The above quote did remind me of something that I had been tossing around for a while now. Have you guys considered the idea of getting the vast majority of the stats we need from enchantments, runestones and armor kits? That can allow armor sets themselves to give us a broad range of effects instead of just stats. This also will allow us to have a balance that we can sustain, build and utilize on more than one toon on the account.
Or, instead of the raw stats (power, crit, armor pen, etc.) it can be primary stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc.) given on armor and the primary stats expanded to allow for more of an impact on your character and their build. Instead of chasing an ever creeping stat every new mod. The primary stats can be easier controlled, easier to understand for the player and stop the incredibly high stats that have frankly gotten out of control.
1 STR = 1% melee damage, etc., etc. No guess work, no formulas, no fractions of a percent, no calculations needed on the player's part.
4
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
There are a few ways you can solve this. The first method and the most obvious method is for the crafting process to enhance gear rather than craft it and the only item types which you do craft are items which are not dropped (for example, belt slot items, or better potions). If you have many different types of kits, potions and baubles only accessible through crafting, then you would have a viable crafting system. You could also say for example, the best boots do not drop and are only obtained through crafting (so specific item types are obtained only through crafting, with the generic version available at vendors) and that would also work. My problem with this solution is it feels like you are essentially gutting 1 system in favour of another. You are drastically limiting the amount of possible items that can be created by both systems, in order to make it work. As a result I do not favor this approach.
By relegating crafting to an item upgrading system, you are essentially admitting that you failed at making both crafted and dropped gear work and gutting the system as a result of that.
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.
As far as skill nodes go, I would just remove them as they are currently and add them to dungeons or somewhere else with valuable loot. So long as they remain in the overworld they remain easy to bot, so by virtue of that they cannot have any valuable drops otherwise the market will become saturated due to bots and the items will lose all value.
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.
Just remove the cap on the coffer, it serves no functional purpose, anything that goes over a specific value can just be voided.
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.
Cubes of Augmentation are meant to be an AD sink, if anything, I would make it so you could roll on every stat on gear with them and I would NOT allow you to skip doing so via crafting as it devalues the potential power of an AD sink. Maybe I would add crafting recipes that use cubes of augmentation as a reagent in fact, since creating them is a direct destruction of AD.
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.
No, I do not want to feel like I am forced to play with new players. If you want to reward people for helping new players, do it in a way that is optional, that does act as the sole arbiter of some form of progression. You do not want to force a group of players who may not want to help another group of players to essentially babysit them through content, it will be a bad experience for both groups involved. I could write an entire thesis on why you should not do this, but I will assume people here can follow my train of thought and find the reasons themselves.
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.
Hi Ore,
I agree with most everything here. Not sure about point 3 however need to think more on it. Maybe if on your account you have a character that is over X level then on your next character you can use them.
We will be using this post as reference in regard to streamlining. Although a lot of the work you did in CDP 1 has already influenced us in that area.
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.
Thanks Phoenira,
CDP members what do you think about these ideas in relation to other posts on Master crafting in this CDP. Lets did into this area a little bit more please.
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.
Once again Ore really good stuff. I also like how your posts are concise, well formatted and easy to understand. I agree with the intent in all of your points and I/we are in agreement in most. Time gating is something we will be discussing soon and so it would be unfair for me to comment on that currently (I definitely see your point in regard to earlier mods). I think there is huge opportunity in Master-crafting to sink redundant items, rewards and currency as well as provide a pipeline for horizontal progression item/mount/comp upgrades as well. This allows us to maintain our goal of streamlining whilst also bolstering master-crafting and offering the players more ways to invest in rewards for the game and as you say 'gear up' for bridges between unlocking and beating content.
This post will be used as an example in our meetings moving forward for both streamlining and rewards.
Thanks
Chris
6
thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
CDP members what do you think about these ideas in relation to other posts on Master crafting in this CDP. Lets did into this area a little bit more please.
Feedback Overview - an update to the profession system for crafters (idea A )
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.
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). 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.
I don't really see the benefit of idea A. The problem of MW is not the system (although the system could be improved in terms of UI, minimizing some clicks+some bug fixing). It is a functional system. The problem with MW is the rewards hold no value due to them competing with dropped items. I would focus more on getting crafting to a state where both it and dropped gear can coexist without nullifying each other, rather than on reworking the system itself.
Feedback Overview - an update to event currencies/rewards (idea B )
Feedback Goal 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')
Feedback Functionality
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.
Risks & Concerns Idea B: - Risk could be that some players now store all currency for later events and hope for better rewards then.
Feedback Overview - chase items for 'average mid-end-game players' (idea C )
Feedback Goal - 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 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 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.
This seems reasonable as well, however, I feel like the hunts system does this fairly well already.
I have gone back through this CDP looking only for Crafting or Master Crafting ideas and comments. (There are quite a few) I pasted them all into one document so that they are easier for me to follow. I am looking for common ideas from each author and also ideas that make each post unique. I am going to take a day or two just to concentrate on those posts before adding my contribution. Not that what I am doing matters to anyone, but it may help people like me who get lost in the sea of feedback but still want to contribute to the discussion.
On the off chance anyone is wondering to date there have been 27 posts by different members containing 9070 words about crafting in this CDP. This does not include replies by @cwhitesidedev#9752 or quotes referring to the 27 posts.
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.
At first, I was going to say none of the bonuses from pre-Mod 6 did that, as I only remembered the set bonuses of the High Prophet (reduces enemy defense), High Vizier (attacks reduced enemy defense), and the Knight Captain (increases allied Power/Defense when you use a power).
However, after combing through the wiki, I realized there were a few bonuses like that, a few of which were preserved on wiki. One example would be the Indomitable Champion armor set, which increased the player's Guard meter by 25% (when Guardian Fighter was the only class that used Guard).
I am all for having these types of set bonuses (not the 2/4 set bonuses, the bland "more stats" things don't change up how I approach combat), but I would like to note that the whole "older set bonuses might be too good and players won't grind for new stuff" problem actually happened.
The High+KC sets were too good for support builds and actually forced the dev team to delete the set bonuses on all the classic items in Mod 10, even though they were technically balanced by their non-existent defensive stats (aka: you make your allies kill things faster, but if you screw up, you die in 1 hit).
Thanks Red. Again we will be referencing your examples in meetings. Chris
Might I also add looking back at the old artifact offhand class features modifications?
Example Control Wizard's:
It is true that there were many of these offhand bonuses which were boring "make this ability do the same thing it normally did but better" or laughably useless bonuses that never mattered.
However, there were some rare gems that added to your build and made what were normally terrible options into staples of builds.
One example was the Devoted Cleric's Light of Divinity offhand. Light of Divinity was a terrible passive ability that would heal you and teammates for a nominal amount every few seconds. With the artifact offhand bonus, it would passively restore your Divinity, turning it into a nice tool for helping keep up your Divinity when you were occupied with other tasks (old Divinity was gained by using At-wills, not praying, and you didn't always have the time to attack with At-wills).
Another example was the Guardian Fighter's Guarded Assault offhand bonus (I lack a screenshot to show you what the bonus did, unfortunately).
Guarded Assault was a "whenever you Guard an attack, deal 5% of the damage back at enemies" class feature that was unremarkable for damage purposes. The offhand bonus would also cause this reflect damage to slow enemies, which was also unremarkable in a time where the most relevant enemies were CC immune.
What made the Guarded Assault offhand so interesting was its synergy with an old feat named Crushing Pin. Crushing Pin would causes enemies to take 10% more damage for 3 seconds whenever you applied a CC effect to them (key word was applied, as the feat didn't check if the enemy was actually CC'd). Since the Guarded Assault offhand bonus would slow enemies upon hitting you, the offhand bonus would effectively place Crushing Pin on enemies that attempted to attack you.
I agree that it can get out of control if they don't think about the effects carefully. Hopefully they can find a sweet spot and slowly massage that angle.
Another example was the Guardian Fighter's Guarded Assault offhand bonus (I lack a screenshot to show you what the bonus did, unfortunately).
Guarded Assault was a "whenever you Guard an attack, deal 5% of the damage back at enemies" class feature that was unremarkable for damage purposes. The offhand bonus would also cause this reflect damage to slow enemies, which was also unremarkable in a time where the most relevant enemies were CC immune.
What made the Guarded Assault offhand so interesting was its synergy with an old feat named Crushing Pin. Crushing Pin would causes enemies to take 10% more damage for 3 seconds whenever you applied a CC effect to them (key word was applied, as the feat didn't check if the enemy was actually CC'd). Since the Guarded Assault offhand bonus would slow enemies upon hitting you, the offhand bonus would effectively place Crushing Pin on enemies that attempted to attack you.
A lot of the time when people reference set bonuses and effects they are looking at stuff like this. Its not a generic deal X% bonus damage. It adds more diversity and synergies into the game which this game needs a lot of right now and part of the reason why a lot of my friends (and others I assume) quit with module 16 and the "dumbing down" of systems and features.
Before we go too much further can we break this out to a few different sub threads. One mw one for dungeons etc. This is getting difficult to follow. Pretty please even @cwhitesidedev#9752
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.
