While the other threads are meant to stay lean so that the feedback can be easily seen/heard. This thread is for posting thoughts/concerns/complaints/etc. that you don't want to be deleted. Posts in this thread will only be removed if they break the standard forum guidelines.
Please use this thread for bigger/longer posts or posts that aren't direct feedback for one of the specific topics.
4
Comments
On Preview, a completely different character. Sure, my TIL looks bigger, but I hit for less, I heal for less, I get killed faster, and in my DPS loadout for soloing stuff all takes 5 times longer. Some things in areas that used to be hard but doable, like Avernus, now 1 shot me. It doesn't seem to matter what companion I use at the moment, they all do very little except slightly bump my stat cap, which is still too low and I keep going over.
Unless the companions are so badly broken that this will change drastically before live, I won't stay. Maybe take a hint from your Roommates on the STO side and see how they handle class balance and content scaling, especially difficulty settings. They're still doing well. I'll be going back over there for sure.
I am not defending anything. I am saying that people are making up opinions too fast and often times using false data. STOP putting words in my mouth or making me out to something I am not. I have yet to give my actual opinion of if I like the changes or not. I am testing it, getting used to it, giving this the good old try before forming an opinion.
Now as for your list of facts.
-How are we weaker than before? Yes the numbers are smaller, but so are the HP pools. The killing time is about the same from what I have seen. Mobs can still be one shot in Avernus, including the Pit fiends.
-The second I hopped onto live, power was capped, most other stats were at 50%. Where is the nerf? What is needed to get back to where I was before...from my experience nothing was lost. Again smaller numbers yes, but same results as the live server. When you do spend those AD and tokens, you should end up stronger by that logic.
-Yes we are no longer gaining as much stats from companions as we were before...but honestly, isn't that a good thing? Why should more than half our stats come from companions like they do on live? I do agree that the combat damage does need to be buffed, but hey, that's why it's in preview to give feedback on.
-Enchantments are doing two things to our stats atm, the Item level ratings is going up, adding to our TiL, meaning all enchantments and anything else that gives iL is giving us more damage and HP directly. Not to mention the CR adding to all the stats, and finally the +300 stat part is added. Not capping all stats actually adds more choice to the game which people have been asking for.
-They have stated the reason why bonding runestones were removed, you just choose to think there is no reason.
-This is not as big a rework as M16 was, this is just their tweaks to that system after hearing feedback from the players. There are several long forum threads with feedback in the CDP section, get involved there if you aren't liking the changes.
-I'm just as surprised as you with all the changes, but that doesn't mean you can't look back and see all the pieces either in the CDP threads or their stated goals. Keep in mind that most of these changes was to make scaling a better system.
-For all we know, this could be a bug. Report it like devs have asked us to, or wait for confirmation on if it is intended or not, this is preview after all.
- Did you bother to see if the mobs have had a similar reduction to HP? A number without reference means nothing. If they half the damage but cut monster health by 1/4th, there are people who would call that a nerf when in actuality it is a buff. Stats will have to move around since you are not built for the new system, that is bound to happen. Did you even have the same buffs/debuffs up?
You really can't judge something at face value with as extensive of changes as we are seeing. You really have to dive in and look at all the numbers.
Keep in mind that I have yet to actually form an opinion on this system, I am not defending it. All I am saying is that it is too early to tell what the overall effect it. But from what I have read so far, it seems you are not understanding the changes, or are too biased from being a victim in your eyes. I'm not saying to "wait and see", I saying to dive in and see what fits. Try it out before passing judgement. Spend time with it to gain a better understanding.
M16 was largely disliked and apologized for because of the harsh scaling, not the stat reworks. People loathed the scaling so much. People understood why lifesteal and recovery were toxic for the game. It was the scaling that needed the attention. They did some patch work fixing here and there and this is the result they have come to. It's now our time to provide feedback and see if they will listen or not. So far, the scaling feedback is rather positive, there are some needed adjustments that have been pointed out and we've already gotten word that they are looking into fixing it.
After a lot of speculation, the heal formula was finally confirmed some time back, and many of us who heal, and have been frustrated, but stuck through with the big changes that have happened since mod 16 (and then the heal changes with mod 19). I think I can speak for almost all of us, would like some clear advice as to how these hard caps/"Excess rating points have no effect".
