said:

c) 'Secret campaign' - something like watcher hunt should be.
- Challenge mini dungeons - solo or group mini dungeons with predefined levels, boons and equipment for adventurers with different ways to enter (for example talk to hidden character on map, open a chest on correct hour to spawn a portal, jump into well/lake, gather the full party near sign) and different difficult (as you play on predefined stats - only by player skill/skill setup).
- Mini bosses/hunts for public leveling areas and old campaigns or new rewards it they exist (drops only for players with correct level xor correct ilvl).
- Mini challenges - like sumo game on big tenser disc using sahha ball 'foul skill animation' to throw enemy (player or mob) outside of flying disc, find the Boo.

Ad.1.c
Secret campaign - quest line, without its steps written into journal.
With steps like:
[example of secret campaign steps]
I wrote example of secret campaign but post is a wall of text anyway, so i removed it from here.
While I was never able to keep up with the crazy alternate reality game/easter egg stuff in other games (Ex: CoD HAMSTER Zombies), I think some hidden dungeons or secret bosses would be a cool way to keep dungeons fresh. And it's not like it's a foreign concept: the game has done it in the form of the Mimicking in remade Spellplague Caverns.

As for placing the secret easter eggs/secret boss in dungeons: I'd suggest making them only unlockable on hard mode (or whatever difficulty equivalent will be), or add them as an "extra stage" that unlocks after completing the easter egg steps (whether it's as simple as "complete the dungeon with no downs" or "complete some crazy alternate reality game and solve some puzzles").

I don't know if the engine will allow it, but I'd also suggest not spawning in the easter egg dungeon/boss/etc. until players have completed all the steps. Otherwise, you might get an enterprising data miner that will just find the area and ruin part of the ARG stuff.

Of course, there's always the concern of implementing the easter egg taking much more development time away from modules/bugfixing/or class "balancing".

It's been a very long time, but prior to Mod 6 there were at least two "secret" mini dungeons with bonus bosses in different dungeons. I know one was in Cragmire Crypts and I can't remember where the other was, you had to break through a wall into a sewer-style maze. Both have been removed.

PS also why on earth does this forum filter HAMSTER?!?! Content blockers need to be seriously addressed across this forum and the game, not being able to type in inoffensive words is ridiculous.

hustin1 · February 2020

fluffy6977 said:

rjc9000 said:

maturutuki said:

c) 'Secret campaign' - something like watcher hunt should be.
- Challenge mini dungeons - solo or group mini dungeons with predefined levels, boons and equipment for adventurers with different ways to enter (for example talk to hidden character on map, open a chest on correct hour to spawn a portal, jump into well/lake, gather the full party near sign) and different difficult (as you play on predefined stats - only by player skill/skill setup).
- Mini bosses/hunts for public leveling areas and old campaigns or new rewards it they exist (drops only for players with correct level xor correct ilvl).
- Mini challenges - like sumo game on big tenser disc using sahha ball 'foul skill animation' to throw enemy (player or mob) outside of flying disc, find the Boo.

Ad.1.c
Secret campaign - quest line, without its steps written into journal.
With steps like:
[example of secret campaign steps]
I wrote example of secret campaign but post is a wall of text anyway, so i removed it from here.
While I was never able to keep up with the crazy alternate reality game/easter egg stuff in other games (Ex: CoD HAMSTER Zombies), I think some hidden dungeons or secret bosses would be a cool way to keep dungeons fresh. And it's not like it's a foreign concept: the game has done it in the form of the Mimicking in remade Spellplague Caverns.

As for placing the secret easter eggs/secret boss in dungeons: I'd suggest making them only unlockable on hard mode (or whatever difficulty equivalent will be), or add them as an "extra stage" that unlocks after completing the easter egg steps (whether it's as simple as "complete the dungeon with no downs" or "complete some crazy alternate reality game and solve some puzzles").

I don't know if the engine will allow it, but I'd also suggest not spawning in the easter egg dungeon/boss/etc. until players have completed all the steps. Otherwise, you might get an enterprising data miner that will just find the area and ruin part of the ARG stuff.

Of course, there's always the concern of implementing the easter egg taking much more development time away from modules/bugfixing/or class "balancing".
It's been a very long time, but prior to Mod 6 there were at least two "secret" mini dungeons with bonus bosses in different dungeons. I know one was in Cragmire Crypts and I can't remember where the other was, you had to break through a wall into a sewer-style maze. Both have been removed.

PS also why on earth does this forum filter HAMSTER?!?! Content blockers need to be seriously addressed across this forum and the game, not being able to type in inoffensive words is ridiculous.

They actually haven't been removed (the one you're thinking of is in Temple of the Spider, and it was an **awesome** area with some really diabolical enemy placement. It was brilliant in that respect). They're still there, but artificially blocked off ***for no good reason***.

I can't stress this enough. At no time have the devs EVER cited a valid reason for blocking them off, and I've harangued them nonstop about it for five years straight. If someone was to ask me to cite a reason why I might be dissatisfied with communication from the devs, this is what I would point to.

And now they've blocked off the loop in Malabog's Castle. Consider it adding insult to injury. If something adds variety to a dungeon, rest assured, they will artificially block it off with no announcement and absolutely no justification.

A TR with Shadowy Disappearance can (with a great deal of effort, in the case of Cragmire Crypts) get to them. The areas in CC are seriously difficult to reach. The sewer area in ToS is devoid of enemies, but there is still a functioning lore scroll on the floor. I believe there's also a functioning lore scroll in a separate side area in CC that is reachable, also with a great deal of effort. The miniboss in CC is a spider called the Daughter of Lolth. It's still there, waiting to be killed. I last visited all of the blocked side areas in Mod 15 and took LOTS of screen shots. Lots.

There's also a really cool torch puzzle room in Grey Wolf Den that still exists and the puzzle still functions. It's quite easy for said TR to reach. Both CC and GwD have many side areas that are artificially blocked, in addition to the ones cited here. I distinctly remember the enemies in one CC area having dialogue that was a Yellowbeard reference (something like, "Cragmires are never more dangerous than when we're dead!"). I really miss that room. Sadly, it's devoid of enemies now.

@cwhitesidedev#9752 would you be able to look into these side areas? We have never been given an explanation as to why these were blocked off and why they cannot be restored. The only answer I have ever gotten from a dev was a (frankly insulting) question, "why would you want them? there's no loot in them". We shouldn't have to justify their restoration; the devs should have to justify their *removal*. I doubt the reason is technical since they actually still exist and merely have some form of blocking asset (wall, rock, etc.) placed in the way. If I sound bitter about this it's precisely because of how this was handled. Nonetheless, my answer would be, "because the variety they added to the dungeons made them *fun*". To me, this should be more than enough reason to have them.

shrineerune · February 2020

cwhitesidedev#9752 said:
Meanwhile if you all can move onto phase 2 then that would be great. Specifically it is time to drill into the areas and ideas you like, what you want to know more about, collaborate on, challenge (in a valuable way) and evolve.

At the moment we are interested to know more of your thoughts in regard to Horizontal progression, evolution of vertical progression, what variation of current types of rewards you would like to see? This will do for now and of course this is on top of what you all would like to drill into as well.

I must admit that I don't think that I understand horizontal vs vertical progression. Is it possible for someone to clarify what these things mean?

I'm sort of understanding it as the difference between variations in abilities and power of those abilities?

If that is the case, then I'm greedy and like the idea of both. Vertical progression by way of horizontal mastery, for example. One of the horizontal progressions could be time spent actually engaging mobs within seven levels of your ability in a certain way (like using a particular attack), for example. When you meet a certain time goal, then some vertical options become available.