I'm not sure about the "people who care about consumables are the BiS crowd" comment as I heavily make use of consumables and am pretty far from BiS. Rather than argue about it here I'm sure Cryptic can just check their data to verify.
I do have to concede on your price and motivation arguments though.
So how about we change it a little and make it an AD sink?
Every time a player completes the (x) dungeon an AI seller will post the "excellent consumable rewards box" on the AH for a fixed(?) amount. Supply of said boxes strictly depends on victories. No wins = no boxes. A team of 5 wins = 5 boxes (obviously devs can change the ratio to whatever suits them). The same rules apply where if someone has beaten the dungeon, they cannot open the box and all contents are character bound and time limited or consumable.
This eliminates any change experienced by the BiS crew so they can just keep powering on while the game itself handles the "helping hand" aspect of this idea, and in this form also provides an additional AD sink. There'd need to be solid advertising for those boxes though, if they are in stock.
I suppose profiteers can also then do the whole "trading" game too, since the boxes are a tradable item - if they want to chance it. Thoughts?
Before we go too much further can we break this out to a few different sub threads. One mw one for dungeons etc. This is getting difficult to follow. Pretty please even @cwhitesidedev#9752
I get you @thefiresidecat. We can discuss that in the CDP for the CDP (-: Tracking and maintaining best working practices across multiple threads is going to be much harder for us. Also I am hoping we will start to coalesce our ideas soon in terms of synergy and holistic intent. If we go into specific threads they will just get more detailed and we will end up with divergent streams.
We need to be drilling into the key ideas at the moment and look at how they can work together, synergize and create intersecting compulsion loops as a holistic system that is accessible, deep and evergreen. Several CDP members have already started doing this.
What would a unified horizontal and vertical system look like, for example?
I would recommend (as mentioned before) that Vertical rewards are saved for Mods and Horizontal for episodes (There is a high level release frame work that immediately helps with the issue of redundancy in rewards). How can we streamline and refine our current systems to create a system that also allows different types of players to have meaningful reward experiences from different activities like crafting, to more interesting/useful dungeon/trial/boss rewards, to horizontal systems in boons that let the player play to his or her strengths and so on. How could these all come together as an engine in terms of driving more player agency, empowerment and satisfaction in and around the core experience?
Has anyone thought much about Stronghold/Guild progression? I know a lot of guilds are maxed if they've been around a while. I don't have any ideas on how to improve or extend the progression atm, but I would like more ways to get guild marks. The new maps got me to start finishing up my MW professions in hopes of new recipes, and if you're not buying boxes of shards of power, timing x2 and sh discount events, with explorer's boon, getting enough guild marks to progress in professions is a nightmare (though there might be some other tricks to get em I'm not privy to atm). Going forward it's going to be even harder for people to catch up, that would probably discourage new players, and leave MW professions for people who have been playing for a long time.
I think some thought needs to go into SH progression (possibly extending the progression) and how it ties into MW since that is gated behind guild life. Something so that people aren't required to have many toons in a guild to earn enough gms to do mw in a reasonable time frame, though I do understand it's supposed to take a good amount of time to do. Maybe make GM's an account wide currency, and increase/remove caps on certain things (influence) and give more quests to earn shards/vouchers.
There is also a vendor with very old gear (dragonflight) that I think needs some updating.
Increase maximum SH rank to 30, increase number of plots that give boons, create new boons in each of the 4 categories we have that these new structures give (Horizontal). Increase rank of structures to 15, increase maximum amount of stats/bonus boons give (Vertical).
My brain is fried today (maybe not just today), but I'll sleep on it and see what I come with.
My suggestion consists of two points, which should be connected for better functionality. The first point is to introduce a auction house for guilds. Guilds can sell and buy guild ressources (like influence) there. The second point is a guild trader where guilds (in this regard guild leaders) can buy items with the astral diamant chests (from the guild ressources) to help player at their progression (e.g. companion upgrade tokens, mounts (even legendary)).
Feedback Goal
The suggestion aims to help small guilds as they can buy ressources cheaper at the auction house for guilds (first point). It aims to help big, old guilds as they have a option to get rid of ressources (which they do not need nowadays anyway if they are at level 20) and get currency that way. It aims as well (second point) to let guilds help new, unexperienced players as well and it gives the possibility to finance guild events with good rewards. Feedback Functionality For the first point a guild auction house NPC would have to be introduced with the suggested guild auction house where resources can be traded (sold and bought). It works with supply and demand, similiar to the normal auction house.
50 astral diamant chests for 2000 influence
For the second point a guild trader NPC would have to be introduced with items to be bought with guild ressources (astral diamant chests) depending on the level of the guild.
30 000 astral diamant chests for a legendary mount (2 or 3 available, perhaps one with stat bonus of hit points) 500 astral diamant chests for 50 preservation wards 1000 astral diamant chests for 1 coalescent ward 1000 astral diamant chests for 120 companion upgrade tokens
Risks & Concerns
There is the risk that guilds will not donate to other guilds of their alliance after implementation of the first point. There is the risk that the guild leaders leave guilds after buying items with the guild ressources (second point). This could be prevented that everything bought with guild ressources gets transfered to the guild bank and is account bound after taking it to personal storage (bags, ...).
Hi Saibot,
Thanks for your post. Guild (Rewards/Progression) is another area I would like us to drill a little more in phase 2. And then at some point in the near future there will be a dedicated CDP for it.
Chris
I like this idea, and if the dev work to get it going is too high perhaps simply adding the items like wards / mounts / companion upgrade tokens to a vendor for already existing guild marks is a good first step. This encourages guildies to keep donating.
For guilds with too many resources, I'd actually prefer something like... temporary boons? Make it so you can donate resources into to a structure to power a guild wide boon (time based). The strength / duration of said boon wanes as less resources are given to the structure. This way the entire guild benefits and there's less of a chance for unscrupulous guild leaders to be greedy and jump ship.
You can even work this into the current guild boons and then... oh look, horizontal progression? Lol. =p
Then take it a step further in that, the boons gain bonuses per alliance stronghold level. This way helm guilds still have a vested interest in improving their peers as it helps them too!
(As an aside I'd really like to steal the Vallenhas glyphwork teleporters and install them in our own Stronghold. Those are so handy! You can keep the demons though. ^_^)
What would a unified horizontal and vertical system look like, for example?
I would recommend (as mentioned before) that Vertical rewards are saved for Mods and Horizontal for episodes?
My first thought every time I see further discussions on horizontal development is that for this to truly work IMO inexpensive load outs and the ability to change load outs in more locations would be needed.
For a better idea of what I am thinking: at this time in the game I main a barb who currently is using the 2 load outs available for dps (AoE) and tank - pretty normal. I've been thinking of eventually starting a third mostly spec'd for single target the way the system is now. If horizontal progression is implemented and we have more sideways movement the I may want more load outs saved, especially if this movement involves buffs/debuffs to certain enemy classes. I may then want an AoE dps load out for demons, a ST dps load out for demons, etc etc. For this to work, especially in dungeons, we may need the ability to change between these. Perhaps have a system in place that you can only change between DPS style layouts in a dungeon as your assigned role is DPS. Either way, more load outs and increased ability to change between them would make horizontal progression more attractive in my eyes.
We need to be drilling into the key ideas at the moment and look at how they can work together, synergize and create intersecting compulsion loops as a holistic system that is accessible, deep and evergreen. Several CDP members have already started doing this.
What would a unified horizontal and vertical system look like, for example?
I would recommend (as mentioned before) that Vertical rewards are saved for Mods and Horizontal for episodes (There is a high level release frame work that immediately helps with the issue of redundancy in rewards). How can we streamline and refine our current systems to create a system that also allows different types of players to have meaningful reward experiences from different activities like crafting, to more interesting/useful dungeon/trial/boss rewards, to horizontal systems in boons that let the player play to his or her strengths and so on. How could these all come together as an engine in terms of driving more player agency, empowerment and satisfaction in and around the core experience?
While these are questions better reserved for your roadmap thread, is it safe to presume that:
Modules will give the overall theme/setting for upcoming campaigns/rewards
Whereas episodes will be content releases that will act as updates to the module every couple of weeks/months?
And if this is correct, what content can we expect to see in an episode and how long will it take for episode(s) to release? How many modules/episodes can we expect in 1 year?
For example, take the Chult area, which is split into Soshenstar and Omu, and say that this campaign is to use the Episode/Module system. Would the Chult module be split into the following episodes?
Episode 1: Unlock Port Nyzanzru and be able to progress up until King of Spines hunt/intial Ras Nsi fight.
Episode 2: Add Merchant Prince's Folly and associated rewards.
Episode 3: Unlock Omu and its associated rewards up until King of Spines/Fane of the Night Serpent.
Episode 4: Unlock Cradle of the Death God.
(Note: Hypothetical example. I do hope you guys aren't planning to pull an Electronic Arts and take the equivalent of what was a full module in the past, then divvy it up into parts to be released slowly over 1 year. Having to wait 9 months to do a new dungeon or get a new boon would probably not be good for player retention.)
I know that I asked a lot of questions, but I'd think that knowing that the time between content drops could be good for determining how to pace rewards, such as not frontloading the first episode with all the rewards (ex: chase items/armor sets/weapon sets) while leaving all the other episodes with nothing to work towards.
