Well, it would be much better to change the companion bolster system to count in the 10 highest companions across all categories, instead of counting only the 5 highest for each category as it is planned right now.
And while the current "Bonding to AD Exchange Rates" look good "on paper", i'm pretty sure that even trading in three Rank 15 Bonding Runestones won't cover the costs for "rebuilding" the stats on a single character.
I'm back to the game after 1,5 y break and 90% my stuff has become worthless rubbish. I see that the game policy is not changing, constant forcing players to make costly changes. I know it's normal in many games. But now I'm kind of new players and you know what? For me it is unplayable. It seems to me that change of bondings will even more discourage new players.
ps. about companions now i say one thing. Everyone (tank) uses pets with a bonus to HP. Where are the pets with bonuses to DR, ATT, etc. now it's a boring. Where did the buffs and debuff go? Only HP bonus wanted -.-
My worry @noworries#8859 (lol) is i'm part of those players with multiple "viable" toons and who happily give away some of his in-game wealth to friends, guild and ally.
Before mod16, I was playing the 8 classes. After mod16 only 3 of my toons remained viable in ReDQ content.
Considering the changes in the mount system, i'm still not sure if I had benefit of it (due to the numerous account-wide epic/legendary mounts I had before mod19) or not (collars... i'm yet to drop one + upgrading mounts to mythic).
I want to see if this comp and bonding stones change will force me again to choose between my viable toons. In this case, the community will loose one tank or one heal (or both) not tagging anymore in the public queues : my focus is always first on my rogue, and if i cannot sustain the cost for more than my main, then I will drop the other toons.
I started the game in 2016. Looking back shows me NW was very friendly for free-players. Probably the most f2p-friendly MMORPG on the market at this time, and it was one of the reasons I chose to play NW and then stayed.
But it was maybe too much... and it probably started to be very unfriendly for Cryptic $$-wise (obviously, if I can easily play for free, why paying ?) + created a "it's normal to not pay anything at all and have access to everything : it's free to play" attitude among the community.
Cryptic has at the very least structures to pay, taxes to pay, employees to pay. If Cryptic wasn't trying to earn cash with Neverwinter, wasn't making profit on it, the game wouldn't either exist or see new content anymore.
I'm wondering if the f2p model for MMORPG isn't driving toward the end of its road... and if it would hit a brickwall in the near future. Even the most friendly f2p games seem to draw so much bad advertising, with suspicions and accusations of "milking" the "whales", of p2w, of cash grabbing... Personnally, I would like to see the subscription model back, and no more cash-shop BS. I would actually spend more money in the game with a subscription than I do with a cash-shop (but I also understand that 10-20$/month is not something everyone can spend for a game...)
It is hard to judge the whole thing before it comes live, but all in all I am not convinced. The issue with IL could be easily solved by counting the sum of all stats on char, not item by item. But I like the idea to getting rid of bondings - as having your stats tied to companion stats is a bad idea.
Sadly, proposed changes do not actually touch that link of stats. They retain it. There is not even mentioned some change to companion damage formula, so it would be disconnected at least virtually (and not forcing you to dump insane amount of ar.pen. on them while still having their attacks deflected) It does not touch the issue of most companions - that they technically function as a vanity pet. It does not touch the discrepancy of what def/off/utility companion slot can provide. ...it does not even specifically mention if the augment bonus will be a positive number. (I am looking at you, negative HP bonus)
TBH I would prefer a fix to the companion system, not a great reshuffle that retains all the miseries.
While I actually wanted bondings removed this does not accomplish what my reasoning is. I get their whole IL desires but there new system wont likely make it any better.
The point of removing bonding fro me me is to remove such high dependencies on companions. If you want to make IL more accurate then start by making the gears we wear do more and represent their IL.
No pet should make that much difference on the output of a character (this is not even counting Xuna or chickens). I mean its painfully obvious if your running pretty much any dungeon if your forget to summon your pet. They just are too much an influence. (by the way removing comp inf I love this ... but what will my Dark runes give me then?)
I am not saying to remove pets all-together, or to make thier contribution nothing, but if i ran a dungeon say LoMM, i should be able to run it without losing like half my total damage output if my pet is not summoned. A pet should only make about 10-15% of a difference at most.