Co-Guild Leader
Ghost Templars L20
Alliance: Tyrs Paladium
Main: Cleric (Heals|DPS)
Alt: Warlock
Secondly, has any thought been given to Stronghold offensive boons? With power becoming almost redundant and removing Armor Penetration, the most popular offensive SH Boons have become about as useful as the Healing Potions boost.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
BTW: I tried hard to get rid of it, but my assassin has reached that +40% damage (on top of power) even without companions and technically anything dedicated to that aspect. Most of the companions I had in slots are now doing nothing - and I doubt we will get "companion" exchange.
The companion change for me means every companion I invested in is absolutely pointless now. Similar with gear - if you have one piece that gives you +5k power, you are already all set. If you have more than one, you do not need any other source of power. To sum it up, this change completely resets equipment, enchantment/runestones and companions. And most likely you will now use a different mount as well. There is no stone left unturned.
It is kinda dangerous move - it swiftly rids you of that feeling "but it took me so long to get here" (as all your investments suddenly mean nothing) and you stand in the perspective of a brand new player.
If they truly would make the game better AND do what players want - ofcourse in this case they would compensate. Get over it.
@noworries#8859
In an interview you said you want look into paladin. I thought you want to buff the paladin, not gimp the paladin.
I do not see any reason to play a tank in this shape of the game. There is only low difference in Hitpoints. From what I have seen I could better off as a tank playing dreadnought or blademaster. Viable tanky DPS with much higher damage output. The tank still doing bad at damage compared to HDPS but there is only little difference in defence. To play a tank only for Aggro purposes, no thanks. I think it is better now to split the aggro and share damage within the group. Only reason to play a tank is Zariel/TOMM? And this is no fun at all. To play the meatball.
Tank from 40% HP Boost to 20% HP Boost is a nerf.
A Healer from 0% HP Boost to 10% HP Boost is a buff.
Will I be able to tank as Oathkeeper? Why not. Why is Aggro management seen as a hidden stat. It does not provide any fun, it only makes the enemy attacking me. The Oathkeeper would be the much better tank now. Nearly as tanky. But with huge heal.
Meta M20:
DPS - Damage
Heal - Heal
Tank - Aggro??????
What happens now if we skip aggro.
Meta M20:
DPS - Damage
Heal - Heal/Tank???????
or Meta M20:
1. Week: Everything normal, people watch changes.
2. Week: Need 5 minutes more waiting time for Random queues. Playerbase drop.
3. Week: Need another 5 minutes more waiting time for Random queues. Playerbase drop.
4. Week: Game is dead.
Already looking at what %damage stuff I can get, even older equipment/lower IL equipment, because... well... the equipment that gives stacks of power or bonus power are next to useless (unless you're undercapped on power)
Co-Guild Leader
Ghost Templars L20
Alliance: Tyrs Paladium
Main: Cleric (Heals|DPS)
Alt: Warlock
As a healer, I appreciate this gesture. But... do we really need this over tanks? and do we need the extra 10% Hit Points over DPS?
On live, DPS take agro before healers, I expect that this should be the same on preview (unless the agro formula has changed), DPS should be needing the extra HP for the rare cases when they take agro.
The majority of tanks I run with use Damage as a method of maintaining agro (along with the tanky agro abilities), I know that this isn't a common or popular method, but it is going to make it more difficult for paladins to level up or run content on their own.
Is there a reason why both Healer AND Tank can't get the extra 10% damage, and both Healer and DPS can't get the extra HP?
If you want to give healers something to compensate, then we wont say no to another 10% Outgoing Healing
Co-Guild Leader
Ghost Templars L20
Alliance: Tyrs Paladium
Main: Cleric (Heals|DPS)
Alt: Warlock
- If it's not broken, don't fix it
- Been playing since Open Beta... I think I've played 4 or 5 different Neverwinter games since then with all the "changes" to combat/builds. If I were to take a couple of years away from WoW, STO, or any other mmo's before going back, I am fairly confident that I can just log in and start playing competitively with whatever I had before taking a hiatus. Why is it that here, in NW, it's the total opposite? Even without taking any long term breaks from this game, I constantly live in fear that the next day I log into my account, it is going to be a totally different game that I did not sign up for?
- The main reason that has driven away players in the past, in my opinion, is the constant major changes that basically wipes out a player's time and money spent to just be viable.
- Why not just expand and add new content like the Citadel event? There's no need to design a whole new game. If I wanted a new game, I would leave and go find a new game.
The new boon system and character overhaul was quite a shock - as was seeing that most pally tanks switched to the healer role. On mine, I was surprised by the new divinity mechanic as well as a drop in damage output due to changes to powers and recovery. The huge reduction in group-wide bonuses from Pally auras has also made them hardly worth it (2% add to crit chance? For DPS players who are already specced to max crit? aura of wrath dealing 10% of base weapon damage..?)