How can we streamline and refine our current systems to create a system that also allows different types of players to have meaningful reward experiences from different activities [...] that let the player play to his or her strengths.
Just want to say part of the problem for this comes from enemy design.
For example - my main is a "tripping rogue", I want things to be knocked prone (5% chance per crit from manticore) so I can do lots more damage (+10% on prone from panther). My secondary is a "bondage ranger (lol)" who is geared to stun and root enemies and then does bonus damage to stunned and rooted enemies (+5% from slyblade kobold etc).
Any additional boons / gear to help me along those lines would be great and but at the same time if someone eventually decides "oh, but so and so can't be knocked down or rooted because she's a five headed dragon" or "that giant demon monkey with a mace hand is too clever(?) to be CC'ed" well that really puts a damper on my build right? Guess that means I should go chase the +DPS gear everyone else wants and just drop the style of play I enjoy.
As silly as it sounds, letting all mobs be affected by CC is a good step in the right direction. I'm actually quite happy that all the mini-dungeon bosses in Avernus are actually CC prone. Thank you whoever decided that!
We need to be drilling into the key ideas at the moment and look at how they can work together, synergize and create intersecting compulsion loops as a holistic system that is accessible, deep and evergreen. Several CDP members have already started doing this.
What would a unified horizontal and vertical system look like, for example?
I would recommend (as mentioned before) that Vertical rewards are saved for Mods and Horizontal for episodes (There is a high level release frame work that immediately helps with the issue of redundancy in rewards). How can we streamline and refine our current systems to create a system that also allows different types of players to have meaningful reward experiences from different activities like crafting, to more interesting/useful dungeon/trial/boss rewards, to horizontal systems in boons that let the player play to his or her strengths and so on. How could these all come together as an engine in terms of driving more player agency, empowerment and satisfaction in and around the core experience?
While these are questions better reserved for your roadmap thread, is it safe to presume that:
Modules will give the overall theme/setting for upcoming campaigns/rewards
Whereas episodes will be content releases that will act as updates to the module every couple of weeks/months?
And if this is correct, what content can we expect to see in an episode and how long will it take for episode(s) to release? How many modules/episodes can we expect in 1 year?
For example, take the Chult area, which is split into Soshenstar and Omu, and say that this campaign is to use the Episode/Module system. Would the Chult module be split into the following episodes?
Episode 1: Unlock Port Nyzanzru and be able to progress up until King of Spines hunt/intial Ras Nsi fight.
Episode 2: Add Merchant Prince's Folly and associated rewards.
Episode 3: Unlock Omu and its associated rewards up until King of Spines/Fane of the Night Serpent.
Episode 4: Unlock Cradle of the Death God.
(Note: Hypothetical example. I do hope you guys aren't planning to pull an Electronic Arts and take the equivalent of what was a full module in the past, then divvy it up into parts to be released slowly over 1 year. Having to wait 9 months to do a new dungeon or get a new boon would probably not be good for player retention.)
I know that I asked a lot of questions, but I'd think that knowing that the time between content drops could be good for determining how to pace rewards, such as not frontloading the first episode with all the rewards (ex: chase items/armor sets/weapon sets) while leaving all the other episodes with nothing to work towards.
All will be revealed soon (hopefully this week) RJC in regard to the roadmap. You are on point however except for the Hypothetical example and that we intend to make the episodes a little bit more meaty than those examples you listed. That is not the intent at all (-:
I keep seeing ideas like, getting rid of bondings and making that bonus just there.... no difficult choices on artifact sets. get it all with no conflict in choice...
The game has already been simplified GREATLY and greatly changed, and I'm seeing talk about simplifying it even more. This is concerning. Gamers don't like change. Complexity is what gives a game like this legs. A good amount of people left the game before because of Change- Simplification...
Also the economy is at stake here. In the past this game had been very cautious to make changes because of the economy. People don't like seeing their investments turned to mush. Having trade in vendors just makes it worse imo. So you get rid of bondings. People have spent between 1.5 mil each and 2.2 mil each on these, many have spent real cash, so outrage. Cryptic says yeah ok trade in store. So that means the many thousands of bondings turn into empowereds and radiants, which in turn decreases their value on the market, because supply /demand. End result, now we have yet another worthless market. And the newer players you're trying to hook in don't have to work very hard so have little investment in the game to keep them here.
Superstore:
The superstore idea also will basically kill the economy. RNG is part of the system that keeps people logging in every day. I agree we have too many stores and too many currencies but combining everything into one store takes away flavor. and given how everything funnels into this store will make a huge dent in supply demand. even if it's all bound to account (which is also taking away value from what we already have) the demand has just crashed for things on the market already. those same new players you want to give things to all of a sudden can't make any ad on anything because it's all valueless. higher values are good for everyone.
Just update some of these other stores. I personally like the many stores. I still strongly dislike changing vip in anyway. The backlash for that from the player base will be considerable.
Earlier someone had detailed the types of players in this game. People here to play the economy are a huge part of the player base. When you start simplifying thing and changing things to the extent mentioned, you end up killing markets that many have invested in heavily already. As well as taking away something to grind for.
There is a lot of catch up for the new player but when you start taking on things like bondings you're basically making the game no work. no investment. I think that's bad for the long term health of the game. before doing things that drastic isn't it better to educate first? That's the real problem.
I would like to see more complexity added. Not more simplification. What is needed is education as to how to use this system. the reason people have a problem is because you do need to come to the forums to learn about basics of upgrading rather than it being taught in the game cohesively.
The game overall doesn't need the drastic ground up changes you're talking about in this area. it needs some updating.
Masterwork
Masterwork is fine. it just needs to be kept up to date with gear that has a place in the game strategically. Making one mastercraft toon per account will be met with outrage. people have spent time and money on upgrading mw on more than one toon. I want a universal tool box but that's it. Crafting is fine. The way it's set up is fine. Having a little streamlining, as sharp mentioned in the number of clicks needed would be awesome.. but as a whole I just needs to be kept up to date, not a rework. There is also room in this economy for master crafting for the newbie but it's been neglected so you're not seeing that right now. Normally new players can make quite a bit selling to mastercrafters. The balance needs to be restored, not bulldozed into oblivion. The economy DOES work as it is. People whine about it because it takes work but that is what keeps them in the game and that is also what makes them open their wallets.
The Economy is a balance that needs to be kept. Like someone was mentioning people play the game in different ways. in the last few alliances i've been in the focus is all about end game and playing the economy. I really hope you keep site of that. it's important to most of us. People need to earn what they have, and it needs to be hard won so they feel accomplished over it. The problem that I do think needs to be addressed is how to make it seem like that feeling of hard won accomplishment can be not yanked away from the player so it feels worthwhile to chase, while keeping the circle spinning. Enchantments Stats I like the way enchantments are and I don't think it should be simplified the way they are upgraded. I'd like to see more complexity added to upgrading them in away that adds some value back to RP. I'd like to feel like there was some consideration for keeping value in the items and adding value to items. I think the benefit areas are fine as they are. Just explain to the new people how to use them. The only thing that needs change is more il from comp gear as it's such an important part of build.
Drastically changing anything as important as this is going to alienate most of us. This is a sledgehammer, when all it needs is a gentle boars hair brush.. Honestly reading thru this, if this is what the game is going to become I don't think it sounds like fun at all. Right now this game has a lot of flavor although less than it had a year ago. I'm seeing vanilla here going forward. all uniqueness.. gone. All quirks gone. all complexity just gone. That's not the game I want to play.
I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 15. I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 12 even more than that. the complexity and the varied choices of how to play the toon and the work required to get there are what has kept me around. As it's been simplified I become less and less invested. I miss being able to play as buffing support. I miss not needing healers. I miss lifesteal. I miss the complexity in artifact upgrades. I miss the choice in good artifacts. I miss the complexity in upgrading enchantments. I miss the value rp and enchantments used to have. I miss variety in enchantments I could choose to use. I miss being able to use the same enchantments on my toon as on my comp. I miss all the various paths on my toon and the interesting boon trees and that the statroll actually mattered.. I'm sure there are other things I miss too that I'm forgetting.
Mod 16 was a disaster for so many reasons but the biggest reason of all was too much change to a game we all loved for who it was. We didn't want it to be another game. All I'm getting from this proposal is mod 16 redux.
snipped for size Comprehensively revamp the entire rewards and progression system in game
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.
I keep seeing ideas like, getting rid of bondings and making that bonus just there.... no difficult choices on artifact sets. get it all with no conflict in choice...
The game has already been simplified GREATLY and greatly changed, and I'm seeing talk about simplifying it even more. This is concerning. Gamers don't like change. Complexity is what gives a game like this legs. A good amount of people left the game before because of Change- Simplification...
Also the economy is at stake here. In the past this game had been very cautious to make changes because of the economy. People don't like seeing their investments turned to mush. Having trade in vendors just makes it worse imo. So you get rid of bondings. People have spent between 1.5 mil each and 2.2 mil each on these, many have spent real cash, so outrage. Cryptic says yeah ok trade in store. So that means the many thousands of bondings turn into empowereds and radiants, which in turn decreases their value on the market, because supply /demand. End result, now we have yet another worthless market. And the newer players you're trying to hook in don't have to work very hard so have little investment in the game to keep them here.