1) get rid of augment companions and non-augment companions, and just have companions 2) make all companions attack the same / defend the same, so there is no 1 single meta companion, so companions are basically skins just like the mounts. this way players will choose a companion they like the look of (and youll get more variety in summoned companions) 3) get rid of the 5 current companion bolster categories and just have 1 "stable" of all companions. 4) for the new companion bolster use the value taken from the top x companions each toon has (just like you do with mounts, you can just do copy/paste on your coding and replace "mount" with "companion")
5
unknowndramaMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 115Arc User
edited November 2020
I hope this will make all companions viable to use not just auguments and also i hope all fighter,tank,healer pets will be improved becose is quite boring to see all server using either bulette or chicken ..My question the exchange of bondings for astral diamonds..is that refined or rough astral diamonds becose the blog info doesnt states the type of astral diamonds.
It does not touch the discrepancy of what def/off/utility companion slot can provide.
.
NoWorries did say on the reddit post that they will make the companion slots the same for all classes, 1 defense, 1 offense, 1 utility and 2 universal or something like that
(EDIT) "There are other quality of life changes we are working on at the same time. For example we are working on changing the companion ACB slots so that all classes have 1 Enhancement, 1 Offense, 1 Defense, 1 Utility, and 2 Universal slots. Something that has been requested since we rolled out those slots."
My wife asked me to translate this wall of text to her tonight when she calls me. From my perspective, unless I am wrong this is just a developer who allowed you in on upcoming alpha changes. The changes are not even set and many of you are walking around with sandwich signs, "The End is Nigh! Repent!". I thought my parents were the only doom prophets like that!
I read the developer blog, and it clearly states "We are currently working on some improvements..." they hope the changes will be up for previewing next month or maybe next year. Then formulas are being tossed about like everyone knows for sure. Like @tchefi#6735 said above, "As for every big change, I will wait and see.".
comp inf disappears also, which means dark enchants slotted in utils slots are completely worthless, we will (possibly) need to reset boons for the loss of the comp inf boon, and they will have to change the modifiers on every offhand item in game because they have a 5% comp inf modifier in their listing. theres also the issue with ability stats that give comp inf, i just hope they have actually identified every source of comp inf in game and have some stat/ability/item adjustments ready for us...or it could get quite messy
comp inf is added through: dark enchants, and a few other utils slot enchants ability score -charisma, some artifacts, every offhand has a modifier that adds 5%, boons, dominance insignia this is going to involve major changes, and replacing comp inf with 'another stat' isnt going to be enough, as it cant just involve the addition of one stat, its in several places which means several stat and ability changes, we will no doubt need a free respec for ability scores,powers,boons.
1
plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,405Arc User
edited November 2020
Dark enchantment will have a new utility stat. Unless we know what it will be, we won't know if it is worthless or not. e.g. if they decide (very unlikely) to replace that utility stat to be power (I know that won't happen in utility), I would not say it is worthless.
In short, comp inf will be replaced by another stat which we have no idea what it will be. Comp inf itself is 'new'. It used to be movement. Many were upset when they changed from movement to comp inf because they invested heavy (including myself back then) to get the movement.
*** 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. ***
i have a cleric (retired) a tank now pretty much retired and my dps that has taken me a year and a lot of cash to get right i will wait see what happens to my dps if as i am expecting it gets nerfed to oblivion then i am afraid i will probably go back to ddo we shall see
Dark enchantment will have a new utility stat. Unless we know what it will be, we won't know if it is worthless or not. e.g. if they decide (very unlikely) to replace that utility stat to be power (I know that won't happen in utility), I would not say it is worthless.
In short, comp inf will be replaced by another stat which we have no idea what it will be. Comp inf itself is 'new'. It used to be movement. Many were upset when they changed from movement to comp inf because they invested heavy (including myself back then) to get the movement.
yes i know they wont be worthless as such because they will get a new stat, its just that almost all utils slots seem to add gold bonus/xp bonus/incoming heal %/glory bonus..none of which i really need im hoping its a useful stat, but i cant forsee that being the case. comp inf, yes i was around before mod 16 myself also. my comments around that were more concerning the number of items that give comp inf, not just dark enchants. im not all doom and gloom about it, i welcome the changes..mostly i enjoy the challenges that change brings, i play a 36.5k 248k power sw with stats at 108k ,Ca at 150k and 605k hp so im not partcularly concerned other than they get it right and that we may need free respecs, being able to trade bondings in for enchantments/runestones or ad will help a lot, it would be more helpful to be able to trade in darks also though as i face having to replace 5xr15 in total. .i dont feel that their changes should cost me money or time to rebalance, yet every major change seems to do that.