It seems like many of us want unbound RP and BTA rather than BTC.

I'm not sure that I'd challenge anything here, as I'm seeing a lot of interesting ideas that fit various playstyles. It is super useful to hear how other people are playing the game. I hope that whatever we do, it isn't at the cost of enjoyment for anyone else. I have zero interest in getting in the way of a good time for other players.

I've loved some of the posts on using Masterwork crafting to somehow upgrade/tear apart/rework old gear. I'm still thoroughly in love with the idea one of the developers had about displaying collections, and I'd love to hear more about it. I also loved the idea about making older dungeons more viable by improving drops of dungeon specific companions. I was grinding forever for the Repentant Cultist cage key, and it never dropped. After hundreds of runs, it seemed like I should be able to get a companion that was older and less desirable to many through the experience of the dungeon. I gave up and bought him on the AH though.

micky1p00 · February 2020

I apologize for the offtopic'ish, but due to the post about moving to phase 2, and drilling down into horizontal and vertical, is it possible to open a new thread for that purpose of phase2?
It becomes harder and harder to track (especially if I want to skim read).

And second thing, if possible to define horizontal and vertical progress a bit.

My assumption is that the general meaning is that horizontal will add choice, of a skill, feat, or something, which will be suitable in some situation, or content, but come at a price of not choosing something else, thus not increasing the overall efectivness of the char in the long term.

Vertical will be adding some permanent reward without the need to choose one or the other, stacking them over time.

Will this be correct, or others mean something else?

fluffy6977 · February 2020

micky1p00 said:
I apologize for the offtopic'ish, but due to the post about moving to phase 2, and drilling down into horizontal and vertical, is it possible to open a new thread for that purpose of phase2?
It becomes harder and harder to track (especially if I want to skim read).

And second thing, if possible to define horizontal and vertical progress a bit.

My assumption is that the general meaning is that horizontal will add choice, of a skill, feat, or something, which will be suitable in some situation, or content, but come at a price of not choosing something else, thus not increasing the overall efectivness of the char in the long term.

Vertical will be adding some permanent reward without the need to choose one or the other, stacking them over time.

Will this be correct, or others mean something else?

Basically correct as I've heard it used. Horizontal progression doesn't increase the characters overall power per se, but can optimize it in some ways. For instance changing out boots with IL 1250 that give +1250 Combat Advantage for boots with IL 1250 that give +1250 Deflect would be a horizontal progression - you've progressed the character without significantly altering the level. A more abstract way to think of it would be a power curve with a slope of 0.01X.

Whereas vertical is replace those IL 1000 boots with IL 1250 boots. More stats, better gear, overall power increased, but plateaus faster or creates serious issues with the game balance. Or a level increase. Abstract would be a power curve of slope 3x.

Commonly games grant alternating periods of horizontal and vertical progression.

thefabricant · February 2020

cwhitesidedev#9752 said:
Morning All,

Happy Monday. I will be continuing to comment as necessary. Meanwhile if you all can move onto phase 2 then that would be great. Specifically it is time to drill into the areas and ideas you like, what you want to know more about, collaborate on, challenge (in a valuable way) and evolve.

At the moment we are interested to know more of your thoughts in regard to Horizontal progression, evolution of vertical progression, what variation of current types of rewards you would like to see? This will do for now and of course this is on top of what you all would like to drill into as well.

Looking forward to seeing the next phase of this CDP.

Chris

I won't be commenting in this post so much on other players ideas (because up to this point, everything I want or consider a good idea it still covered in my revised post). Other players posts are touching on the same topics and I see no reason to repeat myself as I tend to write an immense amount and because I have already written about those topics I don't want to waste everyone's time. But I will add a bit on horizontal vs vertical progression by talking about the different systems.

In Neverwinter, your power comes from the following sources:

Items.
Enchantments.
Companions.
Boons.
Mounts.
Insignias.
Player skills.
Race.

Some of these can be horizontal and others, by nature, will have to be vertical. However when talking about horizontal vs vertical, I will be a bit more specific and break it down as follows:

Long Term Horizontal - Systems that won't change for years, if possible, the entire game.
Short Term Horizontal - Systems that won't change for about 1 year and are intended to have alternate choices that are expanded on over that period.
Vertical - Systems that by nature, need to add something new or powerful frequently.

Where Horizontal refers to systems where there are many choices of roughly equal strength which are all viable and present the player with the ability to make interesting decisions and Vertical refers to systems where items become quickly obsolete.

Now, if we take the above list of power sources and classify them as they are in the game at the moment, they look like this:

Items - Vertical.
Enchantments - Short Term Horizontal, with an internal vertical component (the enchantment ranks).
Companions - Vertical, but leaning towards short term Horizontal.
Boons - Vertical.
Mounts - Short Term Horizontal, leaning towards long term horizontal.
Insignias - Long Term Horizontal.
Player skills and feats - Long Term Horizontal.
Race - Long Term Horizontal.

Now, I feel that it would be better for the game if we changed the following:

Items - Short Term Horizontal.
Boons - Long Term Horizontal.

Items by nature, need to be made obsolete every now and again, you need to give players something new to grind for. At the same time, if items have interesting enough bonuses, even if they are more or less as strong as another piece in general, players are likely to grind for them. There is the problem though that you can only add interesting bonuses for so long before it becomes difficult to design new ones. I feel that there is benefit to slowing down the rate of forced obsolescence and focusing more on item choice, whilst retaining the ability to force items out of use when necessary (which my proposed system does, see Item Design).

Boons, there is no reason for them to be vertical. In fact, I believe it is actually harmful for the game for them to be vertical, as it means that over time you either see a sharp increase in power, or you make boons progressively worse to retain the same level of power. It also means players feel compelled to acquire all of them and this should not be the case. In a game as old as Neverwinter, you start to see, "content bloat" where there is so much content for a new player to get through, that it overwhelms them to the point they feel like they cannot catch up and as a result they feel like they should rather play a different game. Boons contribute towards this content bloat.

The newest campaign, by virtue of being the thing you have just taken the time to make, should be something that players feel compelled to do. The rest of them, you should feel rewarded for doing, but not like you have to do them otherwise your character is not good enough.

micky1p00 · February 2020

Yet, without vertical progress, after 6 years of playing I do want something to show for, as compared to someone who started last week. (Exaggeration to convey the point)

A plethora of choices is nice, but if I end up using the same one as someone who just finished as there isn't a clear advantage then there is no perceptional progress for me, and I'll quit.

Unknown · February 2020

This content has been removed.

gabrieldourden · February 2020

Taking the list from @thefabricant as a reference, this is what I'd like to see

Items:
- scores should be vertical
- set bonuses should be horizontal and should be selectable from a list like titles. You get a set bonus when you collect all pieces from that set exactly like you get a title when you complete certain tasks. You can only have one set bonus for armor and one for neck/belt/artifact active at any time. In this way grinding a set expands your options even if you don't like the stats.

Enchantments:
- fine as they are for offense/defense ones.
- I'll maybe like a bit more impact of armor and weapon enchantments than they have today due to the investment in making them.

Companions :
- fine when it comes to companion bonuses
- augments are way overpowered at the moment as summoned companions. Rebalancing of augments vs. other types will bring more variety to playstiles and increase horizontal progression.

Boons:
- as proposed by @thefabricant make them horizontal. Having 1k power, arpen, crit, def, whatever is so dull and doesn't change your life. I've seen many people avoiding certain boons and even full campaigns due to the reward/time ratio being bad (say last STK boon and all Acquisition Inc.). Boons should be the bread and butter of customization together with feats and powers.