I've so far got my OP to 28k, with 130k power, full Arp and 90k crit but still have trouble holding aggro against high-powered dps players and usually score about 20% of the highest person on paingiver - I have no idea why a base 20% drop to Pally dps is even necessary in that case.
Maybe this new system will correct some of this? Dealing 20% less damage that the DPS players is fine with me but 80% less is pretty excessive (imo) so hopefully some testing has been done..? When solo random queueing on my pally tank I usually get the bonus now (for class-in-demand), which if most pallys are running heals now is not a surprise.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
The young dev team will make experiences how to destroy a game.
So, i spent 2 hours writing an "essay" on general discussion on many things related but not limited to the "combat rework" because i didnt see anywhere in there that said those posts will be removed. And it got removed.
How was i supposed to know that it would be removed?
What am i supposed to do now? Spend another 2 hours writing it again here? Or just suck it up and never say my opinion.
Its a bad move to only say here that you will be deleting posts all over the place. And now me and many others have spent time from our lives for nothing.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
That thread mentioned the delete policy and was posted up with the initial threads.
It has been one day and you can see how off topic and long the stats thread is already with deletions. The only way we're going to be able to properly work with feedback on the different areas of the game is to keep those threads lean so everyone can see what points have been made and the feedback can be found to be acted on.
This thread is on the Preview side of the forums. My thread was in General Discussion and i post it there for specific reasons. And the fact is, if no one come on this part of the boards, there is no way of him knowing that you will delete everything.
Either mention in every part of the board that you will delete them or dont delete them and communicate with the person so that it can be moved here.
You deleted my thread which i spent a lot of my time to write and a lot of time to test things. Same is probably the case with many others.
And i understand that you want to keep the boards clean, but this is messed up. Thats a bad move.
You want feedback. Here is my feedback: The way you handle threads related to those changes is bad and it makes people angrier.
Spent 2 hours for nothing. thanks.
Sorry for the confusion there.
But don't take me wrong - this rework gives some footing for (probably) all kinds of enchants and runestones, just up till now it was all radiants and empowered and that is what people have - that is the problem. On preview I swapped what I had (r14 black ice + empowered) for r15 crit/accuracy, got myself 5 mythic companion bolster + comp acb and that made the gameplay in Avernus feel roughly the same as on live server atm. 3 bonding runestones trade-in would not compensate me enough even for making those mythic companions... If you suggest that tanks will soak up all the empowered runestones that tanks, healers and dps classes are about to release, I do not share your optimism.
1. I like the Forte stat, a lot even, with one major exception: I don't want to be pigeonholed. I don't like it and neither do the pigeons. I want to be able to choose at least one of those three stats. I want my wizard to be able to run to Candlekeep, or the Arcane School of Mastery, or to some bedraggled Sensei sitting on a mountaintop and be able to specialize in whatever she wants. If she wants to learn to control enemies better than your average Thaumaturge that should be her choice. If my ranger wants to trek up to the Many-Arrows kingdom, learn their ways, and have them teach her how to absorb more damage, and if she can stand their cuisine and body odor, so be it. Specialization has always been an important aspect to roleplaying games in general and in D&D in particular. Stop trying to shove me into a particular pigeon hole. The pigeon is getting angry.
2. We should be allowed to maintain the percentage effectiveness of stats that we care about. I'm not asking to be able to cap all stats. I *am* saying that if we care about a particular stat we should be able to chase it. I can't chase Control Bonus. There are a limited number of items that grant it and I have all of them. Upgrading gear will inevitably degrade this percentage and there is no means to reverse the damage. If an item fails to upgrade a particular stat (and if this item doesn't have Combined Rating), it will cause any stats it fails to upgrade to lose effective percentage. I've detailed an example of the calculation on the Stats thread. Give me an enchantment, runestone, or piece of gear that I can wear that will let me maintain it. A stat that we cannot maintain has no reason to be made public.
3. It is not lost on me that *CC-build* wizards are getting an effective nerf. I point specifically to the change to Insignia of Mastery and to the Sphere of Black ice. I find it amusing that the stated maximum percentage for a stat is 90%, when the actual theoretical maximum for Control Bonus after these changes will be about 77%. This assumes using the Sphere of Black Ice, legendary Insignia of Mastery in all fifteen slots, the Valindra set, upgrading the INT stat every ten levels, a mythic Control Bonus collar, and all four Control Bonus boons. This is the sum total of all Control Bonus options in the entire game. At any rate, I've become convinced that CC builds are being slowly phased out. We are certainly not being treated like any other build and haven't for a long time. I point specifically to losing our paragon path and to having our base Control Bonus sliced in half when Mod 16 launched. I would like clarification from the devs on current and future plans for Control Wizards.
