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Thoughts on how the game should evolve
melechest
Member Posts: 106 Arc User
Im not sure if this is the place to post this, but ill go ahead anyway.
Ill start by what i believe has "broken" the game. And that is how augments and companions in general have affected the players. As it currently stands, all the attention currently is if someone has rank 15 bondings and a legendary augment, all "fighting" companions, except for a select few, are useless. And the reason for that is players gets most of their stats from them and the value of a character's gear is only on the bonus that they provide. And, unless this changes, the game cant improve properly. So my suggestion is that a player's stats should come primarily from their gear. And the usage of the companions should be mostly from the bonuses they give and some aid in combat, with bondings increasing the effectiveness of the bonuses and, maybe, the battle prowess of the active companion. (As a side note, companions are not a part of D&D and their existence shouldnt affect a player on the extent they do now.)
The second issue is how gear and stats should work. Right now, dps and healers are allowed to have the same defenses as tanks, forcing tanks to only go for HP, because thats their only distinct trait. And, to be honest, ive seen a lot of dps and healers easily tanking mobs or bosses in most dungeons. Ive even seen dps easily tanking a whole army of mobs on preview. And Neverwinter is the only rpg ive ever played that these are possible. On that note, dps and healers shouldnt be allowed to have the same defenses as tanks. This can happen by removing the stats as they currently are and turn them into percentages with caps. Different classes and different roles should have different types of gear, heavy, medium and light, like in original D&D, with different strengths and weaknesses, also depending on the material the gear is crafted. For example, heavy armor has more percent damage resistance, while medium, light or cloth armor provide increasingly less damage resistance but more mobility. An adamant heavy armor also has more damage resistance than a mithral heavy armor, because of the difference in the material. Shields, on the other hand, give more deflect chance. Also make different kinds of weapons, swords, maces, daggers, also with different strengths and weaknesses, for example daggers increase your at-will speed, making you attack faster, while rapiers have more critical chance. With each class and role having the ability to wear different types of gear/weapons, depending on how it works in D&D. These changes would allow more potential bonuses for gear (slash resistance, bludgeoning resistance, elemental damage, with each element having different bonus effects, requiring different resistances etc.) and it will allow players to make different builds that are relevant, and not just 1 best-in-slot gear piece. It will also help with scaling, where, instead of trying to find an algorithm that can bring players to a level that they cant just fly through a dungeon, simply by decreasing the values of the player's gear to the ones "suitable" for each dungeon.
And this brings me to another point, the differentiation between classes. Right now there are not real differences between classes (like rangers, who are technically rogues with a bow on their backs), aside from the healers and some differences between tanks. Classes should have more distinct differences. For example, wizards should be slower, with minimal resistances and high casting speeds, but have massive aoe damage on their encounters, dps clerics have lower damage, medium resistances but have many buffs/debuffs, rangers have low burst but high sustained damage and can fight effectively both in range and melee combat, rogues have high single-target burst, high mobility and low sustained damage etc. And all these will also be affected by the gear and weapons a character has. For example, a dps fighter can have a sword and a shield, making him tankier or go for dual-wielding and have more damage. These changes, along with the changes in gear/weapons, will make more distinct roles for each class, with different strengths and weaknesses depending on class/build and will can bring in the game different tactics for groups, instead of just people rushing and flying through a dungeon, or having a class that does everything better.
Next thing is to remove healing insignia bonuses. Yeah, im a tank and i love them. But, because of them, most of the time i dont need a healer, i was even able to solo the second boss in IC from 20%, without using any consumables, potions, health stones or scrolls and thats not the only thing ive been able to do without a healer and, mind you, im a paladin, which is not even the strongest tank. And as long as these bonuses are there, even with nerfs on incoming healing, i will be able, for the vast majority of times, to tank without the need of a healer. Instead of those bonuses bring back combat regeneration, which can help tanks, but can also be adjusted so that healers are actually always needed.