Mounts:
- fine as they are

Insignias:
- fine as they are

Player skills and feats:
- this is more the reign of balance than that of progression as of today. You easily reach level 80 and get the full array.
- It would be nice to have boons unlocking special skills and feats (maybe with class-related quests). By the way a class/race related module would be awesome.
- In D&D 4e who's loosely the base for this game (and my favourite edition to date) you had Epic destinies. Where are they?

Race:
- today this is probably the choice with the lowest influence on the game.
- D&D 4e had racial powers, racial Paragon Paths, racial Epic Destines and racial feats. This would be another great area for horizontal progression.

redrockls3 · February 2020

cwhitesidedev#9752 said:
Again let's drill into this idea in Phase 2. I really like it and many CDP members have also shared similar ideas. Let's talk about how this would be implemented and more examples of the types of rewards. Also how this experience could hook into events and other systems in the game. Should you be bale to do this to a mount for example or a companion?

Thanks

Chris

@cwhitesidedev#9752

Sounds good. But I may have missed where or how Phase 2 will be conducted. Either way I will respond to your direct inquiries as best as I can.

Whether or not this can be implemented for a mount or a companion will really depend on the goals you guys have for the game. I, for one, would welcome any aspect where the player can advance his or her own progress through equipment, mounts or companions at their own behest but not at the expense of exceedingly rare, cost prohibitive or RNG success.

Hitting equipment first and considering the wide swath of items the player base is asking for this to be available to, it only makes sense to have the materials and reagents needed available in the zone where the requirement originated. Going back to the original suggestion where a campaign quest giver begins your journey towards ranking items up, if the initial step is in Sharandar (as it should be if the item was introduced during phase of the game), have Sgt Knox initiate a quest that sends you there to a Mysterious Merchant-type character. This merchant will upgrade whatever item you desire (whatever you guys allow to be upgraded) one time and then direct you to Dread Ring for continued upgrading. All of the required items for this upgrade should be reasonably obtainable through quests or mob drops within that campaign. However, if an item was released in say, mod 11, you can only go back to mod 11 to initiate your upgrading process.

If you guys were to allow mounts and companions to be upgraded in such a fashion, you'd have to take a good hard look at companion upgrade tokens and how they're distributed in the game and how this impacts your vision. Mounts currently do not have the means to be upgraded but, once upon a time, you were able to buy mount training for your mounts. These "upgraded" mounts but, only their running speed. If this is something you're willing to do, then great. I don't think anyone is going to argue with faster mounts. The rest, I can't help you guys with.

As far as companions are concerned, I think this would be fantastic for all non-meta companions and unfortunately, really imbalancing for meta companions. As I'm sure you guys are aware, power has been the hot commodity for a while now and everything else, so long as it meets the cap requirements, is largely irrelevant. I think the concept of upgrading companions to a + status is alright, so long as you release caps on other areas (make them soft caps instead of hard caps) or allow interactions that you didn't previously allow for. For instance, and admittedly this goes way beyond what I initially brought up but, allowing for certain companion abilities to be triggered in higher frequency, with more effectiveness or a broader spectrum of what can trigger the companion ability in the first place.

I'll provide a rough example of what I mean--

Black Death Scorpion:

Enhancement Power: Chance on hit to increase your accuracy by up to 2,000 and your companion's critical avoidance by up to 4% for 15 seconds when your companion is near. The value of the buff depends on the quality of your summoned pet.

Player Bonus Power: On attack you have a chance to poison your target for 40% weapon damage.

I do feel like this particular companion is not only supremely vague in its description, I also feel like it is misleading with the poison as it's just direct damage and not a damage over time. But, there's potential to not only expound upon this description a bit better but also to offer it better abilities. Admittedly, I'm in love with anything that can proc and cause damage. I find that far more interesting and valuable to me than some +stat but, the way the game is designed at the moment, the +stats rule.

With that in mind, you could offer up a + version of this (with a cleaned up description) with something like this;

Empowered Black Death Scorpion:

Enhancement Power: Chance on hit to increase your accuracy and power by up to 2,500 and your companion's critical avoidance by up to 4% for 15 seconds when your companion is near. Chance on hit to reduce your enemies accuracy and power by up to 2,500 for 15 seconds. The value of the buff depends on the quality of your summoned pet.

Player Bonus Power: At-will, encounter and daily powers have a 50% chance to deal toxic damage to your enemy for 50% weapon damage.

Oh and while I'm at it, please take a look at how weapon damage is calculated for dual wielding classes and companion effects. I notice a disparity in damage between my rogue and barbarian when weapon damage stuff is being calculated.

For me, the trigger on this effect should be allowed by any source of damage provided by the player, even if it's a DoT. This, in my opinion, will offer more versatility and variance in builds than all the folks who just want more and more and more power. This is also just an example but, you guys have a bunch of companions you could do this for and many ways to supplement your current companion lineup. It's just a matter of what system you want to put into place for it. Again, if it's the incredibly frustrating and rare to get companion tokens, please consider how they're currently distributed in the game and how that'll impact any further upgrades.

On a side note, I also think that companions should just simply offer abilities and shouldn't be locked, per class, as to which you can and cannot have. I think this will also allow you guys to offer a much wider variety of companions. Similar to how it was done before but, just simply have five available slots and one summoned companion with the same abilities and sets you have currently but, offer additional +stats to make the choices more interesting.

cwhitesidedev · February 2020

Well I am up to date in terms of reading and now I am going to bed. See you all shortly.

Chris

P.S: I will continue responses as necessary from page 5 later.

fluffy6977 · February 2020

micky1p00 said:
Yet, without vertical progress, after 6 years of playing I do want something to show for, as compared to someone who started last week. (Exaggeration to convey the point)

A plethora of choices is nice, but if I end up using the same one as someone who just finished as there isn't a clear advantage then there is no perceptional progress for me, and I'll quit.

I think we are talking about two different kinds of progress, personal character progress and progress v. other players. There's still months and months of grinding to catch up to endgame and optimize their characters. Even if there wasn't, why should it matter that some noob runs some of the same gear you run, as long as you have fun playing?

Not trying to ridicule or anything, I just really don't understand the need to feel superior to another player progression wise. It's just numbers and weighted RNG. I could hand my buddy my controller and he won't be able to survive the encounters I could, so who cares if we start out on equal footing? Why would that be worth quitting the game over?

onethree13 · February 2020

Hello everyone, hello to the creators of the game! Sorry for my English, as this is not my native language. I hope that everything that will be written below will be written with minimal errors, and the names of the dungeons will be understandable. :)
So, I’ll start, perhaps, with the most insane problem, which the “tanks” (Barbarian, Fighter) might not have encountered for every reason that is understandable to everyone. But other players know about it (at least on the Russian server).

Bored queues

Feedback Overview:

Imagine that Netflix offers you only a dozen films to watch and you watch the same films a thousand times, without the possibility (alternative) to watch something else. Have you imagined it? So, this also applies to the queues in the game Neverwinter. This is the first.
Secondly, these queues you need to wait, for example, a wizard or a warlock for a very long time. Sometimes it feels like you're standing in line at a mall during Black Friday. Is it good? I don’t think so. For example, I, like many others, go into the game to play, and not sit and look at the monitor in anticipation of a miracle, which later turns out to be the monotonous dungeon that has been studied up and down.

Feedback Goal:

Prevent it! Rid people of boredom and let them play fully.