Ironic, they made every single wrong move to stop people from investing some money here. I wanted to spend a couple hundred bucks to support the business.
Since preview isn't coming before black Friday/cyber Monday, I am not gonna spend a penny, and I can BET most people are the same.
Come on, Cryptic, give me a reason to support you. I love supporting businesses, but at this point I just don't see a reason.
Give us an example of a character's stats now and how they are when maxed. You claim you don't want us to lose stats but by all counts there will be stat loss.
Please, make this a future thing too. Don't say "oh it's gonna be the same", and then not let us see for a month. Give us examples, so we can start calculating what to expect, what we have to readjust etc.
While I am not thrilled with these changes, may I offer a suggestion to lessen the sting that players are going to feel?
Please don't just offer us the means to trade in our Bonding Runestones, but give us the opportunity to also trade in our enchantments, insignia, companions and mounts as well. Why?
Looking back at the changes that were made to companions and mounts back in Mod 16 (stat changes/performance/boosts), all of our character builds were messed up pretty bad... and while we could trade in our enchantments which was a welcome help, we were still stuck with broken companions and mounts.
Everybody who has played this game has put in a considerable amount of time, AD and ZEN to get the character builds, companions and mounts that best suits their playstyle. This is why Mod 16 hurt players so much as it seriously undermined everything we worked for. Hence, with the planned changes to companions, is it not reasonable that we players may need a complete reset in our builds and swap out everything?
- Companions traded in for an equal quality-level companion-choice box. - Mounts traded in for an equal quality-level mount-choice box. - Artifacts, Enchantments, Runestones and Insignia traded in for an equal quality-level choice box.
Sometimes starting over with a clean slate is a good thing.
"Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire." - Sir Bernard Williams
I find the announcement of these massive changes quite demoralizing.
Quite frankly, I planned to buy ZEN on thanksgiving, because I had the impression that the game was stabilizing and moving in a good direction, so I wanted to support the developers. But now I have the feeling that the game is rollercoasting wildly and I hate to invest into a volatile market, where you can be almost sure that 50% of the high-cost items I purchased yesterday become useless tomorrow. Furthermore, I have a lot of alts, and I hate the idea to spend tons of time to tweak the setup of all these alts, notwithstanding the amount of AD it might cost, to make my alts competitive.
My two greatest issues: 1. the announced changes do not seem to be "alt-friendly": my alts have epic companions at best, cannot upgrade all of them to leg or mythic 2. The frequency of major game-changing "overhauls" is far to high - totally stresses me out, not fun at all
My greatest fear: - my alts might become essentially unplayable (except in old legacy content). If that is so, why should I continue to support this game?
A couple of suggestions, which would make the changes more acceptable for my altoholic self: I might be able to adapt to the new companion system if: - "alts" (toons with epic companions and r15 runestones) remain competitive, e.g. get stats similar to now - legendary and/or mythic companions can be bought from ZEN-store as *account-wide* unlocks - *account-wide* leg/mythic companions drop from lockboxes and/or dungeon chests (rare drops) - and can be sold on AH - bolster is not determined separately for each companion category (beasts etc.)
I understand that not all features of the new companion system have been finalized. However, based on the information that was just released, it seems necessary to upgrade 10+ companions to legendary/mythic *separately for every* character, in order that this character becomes half-wise competitive in level 80 content. This would not be alt-friendly: Upgrading every single epic companion on every single alt separately is not feasible, unless you have only 1 or 2 alts.
In the CDC Chris seemed to imply, that he was in favor of increasing the "alt-friendliness" of neverwinter. The new companion system seems to be a reversal of the "alt-friendly" policy.
@cwhitesidedev#9752: Please add features that make the new companion system "alt-friendly", either by the suggestions above or other means. I don't care *how* it is done, just get it done :-)
The only way they can make any of this Alt friendly is to allow the reclaim of any reclaimable Mount and Companion; including without exception all those that are upgraded to Mythic (as in whether it was reclaimable prior to that point or not) on every character you have at the highest rarity you own on your Account.