Superstore:
The superstore idea also will basically kill the economy. RNG is part of the system that keeps people logging in every day. I agree we have too many stores and too many currencies but combining everything into one store takes away flavor. and given how everything funnels into this store will make a huge dent in supply demand. even if it's all bound to account (which is also taking away value from what we already have) the demand has just crashed for things on the market already. those same new players you want to give things to all of a sudden can't make any ad on anything because it's all valueless. higher values are good for everyone.
Just update some of these other stores. I personally like the many stores. I still strongly dislike changing vip in anyway. The backlash for that from the player base will be considerable.
Earlier someone had detailed the types of players in this game. People here to play the economy are a huge part of the player base. When you start simplifying thing and changing things to the extent mentioned, you end up killing markets that many have invested in heavily already. As well as taking away something to grind for.
There is a lot of catch up for the new player but when you start taking on things like bondings you're basically making the game no work. no investment. I think that's bad for the long term health of the game. before doing things that drastic isn't it better to educate first? That's the real problem.
I would like to see more complexity added. Not more simplification. What is needed is education as to how to use this system. the reason people have a problem is because you do need to come to the forums to learn about basics of upgrading rather than it being taught in the game cohesively.
The game overall doesn't need the drastic ground up changes you're talking about in this area. it needs some updating.
Masterwork
Masterwork is fine. it just needs to be kept up to date with gear that has a place in the game strategically. Making one mastercraft toon per account will be met with outrage. people have spent time and money on upgrading mw on more than one toon. I want a universal tool box but that's it. Crafting is fine. The way it's set up is fine. Having a little streamlining, as sharp mentioned in the number of clicks needed would be awesome.. but as a whole I just needs to be kept up to date, not a rework. There is also room in this economy for master crafting for the newbie but it's been neglected so you're not seeing that right now. Normally new players can make quite a bit selling to mastercrafters. The balance needs to be restored, not bulldozed into oblivion. The economy DOES work as it is. People whine about it because it takes work but that is what keeps them in the game and that is also what makes them open their wallets.
The Economy is a balance that needs to be kept. Like someone was mentioning people play the game in different ways. in the last few alliances i've been in the focus is all about end game and playing the economy. I really hope you keep site of that. it's important to most of us. People need to earn what they have, and it needs to be hard won so they feel accomplished over it. The problem that I do think needs to be addressed is how to make it seem like that feeling of hard won accomplishment can be not yanked away from the player so it feels worthwhile to chase, while keeping the circle spinning. Enchantments Stats I like the way enchantments are and I don't think it should be simplified the way they are upgraded. I'd like to see more complexity added to upgrading them in away that adds some value back to RP. I'd like to feel like there was some consideration for keeping value in the items and adding value to items. I think the benefit areas are fine as they are. Just explain to the new people how to use them. The only thing that needs change is more il from comp gear as it's such an important part of build.
Drastically changing anything as important as this is going to alienate most of us. This is a sledgehammer, when all it needs is a gentle boars hair brush.. Honestly reading thru this, if this is what the game is going to become I don't think it sounds like fun at all. Right now this game has a lot of flavor although less than it had a year ago. I'm seeing vanilla here going forward. all uniqueness.. gone. All quirks gone. all complexity just gone. That's not the game I want to play.
I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 15. I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 12 even more than that. the complexity and the varied choices of how to play the toon and the work required to get there are what has kept me around. As it's been simplified I become less and less invested. I miss being able to play as buffing support. I miss not needing healers. I miss lifesteal. I miss the complexity in artifact upgrades. I miss the choice in good artifacts. I miss the complexity in upgrading enchantments. I miss the value rp and enchantments used to have. I miss variety in enchantments I could choose to use. I miss being able to use the same enchantments on my toon as on my comp. I miss all the various paths on my toon and the interesting boon trees and that the statroll actually mattered.. I'm sure there are other things I miss too that I'm forgetting.
Mod 16 was a disaster for so many reasons but the biggest reason of all was too much change to a game we all loved for who it was. We didn't want it to be another game. All I'm getting from this proposal is mod 16 redux.
snipped for size Comprehensively revamp the entire rewards and progression system in game
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.
Chris
That isn't my quote. And just so many 'I', 'me' and myopic comments @thefiresidecat . There are many different types of player, each with different needs, hopes and aspirations. The CDP is about evolving the world of NW. I would suggest thinking more broadly you will have more impact that way. I really appreciate you as a member of the CDP I just wish you would apply your passion and knowledge more universally. We have the opportunity to build worlds together.
I keep seeing ideas like, getting rid of bondings and making that bonus just there.... no difficult choices on artifact sets. get it all with no conflict in choice...
The game has already been simplified GREATLY and greatly changed, and I'm seeing talk about simplifying it even more. This is concerning. Gamers don't like change. Complexity is what gives a game like this legs. A good amount of people left the game before because of Change- Simplification...
Also the economy is at stake here. In the past this game had been very cautious to make changes because of the economy. People don't like seeing their investments turned to mush. Having trade in vendors just makes it worse imo. So you get rid of bondings. People have spent between 1.5 mil each and 2.2 mil each on these, many have spent real cash, so outrage. Cryptic says yeah ok trade in store. So that means the many thousands of bondings turn into empowereds and radiants, which in turn decreases their value on the market, because supply /demand. End result, now we have yet another worthless market. And the newer players you're trying to hook in don't have to work very hard so have little investment in the game to keep them here.
Superstore:
The superstore idea also will basically kill the economy. RNG is part of the system that keeps people logging in every day. I agree we have too many stores and too many currencies but combining everything into one store takes away flavor. and given how everything funnels into this store will make a huge dent in supply demand. even if it's all bound to account (which is also taking away value from what we already have) the demand has just crashed for things on the market already. those same new players you want to give things to all of a sudden can't make any ad on anything because it's all valueless. higher values are good for everyone.
Just update some of these other stores. I personally like the many stores. I still strongly dislike changing vip in anyway. The backlash for that from the player base will be considerable.
Earlier someone had detailed the types of players in this game. People here to play the economy are a huge part of the player base. When you start simplifying thing and changing things to the extent mentioned, you end up killing markets that many have invested in heavily already. As well as taking away something to grind for.
There is a lot of catch up for the new player but when you start taking on things like bondings you're basically making the game no work. no investment. I think that's bad for the long term health of the game. before doing things that drastic isn't it better to educate first? That's the real problem.
I would like to see more complexity added. Not more simplification. What is needed is education as to how to use this system. the reason people have a problem is because you do need to come to the forums to learn about basics of upgrading rather than it being taught in the game cohesively.
The game overall doesn't need the drastic ground up changes you're talking about in this area. it needs some updating.
Masterwork
Masterwork is fine. it just needs to be kept up to date with gear that has a place in the game strategically. Making one mastercraft toon per account will be met with outrage. people have spent time and money on upgrading mw on more than one toon. I want a universal tool box but that's it. Crafting is fine. The way it's set up is fine. Having a little streamlining, as sharp mentioned in the number of clicks needed would be awesome.. but as a whole I just needs to be kept up to date, not a rework. There is also room in this economy for master crafting for the newbie but it's been neglected so you're not seeing that right now. Normally new players can make quite a bit selling to mastercrafters. The balance needs to be restored, not bulldozed into oblivion. The economy DOES work as it is. People whine about it because it takes work but that is what keeps them in the game and that is also what makes them open their wallets.
The Economy is a balance that needs to be kept. Like someone was mentioning people play the game in different ways. in the last few alliances i've been in the focus is all about end game and playing the economy. I really hope you keep site of that. it's important to most of us. People need to earn what they have, and it needs to be hard won so they feel accomplished over it. The problem that I do think needs to be addressed is how to make it seem like that feeling of hard won accomplishment can be not yanked away from the player so it feels worthwhile to chase, while keeping the circle spinning. Enchantments Stats I like the way enchantments are and I don't think it should be simplified the way they are upgraded. I'd like to see more complexity added to upgrading them in away that adds some value back to RP. I'd like to feel like there was some consideration for keeping value in the items and adding value to items. I think the benefit areas are fine as they are. Just explain to the new people how to use them. The only thing that needs change is more il from comp gear as it's such an important part of build.
Drastically changing anything as important as this is going to alienate most of us. This is a sledgehammer, when all it needs is a gentle boars hair brush.. Honestly reading thru this, if this is what the game is going to become I don't think it sounds like fun at all. Right now this game has a lot of flavor although less than it had a year ago. I'm seeing vanilla here going forward. all uniqueness.. gone. All quirks gone. all complexity just gone. That's not the game I want to play.
I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 15. I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 12 even more than that. the complexity and the varied choices of how to play the toon and the work required to get there are what has kept me around. As it's been simplified I become less and less invested. I miss being able to play as buffing support. I miss not needing healers. I miss lifesteal. I miss the complexity in artifact upgrades. I miss the choice in good artifacts. I miss the complexity in upgrading enchantments. I miss the value rp and enchantments used to have. I miss variety in enchantments I could choose to use. I miss being able to use the same enchantments on my toon as on my comp. I miss all the various paths on my toon and the interesting boon trees and that the statroll actually mattered.. I'm sure there are other things I miss too that I'm forgetting.