Feedback Functionality:

How to diversify this boredom? I see only a few ways:

1. From time to time add new queues (from time to time - this is not 1-2 dungeons per module).
2. Sometimes add events / trials / tasks or something else like this as an alternative to dungeons, where players can also get in-game currency and other nice prizes. A good example for the above is the rune chests in Undermountain and Juma's Surprise, or examples from other games: skill tests in GTA 5 Online, Mods for Counter-Strike, etc.
3. To completely review the dependence of the dungeon on some players (we are still talking about "tanks"). This is how you did, for example, battles (Horror Legion, Robbing A Rich Bank, etc.).

Risks & Concerns:

1. New queues / events / trials / tasks or something else like this would require some time and effort, as the creators of the game will have to create new locations. But believe me, it's worth it. To save time, as an option, you can return the Workshop for players.
2. If you see 3 point (from Feedback Functionality), then you may encounter only the indignation of the same tanks that will rise from heaven to earth and become ordinary mortals (will receive in-game currency like other players, without additional encouragement) .
Otherwise, I do not see any other risks & concerns, but only benefit. Indeed, with new queues / events / trials / tasks, old players can return to the game, and YouTube and video bloggers can constantly stream something new, thereby attracting new players to the game (because with what is now, even the stream turns out to be boring, because there is nothing new, absolutely).

P.S. I apologize in advance if I was rude somewhere or offended someone. This is simply because I really want the "game to play with new colors." So that new players play the game and old players return.

Unknown · February 2020

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cwhitesidedev · February 2020

> @micky1p00 said:
> Yet, without vertical progress, after 6 years of playing I do want something to show for, as compared to someone who started last week. (Exaggeration to convey the point)
>
> A plethora of choices is nice, but if I end up using the same one as someone who just finished as there isn't a clear advantage then there is no perceptional progress for me, and I'll quit.

Hi Mickey,

We are talking about vertical and horizontal. Personally I don’t want to see Vertical removed from the game (put simply it can’t be, it is a core pillar). I do want to see Vertical be more meaningful in regard to ongoing relevance and variety of ways to attain it. Choice is good and as Fabricant and other CDP members have put forward player agency around choice is even better. Ways to diversify your play in regard to different game states is empowering. Horizontal and Vertical can live within this paradigm.

This said folks are drilling and challenging at the moment as per the goal for Phase 2. It is good to see folks think outside of the box even if it isn’t something you, I or anyone else agree with.

Thanks Mickey for sharing your opinion,

Chris

lordaeolos · February 2020

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about horizontal progression…

I think it’s important when discussing progressions that we all have a base understanding of the difference between horizontal and vertical progressions:

Vertical progression is progression where the player character becomes more powerful over time.

Whereas, horizontal progression is progression without necessarily becoming more powerful, instead having more options available.

By those definitions Neverwinter has never had horizontal progression, each mod and release offered more powerful choices (or in many cases seeming more powerful choices that were actually worse).

Assuming that the “holy trinity” is the game design that will remain in effect for the foreseeable future, and that neither buffing or control will not be brought back into the game in any meaningful manner…

That leaves these items for Horizontal progression:

1. Gear / Items
= Instead of releasing new more powerful gear with each mod, instead release gear / items that have equal value for
completing content. However, the catch here is that new gear/ items that have lesser value will be quickly spotted by the
community and reduce the “chase”

2. Feats /Powers /Paragons
- Feats/Powers /Paragons would need to be deeper with more play-style choices, these could be earned by doing campaign
content, or added with new level caps. I suggest giving 5 feats from the start, then unlocking a second, third, fourth, or
fifth row of feats while leveling and doing campaign content. The problem here is this represents a significant effort by the
Dev team, and as we see now there are entire Paragons/ feat skills, and powers that are avoided by pretty much everyone
as they are significantly worse than other choices, and don’t fit into any of the content currently available

3. Boons
- Rework boons so they are a tree of choices, stat points shouldn’t be in here at all, and instead this should be about boosting a play-style. Like changes to feats this represents a pretty significant development investment and would be difficult to test and balance.

4. Mechanics
- Create alternative means to finishing content… Some here remember when you could skip the second boss in Cragmire Crypt if you had a rogue in Party (they could go invisible, walk past the bosses, and open a door for the party), in that same dungeon there was a bug that allowed players to pull the boss through the Door, and then get the boss to fall into the spiked pit death trap. While neither of these were by design, they created alternative methods to completing content that did not require the holy trinity. Now imagine having options on each class that open non-combat, or alternative combat style alternatives to completing parts of content. A rogue could slip past the enemy and open doors, wizards could daze enemies into letting you walk past, warlocks could take control of the enemies souls and turn them on each other.. etc… or like now you could just murder hobo your way through all content.. optionality! As of right now the only optionality that exists is flexing your muscles and getting heals.. so... basically every DPS class is a Barbarian with slightly different encounters.

micky1p00 · February 2020

fluffy6977 said:

micky1p00 said:
Yet, without vertical progress, after 6 years of playing I do want something to show for, as compared to someone who started last week. (Exaggeration to convey the point)

A plethora of choices is nice, but if I end up using the same one as someone who just finished as there isn't a clear advantage then there is no perceptional progress for me, and I'll quit.
I think we are talking about two different kinds of progress, personal character progress and progress v. other players. There's still months and months of grinding to catch up to endgame and optimize their characters. Even if there wasn't, why should it matter that some noob runs some of the same gear you run, as long as you have fun playing?

Not trying to ridicule or anything, I just really don't understand the need to feel superior to another player progression wise. It's just numbers and weighted RNG. I could hand my buddy my controller and he won't be able to survive the encounters I could, so who cares if we start out on equal footing? Why would that be worth quitting the game over?

Fair question.
First I want to clarify that I didn't mean it as a personal ultimatum, do vertical or I quit. I'm just trying to convey a point in less than 1000 words. Though to go into and analyze why IMO that point is important will probably be longer than Sharps essay.

To note that I come from non progress games, like Dota, CS, SC, and so on. NW is the only MMO I've put significant time into and while I tried others after starting NW, it was mainly to see and compare.

Now to the question, first, is there a difference between those "personal character progress" vs "progress vs other players"?

To my point, no. We can compare my character now, to my older self, before I ran some content, before I did some mod, a year ago, or two years ago, and so on. It will be the same as comparing to some other player at that point of invested time (I've omitted the term progress here). I can easily formulate the same point in terms of "see any significant progress between my char when I started, to where I am after X time".

So the specificity here is time invested vs less time invested if it's other player or myself, and not specific vs some noobs running, it was just easier to demonstrate.

In what case you believe that there is a difference? I tried to think of some, but at the end, except the personal perspective of should I compare to myself an hour ago, to vs that other player who played an hour less, I can't find anything. Even if we equalize all gear, there are still things like story-line progress and so on.

Now comes the question of why we are looking for progress.

I guess there are many aspects to this, just a few without going into this too deeply:

1. Return to our time - we put some time we want to have some meaning, "something to show for it". It is ofc not black and white, if we read a book we have the experience, but can a game compensate? Some can, there are narrative driven only games, but then our progress is in the progress in the story line.