4. I like the boon changes. Honestly, it's a no-brainer. Their effective value would decrease over time if they were mere stat values as opposed to percentages, simply due to players' TIL increasing with upgrades. Conversely, because the same is not being done with respect to enchantments, runestones, and insignias, there *will* be a problem with all of those having less and less effective value as TIL increases with time. That is, unless you plan to make us upgrade them beyond their current maximums. I have seen this movie before so forgive me if I'm becoming cynical.
5. I'm glad you are getting rid of Bonding runestones. They should never have been created in the first place and I've been saying that to our alliance members for years. You probably suspect my thoughts on why they were given birth. Let us not make this mistake again, please. They caused great harm to the game.
6. I've destroyed more stacks of companion training treatises than I care to admit. Good riddance.
7. I'm still skeptical as to why these combat changes are necessary. It seems to me that the game today should be able to display the enemy ratings on the map. It has that information. It also seems to me that mousing over a destination circle on the regional map should be able to display the enemy ratings at that location. It should have that information as well. Given this, I see no technical reason why the client, as it exists today, couldn't calculate our effective percentages on the fly and display them in the UI. It knows the enemy ratings which should be all it needs. Even if there are portions of a map that has enemies with one set of ratings in one location and enemies with different ratings in another location, the client should be able to handle that based on where we are standing. It can already differentiate between different portions of the same map, e.g. PvP areas in Icewind Dale. There's no reason why it can't know about enemy ratings in part of a map just like it can know about things like PvP area, lighting, etc.
8. If enemies will no longer display their level, what indicators do we have regarding whether we can take a particular critter on? Will it turn yellow? Will it turn red? I recall in my EQ days something like, "Goblin glares at you threateningly. What do you wish your tombstone to say?" Today the color of the level number is our indicator. What will be our indicator going forward?
9. I don't like that we have to scroll our stat list up to see our hit points. HP is a critical stat. I understand that you're trying to get more real estate for the list but I think the solution isn't a good one.
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
The gear meta will always change with significant stat reworks. I greatly appreciate that the total stats for dual and triple-stat enchantments are equal to single-stat enchantments, as it reduces much of my concern about market shifts around those items. Triple stat enchantments do seem to more heavily specialize you in offensive or defensive stats due to their lower combined rating, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I would rather have most enchantments be relatively interchangeable.
Obviously the heavy investment in Radiant enchantments, Brutality/Dominance/Fortitude insignias, and similar power boosts is going to not work well in the new metagame, and I don't think that more flexible stat adjustments (i.e. mount equip bonus, offhand stat boost, armor upgrade kits, which total 10.5k) will be quite enough to compensate without an exchnge, especially with the plethora of large static power boosts in new gear. Getting 27.5k power from T3 hunt armor effects is very challenging to rebalance stats around, when the majority of those bonuses were not present on previous tiers of gear (maybe 10k total). Moving those effects to post-rating also doesn't entirely work with the way Forte makes capping Power boost at 90% for DPS fairly straightforward. There's no clear solution here, except maybe splitting up the stat boosts from these items into more predictable and general offensive stats (i.e. instead of 10k power, 2% power, 2% crit, 2% crit sev, etc). Under the new system, since players do not need to be on the bleeding edge of any particular stat, having generic mixed boosts is much easier to not worry about over-capping from temporary boosts.
I would also strongly appreciate not binding exchanged enchantments/runestones/insignias. I know that by making the exchange, I'm saying "I need this item instead for my build", and so you can reasonably claim that I'm removing it from the market, but I have dozens of enchantments that became worthless as the power and HP-based gear metagame developed. The market distortion effects of making enchantments/runestones/insignias equally fungible isn't great, but it would give an enormous amount of player confidence that the intention here isn't to invalidate existing character investments, and feel like we're being treated fairly. The insignia dust system did a great job of reducing the price variation between insignias, and the choice packs normalized enchantment prices, so equalizing everything for a while shouldn't cause players investing in cheap off-meta enchantments to make an absolute killing like they would have previously. I also recognize that announcing this would cause market distortions, and it might still be premature to consider it, but please do your best.