Mod 16 was a disaster for so many reasons but the biggest reason of all was too much change to a game we all loved for who it was. We didn't want it to be another game. All I'm getting from this proposal is mod 16 redux.
snipped for size Comprehensively revamp the entire rewards and progression system in game
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.
Chris
That isn't my quote.
Chris
oh. lol it looks like your quote. look back on page 12. now I feel stupid. lol. hehe thank god. It looks like you lost formatting on that one. huge relief that isn't your roadmap for proposed changes.
I keep seeing ideas like, getting rid of bondings and making that bonus just there.... no difficult choices on artifact sets. get it all with no conflict in choice...
The game has already been simplified GREATLY and greatly changed, and I'm seeing talk about simplifying it even more. This is concerning. Gamers don't like change. Complexity is what gives a game like this legs. A good amount of people left the game before because of Change- Simplification...
Also the economy is at stake here. In the past this game had been very cautious to make changes because of the economy. People don't like seeing their investments turned to mush. Having trade in vendors just makes it worse imo. So you get rid of bondings. People have spent between 1.5 mil each and 2.2 mil each on these, many have spent real cash, so outrage. Cryptic says yeah ok trade in store. So that means the many thousands of bondings turn into empowereds and radiants, which in turn decreases their value on the market, because supply /demand. End result, now we have yet another worthless market. And the newer players you're trying to hook in don't have to work very hard so have little investment in the game to keep them here.
Superstore:
The superstore idea also will basically kill the economy. RNG is part of the system that keeps people logging in every day. I agree we have too many stores and too many currencies but combining everything into one store takes away flavor. and given how everything funnels into this store will make a huge dent in supply demand. even if it's all bound to account (which is also taking away value from what we already have) the demand has just crashed for things on the market already. those same new players you want to give things to all of a sudden can't make any ad on anything because it's all valueless. higher values are good for everyone.
Just update some of these other stores. I personally like the many stores. I still strongly dislike changing vip in anyway. The backlash for that from the player base will be considerable.
Earlier someone had detailed the types of players in this game. People here to play the economy are a huge part of the player base. When you start simplifying thing and changing things to the extent mentioned, you end up killing markets that many have invested in heavily already. As well as taking away something to grind for.
There is a lot of catch up for the new player but when you start taking on things like bondings you're basically making the game no work. no investment. I think that's bad for the long term health of the game. before doing things that drastic isn't it better to educate first? That's the real problem.
I would like to see more complexity added. Not more simplification. What is needed is education as to how to use this system. the reason people have a problem is because you do need to come to the forums to learn about basics of upgrading rather than it being taught in the game cohesively.
The game overall doesn't need the drastic ground up changes you're talking about in this area. it needs some updating.
Masterwork
Masterwork is fine. it just needs to be kept up to date with gear that has a place in the game strategically. Making one mastercraft toon per account will be met with outrage. people have spent time and money on upgrading mw on more than one toon. I want a universal tool box but that's it. Crafting is fine. The way it's set up is fine. Having a little streamlining, as sharp mentioned in the number of clicks needed would be awesome.. but as a whole I just needs to be kept up to date, not a rework. There is also room in this economy for master crafting for the newbie but it's been neglected so you're not seeing that right now. Normally new players can make quite a bit selling to mastercrafters. The balance needs to be restored, not bulldozed into oblivion. The economy DOES work as it is. People whine about it because it takes work but that is what keeps them in the game and that is also what makes them open their wallets.
The Economy is a balance that needs to be kept. Like someone was mentioning people play the game in different ways. in the last few alliances i've been in the focus is all about end game and playing the economy. I really hope you keep site of that. it's important to most of us. People need to earn what they have, and it needs to be hard won so they feel accomplished over it. The problem that I do think needs to be addressed is how to make it seem like that feeling of hard won accomplishment can be not yanked away from the player so it feels worthwhile to chase, while keeping the circle spinning. Enchantments Stats I like the way enchantments are and I don't think it should be simplified the way they are upgraded. I'd like to see more complexity added to upgrading them in away that adds some value back to RP. I'd like to feel like there was some consideration for keeping value in the items and adding value to items. I think the benefit areas are fine as they are. Just explain to the new people how to use them. The only thing that needs change is more il from comp gear as it's such an important part of build.
Drastically changing anything as important as this is going to alienate most of us. This is a sledgehammer, when all it needs is a gentle boars hair brush.. Honestly reading thru this, if this is what the game is going to become I don't think it sounds like fun at all. Right now this game has a lot of flavor although less than it had a year ago. I'm seeing vanilla here going forward. all uniqueness.. gone. All quirks gone. all complexity just gone. That's not the game I want to play.
I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 15. I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 12 even more than that. the complexity and the varied choices of how to play the toon and the work required to get there are what has kept me around. As it's been simplified I become less and less invested. I miss being able to play as buffing support. I miss not needing healers. I miss lifesteal. I miss the complexity in artifact upgrades. I miss the choice in good artifacts. I miss the complexity in upgrading enchantments. I miss the value rp and enchantments used to have. I miss variety in enchantments I could choose to use. I miss being able to use the same enchantments on my toon as on my comp. I miss all the various paths on my toon and the interesting boon trees and that the statroll actually mattered.. I'm sure there are other things I miss too that I'm forgetting.
Mod 16 was a disaster for so many reasons but the biggest reason of all was too much change to a game we all loved for who it was. We didn't want it to be another game. All I'm getting from this proposal is mod 16 redux.
snipped for size Comprehensively revamp the entire rewards and progression system in game
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.
Chris
That isn't my quote. And just so many 'I', 'me' and myopic comments @thefiresidecat . There are many different types of player, each with different needs, hopes and aspirations. The CDP is about evolving the world of NW. I would suggest thinking more broadly you will have more impact that way. I really appreciate you as a member of the CDP I just wish you would apply your passion and knowledge more universally. We have the opportunity to build worlds together.
Chris
Yes I speak from my stand point as a player and what makes me and people like me stay in the game and play the game. I am not an employee for cryptic. I am, a member of your free focus group. telling YOU the employee of cryptic what is working and what isn't working for ME the customer. I am not the only one who comes from this stand point. having feedback from YOU the DEV that I am telling you too much about what I like as a player makes me wonder who you are trying to build this game for?
if yoru response to that post had been properly formatted I would not have responded but I do hope you realize there is a huge difference between another focus group member writing something like that worded like that and what appears to be a dev writing something like that. it feels a bit more set in stone when it is thought to be from you and those are some pretty radical ideas. Yes, I personally... as someone who has been playing this game A LOT for the last 4 years was concerned. very concerned. You act like I am the only person who shares these views at least in part, I'm not. I can say that after playing this game for four years and talking to other players and having played it alot. I am your customer base. I am one of the customer base who did not leave although tempted at mod 16. so that means I'm also loyal. I just want this game to remain the game it has been. because it's the game we all love. and I am terrified of it changing too much.
I keep seeing ideas like, getting rid of bondings and making that bonus just there.... no difficult choices on artifact sets. get it all with no conflict in choice...
The game has already been simplified GREATLY and greatly changed, and I'm seeing talk about simplifying it even more. This is concerning. Gamers don't like change. Complexity is what gives a game like this legs. A good amount of people left the game before because of Change- Simplification...
Also the economy is at stake here. In the past this game had been very cautious to make changes because of the economy. People don't like seeing their investments turned to mush. Having trade in vendors just makes it worse imo. So you get rid of bondings. People have spent between 1.5 mil each and 2.2 mil each on these, many have spent real cash, so outrage. Cryptic says yeah ok trade in store. So that means the many thousands of bondings turn into empowereds and radiants, which in turn decreases their value on the market, because supply /demand. End result, now we have yet another worthless market. And the newer players you're trying to hook in don't have to work very hard so have little investment in the game to keep them here.
Superstore:
The superstore idea also will basically kill the economy. RNG is part of the system that keeps people logging in every day. I agree we have too many stores and too many currencies but combining everything into one store takes away flavor. and given how everything funnels into this store will make a huge dent in supply demand. even if it's all bound to account (which is also taking away value from what we already have) the demand has just crashed for things on the market already. those same new players you want to give things to all of a sudden can't make any ad on anything because it's all valueless. higher values are good for everyone.
Just update some of these other stores. I personally like the many stores. I still strongly dislike changing vip in anyway. The backlash for that from the player base will be considerable.
Earlier someone had detailed the types of players in this game. People here to play the economy are a huge part of the player base. When you start simplifying thing and changing things to the extent mentioned, you end up killing markets that many have invested in heavily already. As well as taking away something to grind for.
There is a lot of catch up for the new player but when you start taking on things like bondings you're basically making the game no work. no investment. I think that's bad for the long term health of the game. before doing things that drastic isn't it better to educate first? That's the real problem.
I would like to see more complexity added. Not more simplification. What is needed is education as to how to use this system. the reason people have a problem is because you do need to come to the forums to learn about basics of upgrading rather than it being taught in the game cohesively.