2. The addictive part - Stronger sword, stronger enemies, the endless goal, and in some games it's the "one more turn syndrome" where there is always new goal to achieve, but the caveat is that I need to feel that the goal is meaningful, my Civilization becomes stronger and better, it's not the same as 200 Turns ago and a full sleepless night ago.

https://i.imgur.com/1s1pgi1.png
http://i.imgur.com/Ur94jqE.gif

3. The trope - I think extremely prominent in RPGs in general and D&D specify, the "Hero's journey" writing trope where we play the nobody that becomes a hero and slays the dragons and what not. This is a large part of the appeal of the genre, in many cases simply as escapism.
(BTW for those interested, https://writingexcuses.com/tag/tropes/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=athC7ythDeo and looks like they are reshooting his lectures at BYU, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSH_xM-KC3Zv-79sVZTTj-YA6IAqh8qeQ Great writer IMO, and great lectures)

I'm sure there are more reasons.

This is ofc not applicable to everyone, for some it's the personal progress and not char / game progress for which they play, if it is exploration then it's a personal progress of how much was explored, in PvP the progress is measured in personal skill of the person, and so on. But I will stipulate that in an MMORPG, char progress is a fundamental expectation.

lordaeolos · February 2020

lordaeolos said:

- Create alternative means to finishing content… Some here remember when you could skip the second boss in Cragmire Crypt if you had a rogue in Party (they could go invisible, walk past the bosses, and open a door for the party), in that same dungeon there was a bug that allowed players to pull the boss through the Door, and then get the boss to fall into the spiked pit death trap. While neither of these were by design, they created alternative methods to completing content that did not require the holy trinity. Now imagine having options on each class that open non-combat, or alternative combat style alternatives to completing parts of content. A rogue could slip past the enemy and open doors, wizards could daze enemies into letting you walk past, warlocks could take control of the enemies souls and turn them on each other.. etc… or like now you could just murder hobo your way through all content.. optionality! As of right now the only optionality that exists is flexing your muscles and getting heals.. so... basically every DPS class is a Barbarian with slightly different encounters.

To expound on this a little.

Right now there are a few places were we have "DPS checks" where if your party doesn't have enough DPS you will fail the content, which helps to create a lot of contempt and bickering about class balance.. Lets imagine for a second that classes would never be balanced.. but by adding some feats options you could change the length of time for that DPS check.. but maybe that is to much like control and buffing? FYI I don't think control or buffing are a problem, they just need to be balanced properly

hustin1 · February 2020

lordaeolos said:

- Create alternative means to finishing content… Some here remember when you could skip the second boss in Cragmire Crypt if you had a rogue in Party (they could go invisible, walk past the bosses, and open a door for the party), in that same dungeon there was a bug that allowed players to pull the boss through the Door, and then get the boss to fall into the spiked pit death trap. While neither of these were by design, they created alternative methods to completing content that did not require the holy trinity. Now imagine having options on each class that open non-combat, or alternative combat style alternatives to completing parts of content. A rogue could slip past the enemy and open doors, wizards could daze enemies into letting you walk past, warlocks could take control of the enemies souls and turn them on each other.. etc… or like now you could just murder hobo your way through all content.. optionality! As of right now the only optionality that exists is flexing your muscles and getting heals.. so... basically every DPS class is a Barbarian with slightly different encounters.

I remember those early days of mod 6 Epic Cragmire Crypts all too well. The 2nd boss (Competing Adventure Party) was nigh impossible to beat. We started out by pulling them all the way to the campfire so we could immediately respawn and keep fighting (and a dozen deaths or more for each of us was pretty much standard since the enemies hit *that* hard).

The devs' response was to force the fight to reset if they got pulled that far. Plan B was like you said pull them out of the room, let one person sneak through to open the door, and then everyone else would wipe to lose aggro. If you had someone like me who was older than dirt and had the Cloak of Lesser Etherealness, it was a lot easier since it grants 30 seconds of stealth (as long as everyone in the party understood to **NOT** follow the person sneaking through, which was often a challenge for some odd reason).

The devs then locked the door until the enemies were all dead. Alternative means of beating them were apparently verboten. We were then SOL, but this was a couple of mods later and a tiny bit of power creep had allowed us a fighting chance at finally beating them.

FYI, while the cloak sounds like an OP item, it has a *60 minute* cooldown. So using it is basically a one-time deal in any form of content, and very few people have one as it was removed from the loot tables very early on in the game (fun fact: before Mod 16, the Recovery stat affected this cooldown. My ultra-CC wizard with insane Recovery could use it every 24 minutes).

darthpotater · February 2020

In my opinion we need as much horizontal progression as possible.

Vertical progression should be secure items that doesnt lose value over time like enchantments. But for this to be vertical we need much more ranks than now (so we dont have all characters with max rank enchants) and each rank gives less stats and cost more so is clearly not worth to rush updates, but still add value each rank.

With items, you need to be much more creative, to make options that create new builds or situational items. The same with boons. Items that make you think in interesting combos, or very good in some forced scenarios...

Also dungeons could be more creative with mechanics like mobs vulnerable to some kind of dmg, or resistant to, etc. Also if we get a reasonable horizontal progression the dungeons mechanics will last longer. I remember when you couldnt kill all the mobs in the old Icespire peak, and you had to controle them to be succesfull. But after 2 mods we were killing everything and the boss, bypassing all the mechanics due to high vertical progression. Same with old Castle never.

thefiresidecat · February 2020

OT but I can't find another place in this subforum to put this, is the roadmap still on it's way? it's been nearly 2 weeks since last update?

jobelo71 · February 2020

Sorry, English is not my primary language.

Goal
Create build diversity
Unlock new functionality (power slider) for end game players.

Functionality
Each power would have one or more slider that allow the players to customize the power by trading one metric to another.

Ex: a power of 400 magnitude with a cool down of 10 second could by adjust to 200 magnitude but with a cool down of 5.5 second or 750 magnitude for cool down of 20 seconds

I see a lot of possible generic slider:

Magnitude vs cool down
Magnitude damage vs magnitude heal (for healing power...burnadin or kind of DPS healer)
Number of tick vs magnitude (DOT power)
Damage block vs damage reflect (Tank mostly, but i see mage shield and other power that could use that)
Duration vs cool down (CC power)
....

I can see as a progression, a place in time where you unlock a slider for a power until everything is unlocked. Or the slider allow more range as you progress or unlock it.

This feature only would make possible a lot of build variety just by adjusting current power. No need to to implement more power or complexes feats as pre MOD 16.

Mostly damage overtime should reward more damage total as a general rules. so trading one metric for another is not necessarily 1 for 1.

Risk
Possible balance issues. Tweak using min max. example:
cool down max 60 seconds...otherwise magnitude is getting to high.

cwhitesidedev · February 2020

thefiresidecat said:
OT but I can't find another place in this subforum to put this, is the roadmap still on it's way? it's been nearly 2 weeks since last update?

1st pass is complete in terms of intent. We are still working out logisitics and pipelines but we intend to show it this week. Thanks for the reminder @thefiresidecat .

Chris

cwhitesidedev · February 2020

josephskyrim said:
Feedback Overview

Some players are saying the BiS gear is too hard to obtain and should be obtainable (or have a lesser counterpart obtainable) from an easier way. Those against them say that BiS gear should only be found in the hardest content available. This is sort of a compromise between the two.

Feedback Goal

BiS gear will still be exclusive to those who complete challenge but add a tradable "excellent consumable rewards" box to the "hardest content" chest. This way the BiS crowd get to show off their shineys but still can help others complete the dungeon, even if not by personally carrying anyone, by trading those other consumables on auction. The tradables should also be that good to that even after they complete their BiS set, they would still want to rerun the content.