One more thing, nerf the damage and the HP, both for the players and mobs, bosses. Even the best and strongest dps shouldnt be able to one-shot most mobs or deal 3 million damage on a single encounter (yeah, ive seen that). And, at least from my personal experience, dps are overtuned and extremely strong. One role or one class shouldnt be able to do everything. And as a note, i ran IC on preview yesterday, a dps that was built for the Zariel trial, was able to single-handedly tank and massacre hordes of mobs.
And one last thing. Remove health stones and revive scrolls from the game, or at least give them a huge cooldown. Many people (mostly dps really) can just rush ahead or play stupidly (like standing in the red zones) and get away with it by burning through health stones. A lot of people abuse scrolls to get through IC, tomm and probably Zariel in the future. A lot of people are ignoring those that die and dont even bother trying to revive them. And lets be honest, as long as health stones or scrolls exist, the nerfs to the healers wont matter. People can just continue to ignore mechanics or damage and survive on burning through those. Not everyone does that, but many people do.
Those changes will also give value to the attributes of the players, which are a big part of D&D, because right now attributes offer very little and for the most part make no difference.
These are my personal opinions, and they were formed by how D&D works and my experience with other mmo-rpgs and Neverwinter. Neverwinter is D&D based, this is what brought me to this game and i honestly feel that, aside from the lore, it has gone way far from D&D.
I know this is a big wall of text, but please take the time to read it and comment your ideas and opinions, both regarding my ideas, but also your own ideas of what changes you would like.
Ill start by what i believe has "broken" the game. And that is how augments and companions in general have affected the players. As it currently stands, all the attention currently is if someone has rank 15 bondings and a legendary augment, all "fighting" companions, except for a select few, are useless. And the reason for that is players gets most of their stats from them and the value of a character's gear is only on the bonus that they provide. And, unless this changes, the game cant improve properly. So my suggestion is that a player's stats should come primarily from their gear. And the usage of the companions should be mostly from the bonuses they give and some aid in combat, with bondings increasing the effectiveness of the bonuses and, maybe, the battle prowess of the active companion. (As a side note, companions are not a part of D&D and their existence shouldnt affect a player on the extent they do now.)
The second issue is how gear and stats should work. Right now, dps and healers are allowed to have the same defenses as tanks, forcing tanks to only go for HP, because thats their only distinct trait. And, to be honest, ive seen a lot of dps and healers easily tanking mobs or bosses in most dungeons. Ive even seen dps easily tanking a whole army of mobs on preview. And Neverwinter is the only rpg ive ever played that these are possible. On that note, dps and healers shouldnt be allowed to have the same defenses as tanks. This can happen by removing the stats as they currently are and turn them into percentages with caps. Different classes and different roles should have different types of gear, heavy, medium and light, like in original D&D, with different strengths and weaknesses, also depending on the material the gear is crafted. For example, heavy armor has more percent damage resistance, while medium, light or cloth armor provide increasingly less damage resistance but more mobility. An adamant heavy armor also has more damage resistance than a mithral heavy armor, because of the difference in the material. Shields, on the other hand, give more deflect chance. Also make different kinds of weapons, swords, maces, daggers, also with different strengths and weaknesses, for example daggers increase your at-will speed, making you attack faster, while rapiers have more critical chance. With each class and role having the ability to wear different types of gear/weapons, depending on how it works in D&D. These changes would allow more potential bonuses for gear (slash resistance, bludgeoning resistance, elemental damage, with each element having different bonus effects, requiring different resistances etc.) and it will allow players to make different builds that are relevant, and not just 1 best-in-slot gear piece. It will also help with scaling, where, instead of trying to find an algorithm that can bring players to a level that they cant just fly through a dungeon, simply by decreasing the values of the player's gear to the ones "suitable" for each dungeon.