My wife asked me to translate this wall of text to her tonight when she calls me. From my perspective, unless I am wrong this is just a developer who allowed you in on upcoming alpha changes. The changes are not even set and many of you are walking around with sandwich signs, "The End is Nigh! Repent!". I thought my parents were the only doom prophets like that!
I read the developer blog, and it clearly states "We are currently working on some improvements..." they hope the changes will be up for previewing next month or maybe next year. Then formulas are being tossed about like everyone knows for sure. Like @tchefi#6735 said above, "As for every big change, I will wait and see.".
Ahh, you must be new here.
When they post upcoming changes there is no "wait and see" about it.
Those ARE the changes, they don't listen to anyone's feedback about it and they don't change.
Unless of course they find an element of the changes that benefits the playerbase in any way; then that is immediately changed without delay.
Well, it would be much better to change the companion bolster system to count in the 10 highest companions across all categories, instead of counting only the 5 highest for each category as it is planned right now.
And while the current "Bonding to AD Exchange Rates" look good "on paper", i'm pretty sure that even trading in three Rank 15 Bonding Runestones won't cover the costs for "rebuilding" the stats on a single character.
Trading 3 R15s equates to 7.8 million AD.
Barely enough to buy 2 useful R15s. Especially once the general populace learns of the changes.
It's honestly kinda funny - collaborative development was used as basically throwing the bone to the dog to distract him from the absolute poo storm going on behind him. And the lack of responses is worrying. I know this is the bottom priority, but still, when ya make changes like this you need communication. It's CC/CS 101.
Also to anyone angry, happy or neutral about the changes; put that aside for the moment and make sure you let EVERYONE you can about the changes before any of the upcoming big sales.
Most people don't read the forums and ideally let's try and aim for zero $$ spent on ZEN for the sales this year.
If they're going to waste peoples time and money then don't give them any in return.
Well, it would be much better to change the companion bolster system to count in the 10 highest companions across all categories, instead of counting only the 5 highest for each category as it is planned right now.
And while the current "Bonding to AD Exchange Rates" look good "on paper", i'm pretty sure that even trading in three Rank 15 Bonding Runestones won't cover the costs for "rebuilding" the stats on a single character.
Trading 3 R15s equates to 7.8 million AD. Barely enough to buy 2 useful R15s. Especially once the general populace learns of the changes.
Well, i was more thinking about the costs for increasing the quality of companions from epic or legendary to mythic, but going for Rank 15 enchantments instead might be a better idea, since those can be moved from one character to another.
Prices for good Rank 15 enchantments will go bonkers unless they throw in another Tarmalune Trade Bar sale or bring back the Rank 15 Enchantment Choice Pack into the ZEN shop at the same time.
This changes are going very fast... I haven't found mount collar except that given one. Not even useless white one. Not to mention materials for collar upgrade. Most players don't have even legendary mount and we recently "got" mythic option. And we will get mythic companions ? And what to do with AD for bondings ? Will we get good options in WB ? I don't thinks so. Wait for months to get zen ? Or you intend to do something with zax too ? I didn't get these bondings for free as a gift, like some people did. What about my alts with only one companion ? They will have the same stasts ? I don't think so. This is very wrong way and very annoying. You should introduce monthly subscription. It can't be more expensive than this.
If I understand the "problem" they are trying to "fix", it is that the ilvl for companions/companion items does not scale like the stats from them do. i.e. 1000 ilvl companion gear gives more stats than corresponding 1000 ilvl player gear, because of the multiplier from bondings/comp influence/companion bolster. There is a simple fix for this; simply multiply the ilvl granted by companions/comp items by the same coefficient that the stat given by them are multiplied by. Problem FIXED, ilvl now scales as expected, directly corresponding to total stats. This would change absolutely nothing for any character's "playability", as there would be zero change in their stats.
The "fix" they are apparently pursuing tho is to eliminate the sources of the multiplier, and PARTIALLY replace it with stat increases on other items (e.g. enchants). If you do the maths, this is not really possible unless they increase the stat contribution from enchants by about an order of magnitude (e.g. a radiant R15 would need to go from 2400 power in an offense slot, to around 22400, a 10x increase). The end result for an character with high level bondings and high companion influence is going to be an absolutely massive NERF to their stat totals. Which is all that matters. Remember, ilvl is irrelevant, only stats actually matter to a character's performance.