The game overall doesn't need the drastic ground up changes you're talking about in this area. it needs some updating.
Masterwork
Masterwork is fine. it just needs to be kept up to date with gear that has a place in the game strategically. Making one mastercraft toon per account will be met with outrage. people have spent time and money on upgrading mw on more than one toon. I want a universal tool box but that's it. Crafting is fine. The way it's set up is fine. Having a little streamlining, as sharp mentioned in the number of clicks needed would be awesome.. but as a whole I just needs to be kept up to date, not a rework. There is also room in this economy for master crafting for the newbie but it's been neglected so you're not seeing that right now. Normally new players can make quite a bit selling to mastercrafters. The balance needs to be restored, not bulldozed into oblivion. The economy DOES work as it is. People whine about it because it takes work but that is what keeps them in the game and that is also what makes them open their wallets.
The Economy is a balance that needs to be kept. Like someone was mentioning people play the game in different ways. in the last few alliances i've been in the focus is all about end game and playing the economy. I really hope you keep site of that. it's important to most of us. People need to earn what they have, and it needs to be hard won so they feel accomplished over it. The problem that I do think needs to be addressed is how to make it seem like that feeling of hard won accomplishment can be not yanked away from the player so it feels worthwhile to chase, while keeping the circle spinning. Enchantments Stats I like the way enchantments are and I don't think it should be simplified the way they are upgraded. I'd like to see more complexity added to upgrading them in away that adds some value back to RP. I'd like to feel like there was some consideration for keeping value in the items and adding value to items. I think the benefit areas are fine as they are. Just explain to the new people how to use them. The only thing that needs change is more il from comp gear as it's such an important part of build.
Drastically changing anything as important as this is going to alienate most of us. This is a sledgehammer, when all it needs is a gentle boars hair brush.. Honestly reading thru this, if this is what the game is going to become I don't think it sounds like fun at all. Right now this game has a lot of flavor although less than it had a year ago. I'm seeing vanilla here going forward. all uniqueness.. gone. All quirks gone. all complexity just gone. That's not the game I want to play.
I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 15. I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 12 even more than that. the complexity and the varied choices of how to play the toon and the work required to get there are what has kept me around. As it's been simplified I become less and less invested. I miss being able to play as buffing support. I miss not needing healers. I miss lifesteal. I miss the complexity in artifact upgrades. I miss the choice in good artifacts. I miss the complexity in upgrading enchantments. I miss the value rp and enchantments used to have. I miss variety in enchantments I could choose to use. I miss being able to use the same enchantments on my toon as on my comp. I miss all the various paths on my toon and the interesting boon trees and that the statroll actually mattered.. I'm sure there are other things I miss too that I'm forgetting.
Mod 16 was a disaster for so many reasons but the biggest reason of all was too much change to a game we all loved for who it was. We didn't want it to be another game. All I'm getting from this proposal is mod 16 redux.
snipped for size Comprehensively revamp the entire rewards and progression system in game
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.
Chris
I don't know that it's as bad as all that. A lot of what I'm seeing with respect to horizontal progression suggests to me that we might be seeing more choices and more complexity, not less. To me the simplification appears to be centering around the mechanics of how we get to those choices, such as separating bonuses and enchantments from gear, but it looks like maybe, just maybe, we might wind up with more choices for our builds rather than less. I think it will come down to what bonuses, boons, etc. we are given at the end of this process.
We've all lost a lot. I've lost three distinct playstyles that I really enjoyed (see my version of War and Peace on page 11 for a rundown). I've lost dungeon side areas that I really enjoyed, and the kicker, I lost **the Foundry**. Take a look at the videos I posted of my Foundry quests in the Foundry forum to see just how much I lost there. Those represent hundreds of hours into a pure labor of love for me, and now they've gone poof. I even lost the account-wide rewards that I *earned* through my Foundry efforts. We've all suffered greatly and to some degree I'm still bitter about some of those things.
I'm hoping against hope that these changes will *recover* some of what we lost, even if the core of what we enjoyed comes back in a different form. I don't think it's enough to say, "let's not have any more changes because we got screwed so many times before", though believe me, I fully understand the sentiment. I don't blame you one bit for feeling that way -- goodness knows there is ample reason for being concerned. Like you, I've been around here a long time, since January 2014. I've learned that the words of specific people at Cryptic are to be taken with a very large grain of salt. I'm hoping it will be different this time.
As for this topic, I think what we need is more focused discussion, and as ideas get distilled and boiled down maybe we can be sure to have an impact that will leave us satisfied. The real question for me is, will the devs continue to allow us to have that impact? Heck, I've been lobbying for FIVE LONG YEARS to get dungeon side areas unblocked to no avail, so I know what it feels like to seemingly be talking to a wall. I think what we need to do is make it clear that we expect to have agency in how the game evolves, as we are the customers.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
I keep seeing ideas like, getting rid of bondings and making that bonus just there.... no difficult choices on artifact sets. get it all with no conflict in choice...
The game has already been simplified GREATLY and greatly changed, and I'm seeing talk about simplifying it even more. This is concerning. Gamers don't like change. Complexity is what gives a game like this legs. A good amount of people left the game before because of Change- Simplification...
Also the economy is at stake here. In the past this game had been very cautious to make changes because of the economy. People don't like seeing their investments turned to mush. Having trade in vendors just makes it worse imo. So you get rid of bondings. People have spent between 1.5 mil each and 2.2 mil each on these, many have spent real cash, so outrage. Cryptic says yeah ok trade in store. So that means the many thousands of bondings turn into empowereds and radiants, which in turn decreases their value on the market, because supply /demand. End result, now we have yet another worthless market. And the newer players you're trying to hook in don't have to work very hard so have little investment in the game to keep them here.
Superstore:
The superstore idea also will basically kill the economy. RNG is part of the system that keeps people logging in every day. I agree we have too many stores and too many currencies but combining everything into one store takes away flavor. and given how everything funnels into this store will make a huge dent in supply demand. even if it's all bound to account (which is also taking away value from what we already have) the demand has just crashed for things on the market already. those same new players you want to give things to all of a sudden can't make any ad on anything because it's all valueless. higher values are good for everyone.
Just update some of these other stores. I personally like the many stores. I still strongly dislike changing vip in anyway. The backlash for that from the player base will be considerable.
Earlier someone had detailed the types of players in this game. People here to play the economy are a huge part of the player base. When you start simplifying thing and changing things to the extent mentioned, you end up killing markets that many have invested in heavily already. As well as taking away something to grind for.
There is a lot of catch up for the new player but when you start taking on things like bondings you're basically making the game no work. no investment. I think that's bad for the long term health of the game. before doing things that drastic isn't it better to educate first? That's the real problem.
I would like to see more complexity added. Not more simplification. What is needed is education as to how to use this system. the reason people have a problem is because you do need to come to the forums to learn about basics of upgrading rather than it being taught in the game cohesively.
The game overall doesn't need the drastic ground up changes you're talking about in this area. it needs some updating.
Masterwork
The Economy is a balance that needs to be kept. Like someone was mentioning people play the game in different ways. in the last few alliances i've been in the focus is all about end game and playing the economy. I really hope you keep site of that. it's important to most of us. People need to earn what they have, and it needs to be hard won so they feel accomplished over it. The problem that I do think needs to be addressed is how to make it seem like that feeling of hard won accomplishment can be not yanked away from the player so it feels worthwhile to chase, while keeping the circle spinning. Enchantments Stats I like the way enchantments are and I don't think it should be simplified the way they are upgraded. I'd like to see more complexity added to upgrading them in away that adds some value back to RP. I'd like to feel like there was some consideration for keeping value in the items and adding value to items. I think the benefit areas are fine as they are. Just explain to the new people how to use them. The only thing that needs change is more il from comp gear as it's such an important part of build.
Drastically changing anything as important as this is going to alienate most of us. This is a sledgehammer, when all it needs is a gentle boars hair brush.. Honestly reading thru this, if this is what the game is going to become I don't think it sounds like fun at all. Right now this game has a lot of flavor although less than it had a year ago. I'm seeing vanilla here going forward. all uniqueness.. gone. All quirks gone. all complexity just gone. That's not the game I want to play.
I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 15. I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 12 even more than that. the complexity and the varied choices of how to play the toon and the work required to get there are what has kept me around. As it's been simplified I become less and less invested. I miss being able to play as buffing support. I miss not needing healers. I miss lifesteal. I miss the complexity in artifact upgrades. I miss the choice in good artifacts. I miss the complexity in upgrading enchantments. I miss the value rp and enchantments used to have. I miss variety in enchantments I could choose to use. I miss being able to use the same enchantments on my toon as on my comp. I miss all the various paths on my toon and the interesting boon trees and that the statroll actually mattered.. I'm sure there are other things I miss too that I'm forgetting.
Mod 16 was a disaster for so many reasons but the biggest reason of all was too much change to a game we all loved for who it was. We didn't want it to be another game. All I'm getting from this proposal is mod 16 redux.
snipped for size Comprehensively revamp the entire rewards and progression system in game
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.