Feedback Functionality

Adding the "excellent consumable rewards box" which should drop 100% of the time will need to be added to the loot table. When opening the box players can pick one item from a list what will help them most (all of which are obviously temporary and all bound to the character that opened them). What actual form these would take would be up to the devs but here are some ideas to get started:

-30 minutes temporary mainhand / offhand.
-Hellpit 10 minute shield ability
-Hellpit 10 minute regeneration
-Revive scrolls
-Grenades (Stun/Damage/whatever)
-Icon of Major Blessing (HPx5000 as temp hp)
-Icon of Major Curse (debuff where targetted enemy suffers lost HP in addition to damage)
-Summon Elminster to one shot kill everything
-Yeah obviously the last three are jokes. Why so serious? :P

There's just one caveat with the "excellent consumable rewards box": Characters who have finished the dungeon where it drops cannot open them, forcing them to trade it.

Risks & Concerns

Nothing guarantees that people won't just burn the boxes out of spite and elitism, but enough should make it through to the market - more and more as people complete the content - and the price will balance out. Obviously, the whole thing needs to start again with a new "even more excellent consumable rewards box" should an "even more hardest content!!1!" zone appear. Yes that was terrible grammar. Sorry.

Thanks for posting this Joseph. What do folks think about this as a high level idea?

Chris

cwhitesidedev · February 2020

statto12345 said:
I have several ideas that I have put in different paragraphs.

I think masterwork should be the go to for crafter's as the clues in the name. You should be able to craft any bonus onto any gear. You should be able to upgrade old gears stats in tiers a bit like the chains from chult. This could be achieved using the currency from south seas trading after you have achieved a new level 5 workshop a new store opens up allowing you to use south sea credits to purchase materials in which you use to craft in your workshop to add 5% damage or other useful stuff like extra 5% defense to gear or upgrade gear from 10 gear score to above current bis. This would keep masterwork relevant as each new mod can add new mats to the new south seas store to increase the stat levels further to the new levels. Going further on down that line you could even have bonuses being added to mastercraft gear that do not stack that circumvent the caps ie critical strike is 50% cap but you could add a 5% bonus to one piece of gear but once added to your head it can't be added to any other piece of gear in that loadout etc. I think dungeons could drop masterwork resources as it allows non mastercrafters an alternative income source and an easy alternative to end chest rewards than refinement. The method of upgrading also gives normal crafting usefulness as it brings back non mastercrafters making money by being part of the supply chain. Make tier one masterwork materials craftable by everyone as makes professions rewardable.

Make mounts upgradable like companions using a insignia like system whereby (x green mounts + x blue mounts + x epic mounts = 1 x upgraded legendary mount) these could have stats of 7500 and a mount speed of 125% which is inbetween a epic and legendary so would still keep the value of lockboxes as is just below a legendary but give the auction house a boost as more cannon fodder rewards from dungeon chests ie green and blue mounts would be rewarding as you can upgrade them to increase your stats diversity to help cap the stats on your character.

Skill nodes should drop potions etc. with a 0.1% chance to give high level potions from mastercraft to make them worthwhile using gold to open them.

Give the ability to exchange gear or professions mats for guild marks at a special new vendor as level 20 guilds are maxed out in those coffers and will make running dungeons for these rewards actually rewarding.

The ability rolls on the main hand and offhand should be rolled out to all gear via basic crafting and would utilize the cube of augmentation which could drop in dungeons or be in the new vip store etc.

Give us better items in the trade bars store as the choice currently is scrolls or health stones.

Use the dungeon chest rewards system in the low level dungeons to increase guild boon stats or even boons stats with special items that only level 80 characters drop from the chest to encourage endgame players to play with lower level players to help level them up whilst increasing their own stats via RNG drops in end chests which you need a complete set of upgrade materials for each type of boon. ie power boon needs blue stone, red stone and purple stone where as hp boon need pink stone, blue stone and white stone etc. and guild boons need x blue stones, x white stones and so on for one tier upgrade. Or make them drop like a watcher a rare rng enemy that could only spawn at the end of cloak tower or cragmire crypts etc. to encourage rerunning old dungeons and content.

Have a rewards system for helping new players as a time clock system of grouping with players below level 80. ie once you've played 1 hour with a level x then you get 10 helpers currency that has its own reward store and have legendary mounts / forgehammer of gond in there for 300 hours helping etc. it all helps create a community feel to the game as the old saying goes friends who play together stay together increasing the player base .

Give zen market 100% off tokens mounts/companions as ultra rare drops in dungeon chests as an incentive to run. Or drop companion tokens / enchanted keys etc.

Thanks for posting these ideas Statto. What do we think about the high level ideas here folks?

Chris

cwhitesidedev · February 2020

jules#6770 said:

myrddyn#6504 said:

And this system is not very transparent to a new player.
I would like to see an easily obtainable ‘base’ power, that incorporates all of the above and is attained and explained throughout your levelling experience. The rest (top percentages) are then subject to the grind. (The fact that a player knows to use an augment or not, should not have been left up to veterans/guildies to explain…) (And yes, I still feel the effect of an augment, and as a result your bonding runestones, and companion gear/runestones is way too powerful. And counterintuitive to ‘you’ being the hero in this story.. and not your bulette pup, polar bear cub or deepcrow hatchling.)
I’ve only been playing 6 months myself, and truly, without veterans taking me by the hand and explaining all these places to look… I’d still be lost. And tbh I still am sometimes, just so much complexity in the system.
While the rest of @myrddyn#6504 s post is imo definitly worth a read too, I want to point this out:
I enjoy the companion system we have now, and I enjoy the importance of it, however: It really is tough to understand for new players. What is an augment? And which companions are? I send them a link to rainers wiki because, how often can you talk about that? Then they are confused by the very extensive wiki ... This is something the game HAS to explain. How companions work, how the new slots work, that you have to pay attention what type the companion is because you only have so many offense slots... This is, I feel, not self-explanatory. How do stats transfer, what are bonding runestones? Sure: read the tooltips, hover over it, yeah, I know. But it is difficult to explain to people that do not have the funds to buy companions and runestones, that this is the first thing they should invest into. I know that there is some sort of bolster-explanation, but I know that I was hella confused on preview the first time. It is great once you get to know it (and have a few options in your comp inventory) but until you get there: Wtf are those vets talking about?? Why do I have to get a metallic sort of dog that looks weird?? Where does that even come from? (Buy the box, not the bulette pup.. Buy it at epic, not green... The upgrading process is a bit less transparent now than in the old system simply because you have to call the comp you want to upgrade, level it specifically, upgrade it, change back to your summoned comp... Also: Some comps you get as active, only few as summoned. If I have to explain the difference in Energon and Bulette as summoned again..

Good post Jules. We will be ensuring that we properly teach these areas and more as part of the streamlining experience that we are working on this year. Mounts, companions and other fun systems in the game are heavily obfuscated and we will be doing a better job of making learning them part of the journey.

Thanks

Chris

thefabricant · February 2020

cwhitesidedev#9752 said:

josephskyrim said:
Feedback Overview

Some players are saying the BiS gear is too hard to obtain and should be obtainable (or have a lesser counterpart obtainable) from an easier way. Those against them say that BiS gear should only be found in the hardest content available. This is sort of a compromise between the two.

Feedback Goal

BiS gear will still be exclusive to those who complete challenge but add a tradable "excellent consumable rewards" box to the "hardest content" chest. This way the BiS crowd get to show off their shineys but still can help others complete the dungeon, even if not by personally carrying anyone, by trading those other consumables on auction. The tradables should also be that good to that even after they complete their BiS set, they would still want to rerun the content.