And this brings me to another point, the differentiation between classes. Right now there are not real differences between classes (like rangers, who are technically rogues with a bow on their backs), aside from the healers and some differences between tanks. Classes should have more distinct differences. For example, wizards should be slower, with minimal resistances and high casting speeds, but have massive aoe damage on their encounters, dps clerics have lower damage, medium resistances but have many buffs/debuffs, rangers have low burst but high sustained damage and can fight effectively both in range and melee combat, rogues have high single-target burst, high mobility and low sustained damage etc. And all these will also be affected by the gear and weapons a character has. For example, a dps fighter can have a sword and a shield, making him tankier or go for dual-wielding and have more damage. These changes, along with the changes in gear/weapons, will make more distinct roles for each class, with different strengths and weaknesses depending on class/build and will can bring in the game different tactics for groups, instead of just people rushing and flying through a dungeon, or having a class that does everything better.
Next thing is to remove healing insignia bonuses. Yeah, im a tank and i love them. But, because of them, most of the time i dont need a healer, i was even able to solo the second boss in IC from 20%, without using any consumables, potions, health stones or scrolls and thats not the only thing ive been able to do without a healer and, mind you, im a paladin, which is not even the strongest tank. And as long as these bonuses are there, even with nerfs on incoming healing, i will be able, for the vast majority of times, to tank without the need of a healer. Instead of those bonuses bring back combat regeneration, which can help tanks, but can also be adjusted so that healers are actually always needed.
One more thing, nerf the damage and the HP, both for the players and mobs, bosses. Even the best and strongest dps shouldnt be able to one-shot most mobs or deal 3 million damage on a single encounter (yeah, ive seen that). And, at least from my personal experience, dps are overtuned and extremely strong. One role or one class shouldnt be able to do everything. And as a note, i ran IC on preview yesterday, a dps that was built for the Zariel trial, was able to single-handedly tank and massacre hordes of mobs.
And one last thing. Remove health stones and revive scrolls from the game, or at least give them a huge cooldown. Many people (mostly dps really) can just rush ahead or play stupidly (like standing in the red zones) and get away with it by burning through health stones. A lot of people abuse scrolls to get through IC, tomm and probably Zariel in the future. A lot of people are ignoring those that die and dont even bother trying to revive them. And lets be honest, as long as health stones or scrolls exist, the nerfs to the healers wont matter. People can just continue to ignore mechanics or damage and survive on burning through those. Not everyone does that, but many people do.
Those changes will also give value to the attributes of the players, which are a big part of D&D, because right now attributes offer very little and for the most part make no difference.
These are my personal opinions, and they were formed by how D&D works and my experience with other mmo-rpgs and Neverwinter. Neverwinter is D&D based, this is what brought me to this game and i honestly feel that, aside from the lore, it has gone way far from D&D.
I know this is a big wall of text, but please take the time to read it and comment your ideas and opinions, both regarding my ideas, but also your own ideas of what changes you would like.
3
Comments
Roll back class mechanics to mod 2 - for instance, give us back the hybrid ranger.
Undo the recent changes to healing that everyone hates.
Remove all changes to game mechanics from gear (except weapons, artifacts and rings).
Remove all HP from gear.
Undo all damage and HP creep since mod 4.
Bring back the foundry.
Roll back pvp to mod 2 and integrate the new classes.
Remove vanity pets.
Put all campaign currencies that aren't yet in a separate, limitless wallet (e.g. reclaimed riches/weapons/magic in the river district) into one so they don't take up inventory space.
OP has a really good point about companions. I'm not sure they belong in the game at all.
Neither do insignia bonuses, really.
Or drains.
Or instadeath attacks from bosses.
Or boring mechanics like basically everything in TOMM.
Or weird, pointless stats like accuracy, awareness, combat advantage, crit avoidance, and so on.
Most bonuses to game mechanics should come from primary stats.
These should be different for each class, as they were before the disaster of mod 16.
Make professions and crafted gear relevant again, but not before reforming mastercrafting so that +1 items are fully integrated like they were supposed to be, not in the we-screwed-up-badly-and-won't-admit-it way they have been since introduction.
Remove the RNG from the game wherever possible.
Reform the pvp leaderboard. Players should only be allowed to view stats and classes of other players but no other info.
Bring back all dungeons.
Get rid of Tales of Old. It's awful.
Get rid of scaling.
Roll back the level cap to 60.
Reform racial bonuses so that useless ones like campfire recovery are changed to useful ones in keeping with the character of each race.