TLDR: If the net total amount of stats you have after the changes DROPS, you have been NERFED, regardless of what if any change in ilvl.
I also find it... interesting? that the "price" they are going to offer for bonding runestones is only around half of what it would cost to create one of that rank, and despite the fact that many bondings came from zen store only purchases...
4
plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,405Arc User
Well, it would be much better to change the companion bolster system to count in the 10 highest companions across all categories, instead of counting only the 5 highest for each category as it is planned right now.
And while the current "Bonding to AD Exchange Rates" look good "on paper", i'm pretty sure that even trading in three Rank 15 Bonding Runestones won't cover the costs for "rebuilding" the stats on a single character.
Trading 3 R15s equates to 7.8 million AD.
Barely enough to buy 2 useful R15s. Especially once the general populace learns of the changes.
What is considered to be useful R15 these days? Whatever it is, you can exchange to that one using the bonding runestone instead of getting AD.
That has led us to change some aspects of companions and to retire Bonding Runestones all together. There will be an exchange at the Antiquities Dealer in Protector’s Enclave for Bonding Runestones which allows them to be exchanged for either another Enchantment/Runestone of the same rank, or directly for AD (The AD exchange chart will be at the bottom of this blog).
*** 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. ***
Comments
And while the current "Bonding to AD Exchange Rates" look good "on paper", i'm pretty sure that even trading in three Rank 15 Bonding Runestones won't cover the costs for "rebuilding" the stats on a single character.
ps. about companions now i say one thing. Everyone (tank) uses pets with a bonus to HP. Where are the pets with bonuses to DR, ATT, etc. now it's a boring. Where did the buffs and debuff go? Only HP bonus wanted -.-
My worry @noworries#8859 (lol) is i'm part of those players with multiple "viable" toons and who happily give away some of his in-game wealth to friends, guild and ally.
Before mod16, I was playing the 8 classes. After mod16 only 3 of my toons remained viable in ReDQ content.
Considering the changes in the mount system, i'm still not sure if I had benefit of it (due to the numerous account-wide epic/legendary mounts I had before mod19) or not (collars... i'm yet to drop one + upgrading mounts to mythic).
I want to see if this comp and bonding stones change will force me again to choose between my viable toons. In this case, the community will loose one tank or one heal (or both) not tagging anymore in the public queues : my focus is always first on my rogue, and if i cannot sustain the cost for more than my main, then I will drop the other toons.
I started the game in 2016.
Looking back shows me NW was very friendly for free-players. Probably the most f2p-friendly MMORPG on the market at this time, and it was one of the reasons I chose to play NW and then stayed.
But it was maybe too much... and it probably started to be very unfriendly for Cryptic $$-wise (obviously, if I can easily play for free, why paying ?) + created a "it's normal to not pay anything at all and have access to everything : it's free to play" attitude among the community.
Cryptic has at the very least structures to pay, taxes to pay, employees to pay.
If Cryptic wasn't trying to earn cash with Neverwinter, wasn't making profit on it, the game wouldn't either exist or see new content anymore.
I'm wondering if the f2p model for MMORPG isn't driving toward the end of its road... and if it would hit a brickwall in the near future.
Even the most friendly f2p games seem to draw so much bad advertising, with suspicions and accusations of "milking" the "whales", of p2w, of cash grabbing...
Personnally, I would like to see the subscription model back, and no more cash-shop BS. I would actually spend more money in the game with a subscription than I do with a cash-shop (but I also understand that 10-20$/month is not something everyone can spend for a game...)
Sadly, proposed changes do not actually touch that link of stats. They retain it. There is not even mentioned some change to companion damage formula, so it would be disconnected at least virtually (and not forcing you to dump insane amount of ar.pen. on them while still having their attacks deflected)
It does not touch the issue of most companions - that they technically function as a vanity pet.
It does not touch the discrepancy of what def/off/utility companion slot can provide.
...it does not even specifically mention if the augment bonus will be a positive number. (I am looking at you, negative HP bonus)
TBH I would prefer a fix to the companion system, not a great reshuffle that retains all the miseries.
I get their whole IL desires but there new system wont likely make it any better.
The point of removing bonding fro me me is to remove such high dependencies on companions.