Feedback Functionality

Adding the "excellent consumable rewards box" which should drop 100% of the time will need to be added to the loot table. When opening the box players can pick one item from a list what will help them most (all of which are obviously temporary and all bound to the character that opened them). What actual form these would take would be up to the devs but here are some ideas to get started:

-30 minutes temporary mainhand / offhand.
-Hellpit 10 minute shield ability
-Hellpit 10 minute regeneration
-Revive scrolls
-Grenades (Stun/Damage/whatever)
-Icon of Major Blessing (HPx5000 as temp hp)
-Icon of Major Curse (debuff where targetted enemy suffers lost HP in addition to damage)
-Summon Elminster to one shot kill everything
-Yeah obviously the last three are jokes. Why so serious? :P

There's just one caveat with the "excellent consumable rewards box": Characters who have finished the dungeon where it drops cannot open them, forcing them to trade it.

Risks & Concerns

Nothing guarantees that people won't just burn the boxes out of spite and elitism, but enough should make it through to the market - more and more as people complete the content - and the price will balance out. Obviously, the whole thing needs to start again with a new "even more excellent consumable rewards box" should an "even more hardest content!!1!" zone appear. Yes that was terrible grammar. Sorry.
Thanks for posting this Joseph. What do folks think about this as a high level idea?

Chris

It is the wrong approach in my opinion for the following reasons:

Target Audience. The people who care about consumables enough to use them are the BiS people inside the dungeons, your average player does not use them and is going to be very resistant to using them.
Price. The BiS player has a lot of AD. I have 100's of millions of AD. You cannot sell something to a newer player at a price that interests me enough to warrant me running content, unless it drops in bulk because it is more time efficient for me to spam trade (I am sorry to say), there needs to be a different approach.
Motivation. From my perspective, I am motivated by 2 things. The first is the challenge, the second is the proof that I have overcome it in the form of some hard to get item. The boxes will not motivate me to keep running.

Basically, from my perspective, the initial runs of the dungeon are to overcome the challenge and acquire my gear, I enjoy that aspect of it. Then I go through a period where I try to help my friends acquire their gear. After that, I run it once or twice for fun. If a dungeon meets those criteria (challenging, worthwhile loot), the chances are, I will run it. Adding the box is not going to change how I run content and I suspect that many people will end up discarding it, but not from malice (the reason provided here), but because I suspect it will be seen as a junk reward.

The people who it is aimed towards (people who aren't running this type of content) typically refuse to use consumables. You will have a hard time selling it to them. This will cause the price of them to drop very low and they will also have a poor sell rate. If something is hard to sell and has very limited value, the chances is it is not worth my time and I will discard it. There is no harm in implementing it, but I don't see it working as an idea.

cwhitesidedev · February 2020

motu999#9953 said:

quickfoot#7851 said:

We've talked about the current status quo in this and the previous cdp, they [ToMM runners] control the markets, and who gains access to group content by setting certain constraints on who they will invite; There are very few people doing "training" runs. It benefits the current status quo to limit the number of people running the latest content so they can further control the market.
I think what you describe is a side-effect of the rather bad decision, to make a mod with a dungeon that can only be completed by a very small percentage of the playerbase.

How I would like to see this resolved (already proposed by other players):
make three tiers of the dungeon: Mortal, Ascending, Immortal (with the pun, that most deaths would occur in the immortal tier)

This has several advantages:
- players that love a challenge can have it
- casual players can run the less challenging version, but will learn the basic mechanics so that they have a path towards the higher difficulty levels (and if they are up to a real challenge, they can have it)

Rewards will have to be tier'ed as well.
One can argue about the percentages.
If we want a comparably large gap between bis and casuals it could be 80% -> 90% ->100%
If we want more convergence, 90% -> 95% -> 100%
Having the lowest tier less than 80% probably would not be a good idea, because then the dungeon of the last mod would provide better rewards, which is not really intended for a new mod.

Moving forward there will be tiered trials and pertinent tiered loot.

Thanks Motu.

Chris

cwhitesidedev · February 2020

Comprehensively revamp the entire rewards and progression system in game

Goal:
Create a streamlined, simplified, and rewarding system for 0 to End Game, which is rich in choice, and contains appropriate currency sinks.

Functionality:
Each Section of this is integrated to the next section, and it builds towards a complete system. Some details are left purposely vague to keep from descending into minutia, but are detailed enough to allow a reader to follow each concept through to a logical conclusion.

1. 0-80 leveling process
Process needs to be about learning your class, getting connected to guilds / "player mentors", and learning how to advance.
As veteran players we can only speak to this from a pain point perspective (helping newer players), as many new players do not know what they need to do when they hit level 80, and most have no idea of the importance of companions, bonding stones, equipment they should pursue, why they may want to do campaigns or how to navigate the economy.

Suggestions for player progression 0 to 80

Do not allow XP scrolls/ “speed leveling” for brand new players. Force new players to do each zone one at a time. Once campaigns have been completed on a character in account, then allow “speed leveling” for followup characters (along with skipping any other tutorial).

Create a new volunteer moderated in game chat channel, and tutorial for using in game chat to sponsor networking, and guild recruiting in game.

Level numbers are for example only:

Do not allow AD purchases or sales prior to level 70 (right now this creates more confusion than benefits for the majority of players)

Level 10 introduce invoking and super store

Level 12 gives player 3 companions (healer, tank, augment), and a piece of companion equipment. Do tutorials that explain the benefits of each type? Can be skipped if completed on another character in account

Level 14 enchanting (by unlocking one enchanting slot), unlock additional slots with every other level, along with “giving” the players an enchantment to slot in those. This includes low quality weapon and armor enchantments.

Level 15 “equip Bonus kit/ enchantment”. Supply bonus kit to slot, along with tutorial on deconstructing equipment, and a crafting tutorial? Open new slots on alternating levels until all pieces of equipment have slots available?

Level 30 do tutorial about Joining a guild?

Level 50 introduce lockboxes/ tarmalune trade bars

These changes should result in lowered player confusion from the leveling process, while also providing teaching moments to new players, improving player networking, while building towards a community based MMO experience..

2. Create "Super Store"
the "Super Store" (Knox's Armory?) would have all the items available on the Wondrous Bazaar, Tarmalune Trade Bar Store, Invoking Stores (getting rid of the RNG boxes from invoking in favor of currency), legacy campaign store, legacy seals stores, some items you can only get currently from lock boxes, and of course keys for the gamblers.

Currency would be acquired by:
VIP daily claim
Invoking
Tarmalune Trade Bars
Zen Market
Direct buy with AD
Drop from legacy queued content / PvP (weekly max)
Drop from Heroic Encounters (weekly max)
Legacy campaigns (weekly max)

The “Super store” is a key factor to simplifying the current plethora of “stores” in game, while giving players more flexibility in how they want to grind for rewards.

3. Redesign Character Equipment/ Load-out / Companion Functionality

Split enchantments from gear, replace the removing enchantments gold sink with a gold cost for upgrading enchantments.

Equalize “benefit” areas? 1/5 from equipment, 1/5 from enchants / artifacts, 1/5 from companion, 1/5 from boons, ⅕ from mount + mount insignia? Thoughts?
For example.. Say you “could” have 200k max power.. A total of 40k could come from each “section”

Rework Campaign Boons to Balance the “Cost” and benefits.

Remove Bonding Runestones from the game entirely. Instead give the same bonuses as bondings, but based on the summoned companion level and bolster group. Companion bonus would be greatly reduced in effectiveness from where it is currently, but should still be worth the investment. Also Augments and Actives should pass the same amount of stats to the player, but actives should come with a much higher risk profile.