Chris
I don't know that it's as bad as all that. A lot of what I'm seeing with respect to horizontal progression suggests to me that we might be seeing more choices and more complexity, not less. To me the simplification appears to be centering around the mechanics of how we get to those choices, such as separating bonuses and enchantments from gear, but it looks like maybe, just maybe, we might wind up with more choices for our builds rather than less. I think it will come down to what bonuses, boons, etc. we are given at the end of this process.
We've all lost a lot. I've lost three distinct playstyles that I really enjoyed (see my version of War and Peace on page 11 for a rundown). I've lost dungeon side areas that I really enjoyed, and the kicker, I lost **the Foundry**. Take a look at the videos I posted of my Foundry quests in the Foundry forum to see just how much I lost there. Those represent hundreds of hours into a pure labor of love for me, and now they've gone poof. I even lost the account-wide rewards that I *earned* through my Foundry efforts. We've all suffered greatly and to some degree I'm still bitter about some of those things.
I'm hoping against hope that these changes will *recover* some of what we lost, even if the core of what we enjoyed comes back in a different form. I don't think it's enough to say, "let's not have any more changes because we got screwed so many times before", though believe me, I fully understand the sentiment. I don't blame you one bit for feeling that way -- goodness knows there is ample reason for being concerned. Like you, I've been around here a long time, since January 2014. I've learned that the words of specific people at Cryptic are to be taken with a very large grain of salt. I'm hoping it will be different this time.
As for this topic, I think what we need is more focused discussion, and as ideas get distilled and boiled down maybe we can be sure to have an impact that will leave us satisfied. The real question for me is, will the devs continue to allow us to have that impact? Heck, I've been lobbying for FIVE LONG YEARS to get dungeon side areas unblocked to no avail, so I know what it feels like to seemingly be talking to a wall. I think what we need to do is make it clear that we expect to have agency in how the game evolves, as we are the customers.
I think it would be as bad as all that, but I do hope other things can restore some of the things we've lost. but overall I do agree with you. but still, I do think it's important that any change going forward is only going forward and not taking what has been the foundations of this game in it's place. if it's working why try and fix it right? in the past when they've done that it generally hasn't been a good thing and I agree that the side areas would be hella fun.
My biggest concern now with the current stat progression is that is messed up in older scaled content with respect to stats. It is very hard to balance stats because current system reduce stats from different items in different degree. So balanced stats suddenly became unbalanced. I practically gave up on balancing stats and only balance for normal quest content in newest zone. My chars are too weak for new dungeon, messed up in older dungeons (because overcap ArP suddenly became half of needed). Neither content is satisfying.
I would suggest to leave all stats uncapped for older content except for power and hit points. Other stats beyond these two stats have a natural content specific-cap (50% for crit, 50% for DR and so on). Feats like barbarian's overpentration might need to be reworked in this case, but that would greatly simplify life for casual players, as we only need to balance for hardest content now, and in older content stats will be naturally balanced by natural capping.
So my suggestion is to scale only power and hit points in the content. Possibly by some hard cap.
With this system we could more safely play with bonuses, so our changes will predictably affect character in all content. If we have enough stats, we could play with damage bonuses or power, otherwise just try to reach stat goals.
Please remove this source unpredictability from the game. Doing better in older gear than in newer gear because of messed stats is a big source of frustration in the game.
Comments
Or, instead of the raw stats (power, crit, armor pen, etc.) it can be primary stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc.) given on armor and the primary stats expanded to allow for more of an impact on your character and their build. Instead of chasing an ever creeping stat every new mod. The primary stats can be easier controlled, easier to understand for the player and stop the incredibly high stats that have frankly gotten out of control.
1 STR = 1% melee damage, etc., etc. No guess work, no formulas, no fractions of a percent, no calculations needed on the player's part.
I agree with most everything here. Not sure about point 3 however need to think more on it. Maybe if on your account you have a character that is over X level then on your next character you can use them.
We will be using this post as reference in regard to streamlining. Although a lot of the work you did in CDP 1 has already influenced us in that area.
Thanks
Chris
CDP members what do you think about these ideas in relation to other posts on Master crafting in this CDP. Lets did into this area a little bit more please.
Thanks
Chris
This post will be used as an example in our meetings moving forward for both streamlining and rewards.
Thanks
Chris
On the off chance anyone is wondering to date there have been 27 posts by different members containing 9070 words about crafting in this CDP. This does not include replies by @cwhitesidedev#9752 or quotes referring to the 27 posts.
I think the next CDP is going to be a CDP on the CDP.
Chris
However, after combing through the wiki, I realized there were a few bonuses like that, a few of which were preserved on wiki. One example would be the Indomitable Champion armor set, which increased the player's Guard meter by 25% (when Guardian Fighter was the only class that used Guard).
I am all for having these types of set bonuses (not the 2/4 set bonuses, the bland "more stats" things don't change up how I approach combat), but I would like to note that the whole "older set bonuses might be too good and players won't grind for new stuff" problem actually happened.
The High+KC sets were too good for support builds and actually forced the dev team to delete the set bonuses on all the classic items in Mod 10, even though they were technically balanced by their non-existent defensive stats (aka: you make your allies kill things faster, but if you screw up, you die in 1 hit). Might I also add looking back at the old artifact offhand class features modifications?
Example Control Wizard's:
It is true that there were many of these offhand bonuses which were boring "make this ability do the same thing it normally did but better" or laughably useless bonuses that never mattered.
However, there were some rare gems that added to your build and made what were normally terrible options into staples of builds.
One example was the Devoted Cleric's Light of Divinity offhand. Light of Divinity was a terrible passive ability that would heal you and teammates for a nominal amount every few seconds. With the artifact offhand bonus, it would passively restore your Divinity, turning it into a nice tool for helping keep up your Divinity when you were occupied with other tasks (old Divinity was gained by using At-wills, not praying, and you didn't always have the time to attack with At-wills).
Another example was the Guardian Fighter's Guarded Assault offhand bonus (I lack a screenshot to show you what the bonus did, unfortunately).
Guarded Assault was a "whenever you Guard an attack, deal 5% of the damage back at enemies" class feature that was unremarkable for damage purposes. The offhand bonus would also cause this reflect damage to slow enemies, which was also unremarkable in a time where the most relevant enemies were CC immune.
What made the Guarded Assault offhand so interesting was its synergy with an old feat named Crushing Pin. Crushing Pin would causes enemies to take 10% more damage for 3 seconds whenever you applied a CC effect to them (key word was applied, as the feat didn't check if the enemy was actually CC'd). Since the Guarded Assault offhand bonus would slow enemies upon hitting you, the offhand bonus would effectively place Crushing Pin on enemies that attempted to attack you.
I agree that it can get out of control if they don't think about the effects carefully. Hopefully they can find a sweet spot and slowly massage that angle.
I do have to concede on your price and motivation arguments though.
So how about we change it a little and make it an AD sink?
Every time a player completes the (x) dungeon an AI seller will post the "excellent consumable rewards box" on the AH for a fixed(?) amount. Supply of said boxes strictly depends on victories. No wins = no boxes. A team of 5 wins = 5 boxes (obviously devs can change the ratio to whatever suits them). The same rules apply where if someone has beaten the dungeon, they cannot open the box and all contents are character bound and time limited or consumable.
This eliminates any change experienced by the BiS crew so they can just keep powering on while the game itself handles the "helping hand" aspect of this idea, and in this form also provides an additional AD sink. There'd need to be solid advertising for those boxes though, if they are in stock.
I suppose profiteers can also then do the whole "trading" game too, since the boxes are a tradable item - if they want to chance it. Thoughts?
We need to be drilling into the key ideas at the moment and look at how they can work together, synergize and create intersecting compulsion loops as a holistic system that is accessible, deep and evergreen. Several CDP members have already started doing this.
What would a unified horizontal and vertical system look like, for example?
I would recommend (as mentioned before) that Vertical rewards are saved for Mods and Horizontal for episodes (There is a high level release frame work that immediately helps with the issue of redundancy in rewards). How can we streamline and refine our current systems to create a system that also allows different types of players to have meaningful reward experiences from different activities like crafting, to more interesting/useful dungeon/trial/boss rewards, to horizontal systems in boons that let the player play to his or her strengths and so on. How could these all come together as an engine in terms of driving more player agency, empowerment and satisfaction in and around the core experience?
Thanks
Chris
I think some thought needs to go into SH progression (possibly extending the progression) and how it ties into MW since that is gated behind guild life. Something so that people aren't required to have many toons in a guild to earn enough gms to do mw in a reasonable time frame, though I do understand it's supposed to take a good amount of time to do. Maybe make GM's an account wide currency, and increase/remove caps on certain things (influence) and give more quests to earn shards/vouchers.
There is also a vendor with very old gear (dragonflight) that I think needs some updating.
Increase maximum SH rank to 30, increase number of plots that give boons, create new boons in each of the 4 categories we have that these new structures give (Horizontal). Increase rank of structures to 15, increase maximum amount of stats/bonus boons give (Vertical).
My brain is fried today (maybe not just today), but I'll sleep on it and see what I come with.
Maybe SH/Guilds needs to be its own cdp.