Unbind almost everything.
Allow players to refine anniversary and Heart of Fire enchantments.
Make loot relevant. Why on earth would anyone care about a useless one-slot ring from Bel?
When there are difficult but essential mechanics like the pull-push, provide a place to practice them.
Realistic entry gates for every dungeon, not the let-lowbies-ruin-it-for-everyone gates we've always had to suffer with.
Replace defense with armor class and simplify accordingly.
Remove gold prices for taking out enchantments.
For rangers particularly:
The class' primary weapon is a bow. If you want to fight mostly with knives you can play a rogue. The class should be mostly range-oriented.
Increase movement speed. Rangers and rogues should be the fastest classes. Rangers are as slow as anyone.
Increase stamina regeneration.
At long last, give us a real dodge - one that's big enough we don't need to hold it down and that actually dodges control effects as well as damage.
Make casting sprites (e.g. the hawk in hawk shot, the deer in commanding shot) invisible to other players in pvp.
Make stealth abilities actually work.
Buff healing and tanking abilities until they become relevant and useful.
Let players mix and match ranged and melee abilities. The default combinations have always been somewhere between questionable and pointless.
Bring back original Fox Shift.
Provide a control evasion/escape.
Make it impossible to target/control through marauder's escape. Presently it doesn't escape much at all.
Reform animations so that they are all quick, rather than the way many (the obnoxious freeze at the end of boar charge, hawk shot, commanding shot, forest ghost) amount to the player using a control ability on himself.
Make control abilities actually control.
That would be a good start.
Plus, as long as there are health stones and scrolls, no healing nerfs will matter. Most people are used to burn through them, those that cant, at this point they are at a very bad spot, along with healers and tanks.
i.e. very very rarely in "normal" content
Never in RDQ
Almost never in RSQ
Maybe use 1 pot per REDQ [depends on dungeon and role though]
RTQ is different, if playing healer/tank/dps I use pots more regularly if its CoDG or Svardborg where you cant get back in once you get killed. Thats the only reason to use pots/health stones really.
If you make the damage equal for each dps class then why make a convoluted system where dps cleric does less dmg? If each class does different amounts of dmg then you will ultimately get one class doing the majority of the dmg.
The other thing he neglects to consider is how cryptic will make money based on his change suggestions. Currently ranking up enchants and bondings, mounts and companions to cause players to spend money. If you remove these focused elements that give the character stars then you remove the incentive to spend cash to quickly gear out.
You honestly think cryptic will make any money if they only offer cosmetic transmuted for cash? Neverwinter isn't pay to win, its pay to progress faster. If companions and bondings are no longer the dividing distinction for character stats then why would players spend money to get mounts, companions or runestone/enchants?
Can you please tell which of the ideas are contradictory? Cause i cant find any contradictions. True, i said every class should have different damage system, but at no point i said "no one should be the main damage dealer" or "make dame damage equal for each class".
The idea is that each dps class has differentiation on how they do damage. Wizards do big aoe burst damage damage, but they offer less sustain damage, rangers have higher sustain but very low burst. The differentiation is also on the damage type (elemental, piercing, bludgeoning etc. And the strengths and weaknesses of each class would be further modified by the gear each toon wears.
And when i say nerf damage across the board, i dont mean "decrease damage on everyone and make their damage outputs equal". Nerf the damage because, atm, every class can one-shot mobs with ease and this shouldnt be how things are.
And while i mentioned that they should remove companions because they have nothing to do with d&d, i also said that they should at least change what people get from them. People getting 60% of their stats from companions is oen of the things that break the game. And at no point i mentioned "remove enchantments or mounts". In fact i think, even though i dont mention it, that enchantments should be more relevant and slotted on the toon instead of the gear.
And to remind you, before mod16 came out, companions, bondings and runestones affected a character's strength, but they werent 90% of that strength. Plus, currently, every fighting comp, outside of 2-3, are completely useless and the vast majority of all companions have bonuses that are close to or totally useless.
Feel free to comment, but dont give forced opinions.