If you want to make IL more accurate then start by making the gears we wear do more and represent their IL.
No pet should make that much difference on the output of a character (this is not even counting Xuna or chickens).
I mean its painfully obvious if your running pretty much any dungeon if your forget to summon your pet. They just are too much an influence. (by the way removing comp inf I love this ... but what will my Dark runes give me then?)
I am not saying to remove pets all-together, or to make thier contribution nothing, but if i ran a dungeon say LoMM, i should be able to run it without losing like half my total damage output if my pet is not summoned. A pet should only make about 10-15% of a difference at most.
1) get rid of augment companions and non-augment companions, and just have companions
2) make all companions attack the same / defend the same, so there is no 1 single meta companion, so companions are basically skins just like the mounts. this way players will choose a companion they like the look of (and youll get more variety in summoned companions)
3) get rid of the 5 current companion bolster categories and just have 1 "stable" of all companions.
4) for the new companion bolster use the value taken from the top x companions each toon has (just like you do with mounts, you can just do copy/paste on your coding and replace "mount" with "companion")
(EDIT) "There are other quality of life changes we are working on at the same time. For example we are working on changing the companion ACB slots so that all classes have 1 Enhancement, 1 Offense, 1 Defense, 1 Utility, and 2 Universal slots. Something that has been requested since we rolled out those slots."
I read the developer blog, and it clearly states "We are currently working on some improvements..." they hope the changes will be up for previewing next month or maybe next year. Then formulas are being tossed about like everyone knows for sure. Like @tchefi#6735 said above, "As for every big change, I will wait and see.".
PSN Zen AD Exchange - Forecasting Spreadsheet
dark enchants, and a few other utils slot enchants
ability score -charisma,
some artifacts,
every offhand has a modifier that adds 5%,
boons,
dominance insignia
this is going to involve major changes, and replacing comp inf with 'another stat' isnt going to be enough, as it cant just involve the addition of one stat, its in several places which means several stat and ability changes, we will no doubt need a free respec for ability scores,powers,boons.
e.g. if they decide (very unlikely) to replace that utility stat to be power (I know that won't happen in utility), I would not say it is worthless.
In short, comp inf will be replaced by another stat which we have no idea what it will be. Comp inf itself is 'new'. It used to be movement. Many were upset when they changed from movement to comp inf because they invested heavy (including myself back then) to get the movement.
i will wait see what happens to my dps if as i am expecting it gets nerfed to oblivion then i am afraid i will probably go back to ddo
we shall see
comp inf, yes i was around before mod 16 myself also. my comments around that were more concerning the number of items that give comp inf, not just dark enchants.
im not all doom and gloom about it, i welcome the changes..mostly i enjoy the challenges that change brings, i play a 36.5k 248k power sw with stats at 108k ,Ca at 150k and 605k hp so im not partcularly concerned other than they get it right and that we may need free respecs, being able to trade bondings in for enchantments/runestones or ad will help a lot, it would be more helpful to be able to trade in darks also though as i face having to replace 5xr15 in total.
.i dont feel that their changes should cost me money or time to rebalance, yet every major change seems to do that.
Since preview isn't coming before black Friday/cyber Monday, I am not gonna spend a penny, and I can BET most people are the same.
Come on, Cryptic, give me a reason to support you. I love supporting businesses, but at this point I just don't see a reason.
Give us an example of a character's stats now and how they are when maxed. You claim you don't want us to lose stats but by all counts there will be stat loss.
Please, make this a future thing too. Don't say "oh it's gonna be the same", and then not let us see for a month.
Give us examples, so we can start calculating what to expect, what we have to readjust etc.
Please.
Please don't just offer us the means to trade in our Bonding Runestones, but give us the opportunity to also trade in our enchantments, insignia, companions and mounts as well. Why?
Looking back at the changes that were made to companions and mounts back in Mod 16 (stat changes/performance/boosts), all of our character builds were messed up pretty bad... and while we could trade in our enchantments which was a welcome help, we were still stuck with broken companions and mounts.
Everybody who has played this game has put in a considerable amount of time, AD and ZEN to get the character builds, companions and mounts that best suits their playstyle. This is why Mod 16 hurt players so much as it seriously undermined everything we worked for. Hence, with the planned changes to companions, is it not reasonable that we players may need a complete reset in our builds and swap out everything?
