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Forums > Home› Neverwinter Discussion › General Discussion (PC)

Scaling or exploit ?

bobby4700bobby4700 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 179 Arc User
in General Discussion (PC)
Logged into game decided would run a random skirmish i have a dark elf 27 k + ranger mythic artifacts, all legendary insignia, all stones level 15 and 14 weapon + arm . I got sent to dread ring my dps was 2. 2 mill steadily fighting came in 2nd . top damage went to cleric with 4.8 mill damage . this cleric had armor and weapon set only gear on and 2 stones in those. pet was legendary and 1 artifact that was mythic. so how they more than double dps is this an exploit scaling or new mechanics on cleric ?

Comments

  • lardesonlardeson Member Posts: 374 Arc User
    bobby4700 said:

    Logged into game decided would run a random skirmish i have a dark elf 27 k + ranger mythic artifacts, all legendary insignia, all stones level 15 and 14 weapon + arm . I got sent to dread ring my dps was 2. 2 mill steadily fighting came in 2nd . top damage went to cleric with 4.8 mill damage . this cleric had armor and weapon set only gear on and 2 stones in those. pet was legendary and 1 artifact that was mythic. so how they more than double dps is this an exploit scaling or new mechanics on cleric ?

    More of a balancing issue than any of that. Clerics are currently the top dps in the game, they literally have no cooldowns and only need to manage divinity to do damage. This means their burst damage is higher than any other. But its also important to point out that dread legion is not really a place to compare dps, most classes like fighters, clerics, barbarians can 1 shot normal enemies in low dungeons.
    Lardeson CW not Mage. Where's my fireball and my thunderbolt?
  • bobby4700bobby4700 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 179 Arc User
    well the question was SCALING or EXPLOIT i do understand that scaling drops you to a lower dps but this person had a lack of all gear rings boots belt cape nothing and i do upper dungeons and lower dungeons with clerics that are dps builds they never out do me that much if at all.
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,208 Arc User
    edited June 2020
    What is your class? If you are barbarian, a cleric can get most damage from low level monsters in long range before you get there. The paingiver only counts how much damage you apply to a monster. If the monster has 1 HP left and you hit for 100K, you get only 1 damage. I would say neither scaling or exploit. It is first hit, first get the most.

    If the low level monster has 20K HP, the cleric hit 19K in range and you hit 100K to kill it. He got 19K in paingiver and you get 1K.
    If the high level monster has 200K HP, the cleric hit 19K in range and you hit 100K. He got 19K in panigiver and you get 100K.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • callumf#9018 callumf
    callumf#9018
         Member Posts: 1,710 Arc User
    plasticbat said:

    What is your class? If you are barbarian, a cleric can get most damage from low level monsters in long range before you get there. The paingiver only counts how much damage you apply to a monster. If the monster has 1 HP left and you hit for 100K, you get only 1 damage. I would say neither scaling or exploit. It is first hit, first get the most.

    If the low level monster has 20K HP, the cleric hit 19K in range and you hit 100K to kill it. He got 19K in paingiver and you get 1K.
    If the high level monster has 200K HP, the cleric hit 19K in range and you hit 100K. He got 19K in panigiver and you get 100K.

    This is such a great explanation. Thank you.

    I have been top DPS in various Dungeons/Skirmishes on Tank Fighter, DPS Fighter, Tank Barbarian and DPS Barbarian. It is very much about timing the attacks and damage output.

    If you facetank the final boss in most stuff, and have good dps you should end up Top Damage Dealer :)

    But to answer the question, it really does seem weird that a completely undergeared
    bobby4700 said:

    well the question was SCALING or EXPLOIT i do understand that scaling drops you to a lower dps but this person had a lack of all gear rings boots belt cape nothing and i do upper dungeons and lower dungeons with clerics that are dps builds they never out do me that much if at all.

    Toon can out dps a geared toon by a ratio of 2 : 1

  • tom#6998 tom
    tom#6998
         Member Posts: 952 Arc User
    bobby4700 said:

    Logged into game decided would run a random skirmish i have a dark elf 27 k + ranger mythic artifacts, all legendary insignia, all stones level 15 and 14 weapon + arm . I got sent to dread ring my dps was 2. 2 mill steadily fighting came in 2nd . top damage went to cleric with 4.8 mill damage . this cleric had armor and weapon set only gear on and 2 stones in those. pet was legendary and 1 artifact that was mythic. so how they more than double dps is this an exploit scaling or new mechanics on cleric ?

    what most likely happend is, that this person unequiped his gear so he is below the scaling IL. By doing that he prevents his Bonding runestones and Weapon from beeing scaled, so he gets pretty good stats, and most importantly unscaled weapondmg, while your weapon gets scaled to the IL that dreadring is at. Id not consider it an exploit, but its definitly HAMSTER design.
  • lantern22lantern22 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,111 Arc User
    tom#6998 said:

    bobby4700 said:

    Logged into game decided would run a random skirmish i have a dark elf 27 k + ranger mythic artifacts, all legendary insignia, all stones level 15 and 14 weapon + arm . I got sent to dread ring my dps was 2. 2 mill steadily fighting came in 2nd . top damage went to cleric with 4.8 mill damage . this cleric had armor and weapon set only gear on and 2 stones in those. pet was legendary and 1 artifact that was mythic. so how they more than double dps is this an exploit scaling or new mechanics on cleric ?

    what most likely happend is, that this person unequiped his gear so he is below the scaling IL. By doing that he prevents his Bonding runestones and Weapon from beeing scaled, so he gets pretty good stats, and most importantly unscaled weapondmg, while your weapon gets scaled to the IL that dreadring is at. Id not consider it an exploit, but its definitly HAMSTER design.
    Great answer to the OPs question. Full marks sir.

    That explains another i saw top Paingiver in demo without any rings etc. equipped.

    Just goes to show how bad the scaling design is.



  • bobby4700bobby4700 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 179 Arc User
    Thank you Tom that was the most likely reason . So knowing that, it then goes to an exploit i would think
  • greywyndgreywynd Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 7,092 Arc User
    It isn't an exploit. It is bad design in the current scaling.
    I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User
    edited June 2020
    You cannot call it exploit. The irrationality of equipment scaling was mentioned multiple times, the devs are fully aware, because it was designed to behave like this - and we are stupid not to appreciate such arrangement.

    In DnD, you often have to adjust your equipment to the environmental needs. In this game, for the best performance of your char, it is required not to exceed a certain IL. There is nothing wrong in throwing the gear away when it is just dragging you down.

    Get naked, get mighty. DnD nudism ftw.
  • acrinicusacrinicus Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 44 Arc User
    Notwithstanding people's conflating an "exploit" with "cheating", this is an exploit, and the devs are well aware of it. @tom#6998 gives an accurate description of the dynamic at play.

    While players who are disrobing for better stats are not cheating, they are exploiting an aspect of the game that the game designers likely did not include in their calculus when designing the scaling system. The code is WAI - the design of the scaling system is almost certainly not, and we should expect a patch in the future.

    If it is any consolation to the OP, there is no way that cleric would have out damaged him under normal conditions. I have witnessed this in Dread Legion on countless occasions, and typically by guilds queueing in groups. My assumption is that they are farming DL for campaign currency to upgrade SH buildings in their guild or alliance.
  • regpeiregpei Member Posts: 86 Arc User
    Scaling does a lot if you know how to play your character. I can mop the floor with many on an 18k TR in RTQs. I remember seeing a Barbarian in tiamat. His name was like junkgear mcnoboons. And his name fit the character! Crappy gear, let scaling do the work, had wicked DPS!
  • xenocide#6119 xenocide
    xenocide#6119
         Member Posts: 251 Arc User
    Can you really call it an exploit if the player is doing something that benefits the entire party?
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,208 Arc User
    xenocide#6119 said:

    Can you really call it an exploit if the player is doing something that benefits the entire party?

    Exploit and benefits the entire party are not mutual exclusive.
    Many exploits benefit the entire party. e.g Hunt gate exploit benefit the entire party.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • acrinicusacrinicus Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 44 Arc User
    The most basic exploit in gaming occurs when players discover and take advantage of a design flaw, because designer will architect for use case A, B, and C, without accounting for a blind spot use case D. This is an example of a use case D exploit that was overlooked in the design of the scaling system. We know it is not intentional because NWO is built upon a progressive leveling system where the general idea is that the higher the level something is, the more powerful it is (with some reasonable amount of deviation permitted). Even the devs have been forthright about the fact that when scaled, a better geared character should be at least marginally more powerful than a lesser geared character. In this case, not geared characters are blowing highly geared characters out of the water.
  • xenocide#6119 xenocide
    xenocide#6119
         Member Posts: 251 Arc User
    edited June 2020
    So I tried this last night in a dread legion skirmishs.

    Unfortunately I needed to unequip everything except for my weapons, bondings, 2 artifacts and one piece of companion gear and my damage actually seemed to increase by about 20%

    Pretty good for a guy without equipment lol.

    It's would definately be a real pain to do this with every dungeon and feels a little bit dirty.

    However there are some changes comming to the scaling system shortly and will be some more fine tuning in the future. Hopefully it will help to correct this issue
  • acrinicusacrinicus Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 44 Arc User
    You did it right xeno! Many I've seen equip nothing more than main and off hand. That's enough to get them the min ilvl needed. It's less inconvenient to do this if you dedicate a loadout to it.

    I'm hopeful the scaling changes announced today will help eliminate this practice. It is dumb.
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