Rework Enchantment/ Artifact Stat Value. Right now the value-add to upgrading enchantments/ artifacts is one of the lowest return on investments in the game (after boons). These need to be re-balanced to give a greater percentage of value.Doing this would be by itself an increase to the value of RP, which increases the perceived value of RP in loot tables

Equip bonuses should be in the form of equip bonus reinforcement enchantments. meaning If a kit is acquired, it could be applied to any piece of gear for the category it's made for. Reinforcement kits should be restricted so certain bonuses/ kits can only be applied to certain gear piece slots (head,arms, etc). Equip bonuses would probably need to be re-worked somewhat to give some interesting choices here, and make sure the best in slot is a little “fuzzy”

Bonuses could be overridden for any piece of gear. “Pairings” kits could be achieved with extra RNG effort. This would create a “chase” for the newest gear, or gear with the stats you want/ need for your character, as well as a chase for the Equipment bonuses you want as a player. Reinforcements would be a separate UI slot, like an enchantment (grouped with them?), with the ability to upgrade with RP and materials.

Gear or kits can be "deconstructed" to get kit recipe, and recover materials to create new reinforcement kits, RNG the amount of “materials” recovered, deconstruction would cost gold - see crafting section

This would incentivize players to spend time in a balanced manner, keep people better informed to what they want to run, while also opening up a lot more player choice. This would also Make the newest high IL gear all chase items, while keeping older gear/ kits as chase items. As well as create whole new sinks for RP, Gold and refining materials.

4. Rework Queued content loot tables

If a dungeon/ skirmish/trial drops a unique item like a companion, list that on the queue selection

Replace seals for any content (current mod -1) with "Super Store" Currency, set weekly max for super store currency by character/ account

Add Bonus Kits and Kit recipe materials to loot tables for all queued content, and Heroic encounters. Some "bonuses" should be tied to specific campaigns, meaning some Bonus Kits and key ingredients for certain kits could only be acquired in those zones. I would also tie each kit type to another additional campaign zone. For example any time you wanted to craft a kit for a head slot, it might require running dread ring content.

5. Rework Profession Systems

Add Equip bonus reinforcement kit recipes. Most kits should have multiple qualities with "scaled" recipes (each kit of varying quality could use the same ingredients, but use scaled quantities for quality). Lowest quality kits to be constructed at level 0-10 crafting, highest in Masterworks (max level could only be achieved with RP +mats +wards?).

Kits would be craft-able in ranks 1 -10, ranks 11-15 would only be obtainable through refining processes (cost similar to weapon/.armor enchantment + campaign mats), but earlier ranks could also be upgraded via refining at cost.

As a hypothetical example:
Step 1: +3% melee damage (feet only) kit from Barovia Hunt
Step 2: Deconstruct +3% melee damage kit, which gives 8 (10 if you are a max master works) +x% melee damage recipes in leatherworking, as well as some “recovered materials”, which would be subject to RNG for how much is recovered
Step 3: Farm the materials you need to construct this kit, since this is a barovia item, required drops would come from Gathering profession as well as loots items from Castle Ravenloft, and Heroic encounters in the campaign zone, as well as one other zone that would be the base zone for “feet kits”.
Step 4: Craft the kit with master works. Cost would be materials + Ad +Gold. Rank 10 Kit with +2.5% melee damage would be unbound and ready for use or Sale.

To help control the supply/ ratio, remove character level crafting, and put crafting at account level. greatly expand the inventory space for crafting materials, make crafting inventory unlimited for VIP (like ESO) as an added benefit for VIP?

This would slow down the supply side in the crafting economy, create a system of near perpetual value for crafting (with less need for massive recipe updates), while also adding a substantial currency sink to the game, give players more options for acquisition of sought after gear bonuses, while leaving the top Stat gear as drops to be obtained by playing.

Risks/ Concerns

1. Scale of changes creates a challenge to complete work with attention to detail required
2. Achieving proper balance would take a great deal of planning and detailed analytics.
3. The kits will require a rework of equip bonuses to ensure each is viable, and creates a choice for the player.
4. This would need to be done in small steps, with crafting being the last piece of the puzzle

Thanks Willow and all for putting this forward. We will read this as part of our brain storming and discuss the examples in related meetings. More to come.

Chris

cwhitesidedev · February 2020

redrockls3 said:
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.

Let's use a Rogue for this example under the Assassin paragon. Let's take a quick look at Assassin's Target and Toxic Blades:

Assassin's Target: Your attacks apply a stack of "targeted" to the first enemy hit. This effect stack up to 10 times and increases the damage of your next Encounter power that strikes the target by 1% per stack.

Toxic Blades: You coat your weapons with a deadly toxin causing Encounter and Daily attacks to apply a DoT. This DoT deals 30 magnitude weapon damage once every 3 seconds, for 9 seconds, and stacks up to 5 times.

Now, I've been playing a TR for over six years now and he's been my main for pretty much this entire time. I don't know any self respecting rogue that would choose Assassin's Target over Toxic Blades (this again emphasizes my point earlier about useless abilities).

You could, for instance, have a 2 or 4 set bonus that impacts either one of these but, lets focus on the one that virtually no one will pick. Let's say the bonus impacts it's viability in a way that makes it remotely competitive with Toxic Blades...

4 of 4 set: Assassin's Target will now target up to five enemies and reduce their damage resistance by 1% per stack.

I think this would still make Assassin's Target subpar to Toxic Blades but, without fundamentally changing it's characteristics, it'll never compete in the first place but, this is just to serve as an example.

Let's look at a couple of feats from the Whisperknife paragon path, another path virtually no one uses.

Razor Action: When you activate a daily power you fling daggers up to 30' doing 200 magnitude damage and increasing your speed by 2% per target hit to a maximum of 10%.

With the incredible nerf to action point gain, feats like this are relics of a time long past and even when it was a thing, no one still used it because there were better options. If you really want to make Whisperknife more viable, consider something like this.

A four piece set bonus for this could have something great loaded into it. Perhaps something along the lines of...

4 of 4 set: Razor Action will now return 10% of your action points per enemy hit with your daggers, up to a maximum of 50%. (no cooldown).

Action points still take an eternity to build either way.

Dagger Threat: Your ranged attacks deal up to 7.5% more damage based on how close you are to your target. You gain the maximum benefit from this class feature when within 15' of your target.

I think I know what you guys were trying to do with the Whisperknife build but, it just doesn't work and it's gotta be one of the most awkward class paragons in the game.

4 of 4 set: Dagger Threat will now increase the rate of all ranged at-will's by 50%.

Before someone freaks out about that idea, consider how worthless the current rogue ranged at-wills are and then come back to me.

Lastly, let me highlight a poor class that has gotten the short end of the stick for a long, long time, the Warlock. They are riddled with worthless abilities, cumbersome mechanics and supremely lackluster damage.

Creeping Death: When you deal damage with your At-Will, Encounter, or Daily powers to enemies they are afflicted with Creeping Death. Creeping Death deals 10% additional damage as Necrotic damage over 5 seconds.

While I get that this unlocks at level 70 and is supposed to do damage (I think?), it does an abysmal amount of dps.

4 of 4 set: Creeping Death now deals 50/100/150/200 magnitude weapon damage per second for 10 seconds. Stacks 4 times.

You guys should make them the DoT masters they were meant to be. With this little change, you might not even have to rewrite the entire class. Again, just serving as an example.

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.

Thanks Red. Again we will be referencing your examples in meetings.

Chris

CDP Topic: Rewards & Progression

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