- Companions traded in for an equal quality-level companion-choice box.
- Mounts traded in for an equal quality-level mount-choice box.
- Artifacts, Enchantments, Runestones and Insignia traded in for an equal quality-level choice box.
Sometimes starting over with a clean slate is a good thing.
Quite frankly, I planned to buy ZEN on thanksgiving, because I had the impression that the game was stabilizing and moving in a good direction, so I wanted to support the developers.
But now I have the feeling that the game is rollercoasting wildly and I hate to invest into a volatile market, where you can be almost sure that 50% of the high-cost items I purchased yesterday become useless tomorrow.
Furthermore, I have a lot of alts, and I hate the idea to spend tons of time to tweak the setup of all these alts, notwithstanding the amount of AD it might cost, to make my alts competitive.
My two greatest issues:
1. the announced changes do not seem to be "alt-friendly": my alts have epic companions at best, cannot upgrade all of them to leg or mythic
2. The frequency of major game-changing "overhauls" is far to high - totally stresses me out, not fun at all
My greatest fear:
- my alts might become essentially unplayable (except in old legacy content). If that is so, why should I continue to support this game?
A couple of suggestions, which would make the changes more acceptable for my altoholic self:
I might be able to adapt to the new companion system if:
- "alts" (toons with epic companions and r15 runestones) remain competitive, e.g. get stats similar to now
- legendary and/or mythic companions can be bought from ZEN-store as *account-wide* unlocks
- *account-wide* leg/mythic companions drop from lockboxes and/or dungeon chests (rare drops) - and can be sold on AH
- bolster is not determined separately for each companion category (beasts etc.)
I understand that not all features of the new companion system have been finalized.
However, based on the information that was just released, it seems necessary to upgrade 10+ companions to legendary/mythic *separately for every* character, in order that this character becomes half-wise competitive in level 80 content.
This would not be alt-friendly: Upgrading every single epic companion on every single alt separately is not feasible, unless you have only 1 or 2 alts.
In the CDC Chris seemed to imply, that he was in favor of increasing the "alt-friendliness" of neverwinter.
The new companion system seems to be a reversal of the "alt-friendly" policy.
@cwhitesidedev#9752: Please add features that make the new companion system "alt-friendly", either by the suggestions above or other means. I don't care *how* it is done, just get it done :-)
Which will never happen.
When they post upcoming changes there is no "wait and see" about it.
Those ARE the changes, they don't listen to anyone's feedback about it and they don't change.
Unless of course they find an element of the changes that benefits the playerbase in any way; then that is immediately changed without delay.
Barely enough to buy 2 useful R15s. Especially once the general populace learns of the changes.
And the lack of responses is worrying. I know this is the bottom priority, but still, when ya make changes like this you need communication. It's CC/CS 101.
Most people don't read the forums and ideally let's try and aim for zero $$ spent on ZEN for the sales this year.
If they're going to waste peoples time and money then don't give them any in return.
Prices for good Rank 15 enchantments will go bonkers unless they throw in another Tarmalune Trade Bar sale or bring back the Rank 15 Enchantment Choice Pack into the ZEN shop at the same time.
The "fix" they are apparently pursuing tho is to eliminate the sources of the multiplier, and PARTIALLY replace it with stat increases on other items (e.g. enchants). If you do the maths, this is not really possible unless they increase the stat contribution from enchants by about an order of magnitude (e.g. a radiant R15 would need to go from 2400 power in an offense slot, to around 22400, a 10x increase). The end result for an character with high level bondings and high companion influence is going to be an absolutely massive NERF to their stat totals. Which is all that matters. Remember, ilvl is irrelevant, only stats actually matter to a character's performance.
TLDR: If the net total amount of stats you have after the changes DROPS, you have been NERFED, regardless of what if any change in ilvl.
I also find it... interesting? that the "price" they are going to offer for bonding runestones is only around half of what it would cost to create one of that rank, and despite the fact that many bondings came from zen store only purchases...
That has led us to change some aspects of companions and to retire Bonding Runestones all together. There will be an exchange at the Antiquities Dealer in Protector’s Enclave for Bonding Runestones which allows them to be exchanged for either another Enchantment/Runestone of the same rank, or directly for AD (The AD exchange chart will be at the bottom of this blog).