For guilds with too many resources, I'd actually prefer something like... temporary boons? Make it so you can donate resources into to a structure to power a guild wide boon (time based). The strength / duration of said boon wanes as less resources are given to the structure. This way the entire guild benefits and there's less of a chance for unscrupulous guild leaders to be greedy and jump ship.
You can even work this into the current guild boons and then... oh look, horizontal progression? Lol. =p
Then take it a step further in that, the boons gain bonuses per alliance stronghold level. This way helm guilds still have a vested interest in improving their peers as it helps them too!
(As an aside I'd really like to steal the Vallenhas glyphwork teleporters and install them in our own Stronghold. Those are so handy! You can keep the demons though. ^_^)
For a better idea of what I am thinking: at this time in the game I main a barb who currently is using the 2 load outs available for dps (AoE) and tank - pretty normal. I've been thinking of eventually starting a third mostly spec'd for single target the way the system is now. If horizontal progression is implemented and we have more sideways movement the I may want more load outs saved, especially if this movement involves buffs/debuffs to certain enemy classes. I may then want an AoE dps load out for demons, a ST dps load out for demons, etc etc. For this to work, especially in dungeons, we may need the ability to change between these. Perhaps have a system in place that you can only change between DPS style layouts in a dungeon as your assigned role is DPS. Either way, more load outs and increased ability to change between them would make horizontal progression more attractive in my eyes.
- Modules will give the overall theme/setting for upcoming campaigns/rewards
- Whereas episodes will be content releases that will act as updates to the module every couple of weeks/months?
And if this is correct, what content can we expect to see in an episode and how long will it take for episode(s) to release?How many modules/episodes can we expect in 1 year?
For example, take the Chult area, which is split into Soshenstar and Omu, and say that this campaign is to use the Episode/Module system. Would the Chult module be split into the following episodes?
- Episode 1: Unlock Port Nyzanzru and be able to progress up until King of Spines hunt/intial Ras Nsi fight.
- Episode 2: Add Merchant Prince's Folly and associated rewards.
- Episode 3: Unlock Omu and its associated rewards up until King of Spines/Fane of the Night Serpent.
- Episode 4: Unlock Cradle of the Death God.
(Note: Hypothetical example. I do hope you guys aren't planning to pull an Electronic Arts and take the equivalent of what was a full module in the past, then divvy it up into parts to be released slowly over 1 year. Having to wait 9 months to do a new dungeon or get a new boon would probably not be good for player retention.)I know that I asked a lot of questions, but I'd think that knowing that the time between content drops could be good for determining how to pace rewards, such as not frontloading the first episode with all the rewards (ex: chase items/armor sets/weapon sets) while leaving all the other episodes with nothing to work towards.
For example - my main is a "tripping rogue", I want things to be knocked prone (5% chance per crit from manticore) so I can do lots more damage (+10% on prone from panther). My secondary is a "bondage ranger (lol)" who is geared to stun and root enemies and then does bonus damage to stunned and rooted enemies (+5% from slyblade kobold etc).
Any additional boons / gear to help me along those lines would be great and but at the same time if someone eventually decides "oh, but so and so can't be knocked down or rooted because she's a five headed dragon" or "that giant demon monkey with a mace hand is too clever(?) to be CC'ed" well that really puts a damper on my build right? Guess that means I should go chase the +DPS gear everyone else wants and just drop the style of play I enjoy.
As silly as it sounds, letting all mobs be affected by CC is a good step in the right direction. I'm actually quite happy that all the mini-dungeon bosses in Avernus are actually CC prone. Thank you whoever decided that!
Chris
I keep seeing ideas like, getting rid of bondings and making that bonus just there.... no difficult choices on artifact sets. get it all with no conflict in choice...
The game has already been simplified GREATLY and greatly changed, and I'm seeing talk about simplifying it even more. This is concerning. Gamers don't like change. Complexity is what gives a game like this legs. A good amount of people left the game before because of Change- Simplification...
Also the economy is at stake here. In the past this game had been very cautious to make changes because of the economy. People don't like seeing their investments turned to mush. Having trade in vendors just makes it worse imo. So you get rid of bondings. People have spent between 1.5 mil each and 2.2 mil each on these, many have spent real cash, so outrage. Cryptic says yeah ok trade in store. So that means the many thousands of bondings turn into empowereds and radiants, which in turn decreases their value on the market, because supply /demand. End result, now we have yet another worthless market. And the newer players you're trying to hook in don't have to work very hard so have little investment in the game to keep them here.
Superstore:
The superstore idea also will basically kill the economy. RNG is part of the system that keeps people logging in every day. I agree we have too many stores and too many currencies but combining everything into one store takes away flavor. and given how everything funnels into this store will make a huge dent in supply demand. even if it's all bound to account (which is also taking away value from what we already have) the demand has just crashed for things on the market already. those same new players you want to give things to all of a sudden can't make any ad on anything because it's all valueless. higher values are good for everyone.
Just update some of these other stores. I personally like the many stores. I still strongly dislike changing vip in anyway. The backlash for that from the player base will be considerable.
Earlier someone had detailed the types of players in this game. People here to play the economy are a huge part of the player base. When you start simplifying thing and changing things to the extent mentioned, you end up killing markets that many have invested in heavily already. As well as taking away something to grind for.
There is a lot of catch up for the new player but when you start taking on things like bondings you're basically making the game no work. no investment. I think that's bad for the long term health of the game. before doing things that drastic isn't it better to educate first? That's the real problem.
I would like to see more complexity added. Not more simplification. What is needed is education as to how to use this system. the reason people have a problem is because you do need to come to the forums to learn about basics of upgrading rather than it being taught in the game cohesively.
The game overall doesn't need the drastic ground up changes you're talking about in this area. it needs some updating.
Masterwork
Masterwork is fine. it just needs to be kept up to date with gear that has a place in the game strategically. Making one mastercraft toon per account will be met with outrage. people have spent time and money on upgrading mw on more than one toon. I want a universal tool box but that's it. Crafting is fine. The way it's set up is fine. Having a little streamlining, as sharp mentioned in the number of clicks needed would be awesome.. but as a whole I just needs to be kept up to date, not a rework.
There is also room in this economy for master crafting for the newbie but it's been neglected so you're not seeing that right now. Normally new players can make quite a bit selling to mastercrafters. The balance needs to be restored, not bulldozed into oblivion. The economy DOES work as it is. People whine about it because it takes work but that is what keeps them in the game and that is also what makes them open their wallets.
The Economy is a balance that needs to be kept. Like someone was mentioning people play the game in different ways. in the last few alliances i've been in the focus is all about end game and playing the economy. I really hope you keep site of that. it's important to most of us.
People need to earn what they have, and it needs to be hard won so they feel accomplished over it. The problem that I do think needs to be addressed is how to make it seem like that feeling of hard won accomplishment can be not yanked away from the player so it feels worthwhile to chase, while keeping the circle spinning.
Enchantments Stats
I like the way enchantments are and I don't think it should be simplified the way they are upgraded. I'd like to see more complexity added to upgrading them in away that adds some value back to RP. I'd like to feel like there was some consideration for keeping value in the items and adding value to items. I think the benefit areas are fine as they are. Just explain to the new people how to use them. The only thing that needs change is more il from comp gear as it's such an important part of build.
Drastically changing anything as important as this is going to alienate most of us. This is a sledgehammer, when all it needs is a gentle boars hair brush.. Honestly reading thru this, if this is what the game is going to become I don't think it sounds like fun at all. Right now this game has a lot of flavor although less than it had a year ago. I'm seeing vanilla here going forward. all uniqueness.. gone. All quirks gone. all complexity just gone. That's not the game I want to play.
I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 15. I loved the neverwinter of pre mod 12 even more than that. the complexity and the varied choices of how to play the toon and the work required to get there are what has kept me around. As it's been simplified I become less and less invested. I miss being able to play as buffing support. I miss not needing healers. I miss lifesteal. I miss the complexity in artifact upgrades. I miss the choice in good artifacts. I miss the complexity in upgrading enchantments. I miss the value rp and enchantments used to have. I miss variety in enchantments I could choose to use. I miss being able to use the same enchantments on my toon as on my comp. I miss all the various paths on my toon and the interesting boon trees and that the statroll actually mattered.. I'm sure there are other things I miss too that I'm forgetting.
Mod 16 was a disaster for so many reasons but the biggest reason of all was too much change to a game we all loved for who it was. We didn't want it to be another game. All I'm getting from this proposal is mod 16 redux.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
I would suggest to leave all stats uncapped for older content except for power and hit points. Other stats beyond these two stats have a natural content specific-cap (50% for crit, 50% for DR and so on). Feats like barbarian's overpentration might need to be reworked in this case, but that would greatly simplify life for casual players, as we only need to balance for hardest content now, and in older content stats will be naturally balanced by natural capping.
So my suggestion is to scale only power and hit points in the content. Possibly by some hard cap.
With this system we could more safely play with bonuses, so our changes will predictably affect character in all content. If we have enough stats, we could play with damage bonuses or power, otherwise just try to reach stat goals.
Please remove this source unpredictability from the game. Doing better in older gear than in newer gear because of messed stats is a big source of frustration in the game.