That said, the other elephant in the room for player investment is Companions. The mount changes were alt-unfriendly, with account-wide mounts being necessary to keep comparable bolster between characters, and mythic upgrades being a significant investment in a particular character, to the tune of 2 million AD per mount, and 10 mythic mounts for BIS. Companions are the same, but worse. There are no legendary account-wide companions. Alts need to upgrade from at best purple, so unless the marginal boost from bolster isn't actually very important, that's incredibly expensive.
The companion "family" bolster system means that having an optimal combat companion is a distinct problem from having good Active Companion Bonuses. If there isn't a good combat companion in every family, and active bonuses aren't evenly distributed, it's possible players will need to invest in 10 Mythic companions for BIS, which is at minimum 2700 companion tokens, or 25 million AD, per character, which the exchange of Bonding runestones doesn't really cover. This is where calls of "cash grab" gain a lot of traction.
If every family is roughly even on combat companions, and active companion bonuses don't favor any particular family, this could be as low as 5 companions. I don't think the flavor benefit of having a families of companions for bolster justifies this potential variance, though. I would strongly suggest removing the family bolster, and just having the system be based on the best 5 companions. Even a compromise, i.e the bonus is the 3 best companions, the active companion, and one other from the same family as the active, would be saner.
Additionally, I would really like a system to make companions more alt-friendly. Whether this is account-wide legendary companions with good boosts, which would be an obvious money-maker for lockboxes/zen store, or the ability to pay massive amounts of AD to have a companion be reclaimable at its upgraded quality across the account, which would be a useful AD sink, the current proposed system makes capable alts an extremely expensive investment.
Changing the metagame of which upgraded companions are worthwhile is worse than enchantments, because at least enchantments can be sold, even if at a loss. You have a Legendary Fire Archon, and it has a worthless Active Combat bonus, doesn't do enough DPS to be a useful combat companion, plus isn't in the family for bolstering the active one? That's completely worthless to that character, and players are certainly not going to get compensation for that investment in any way. This happens consistently with rebalances, and is the core of why players are so resistant to even well-designed changes. If you downgraded every upgraded companion to its base quality, and refunded all the tokens for those upgrades, we would be less concerned, but that's even less likely than a free unbound exchange of runestones/enchantments/insignias.
(2.) With massive shift in gameplay there is a drop of playerbase. Because many of those will leave the game - in short term - that are unhappy with the changes. In long term it is a bet on that new players will like the changes more than the old system and keep on playing longer. (Under the circumstances that the new players know about the fast pace of money meltdown.)
(3.) We get into areas the game is changing from F2P into P2W because a F2P player cannot earn enough in the fast pace of change, change, change.... the F2P player will decrease in amount take part in high end content, gated behind P2W. This again will decrease the playerbase, because many F2P players hardly disklike P2W style.
(4.) Many F2P players are - not - 0$ customers. They have friends, many of them are super friendly. Many of them are super helpful to new players, and the more players the more queues. The more queues the more players. If many F2P players will leave, many P2W customers will leave too. And if that happen -> Many new players will not continue, because for new players nothing more is discouraging to play/start a dying game.
(5.) Your scaling evolution alone could kill the game. If the players get scaled to the level that they are as strong as new players. If that happen, you get rid of what makes Neverwinter unique. Many veterans are able to solo group content. What makes you sure, they will keep on playing a copy of many other - more popular - games. Only because they played Nevewinter in the past years? Understand the players. This is not Neverwinter after these changes. It is Neverwinter 2.0. And the players understand it very well. There was never a better time to cut the ties and move to other games. You hardly discourage everyone that dislike these meltdowns. Feeling like a super hero in Diablo cow level is currently a part of the game. If you destroy it, there will be a drop in playerbase.
(6.) If random queues get harder, because you start harder scaling, many veterans will not risk their time loosing these random queues with new players / amateurs. They will plan their groups and / or run only with guild / friends. If this happen: You tried to hurt the king, but shot the peasent. Again and again and again you are doing the same faults. The uniquness of Neverwinter is, that it is not stereotype Rock, Paper, Scissors like WoW. It is an action based RPG. If you touch this, then Neverwinter goes Titanic Style. In this case Neverwinter will be harder to new players. Many new players will get discouraged and leave the game. There will be more hatespeech, because many players waste their time with new players. Many players will leave the game with more hatespeech.
(7.) Character Development: Many new players are couraged to get to the level at which many veterans are playing. Able to solo content. If there is only little difference in the scaled old queued content, they will see only little difference in strength. The character development is negligible and it could happen that they feel from start, arrived at end content. It could happen that they leave the game earlier than playing longer.
I feel sorry for these lessons of basic economics. Yes. It is a little bit cheeky. But I do not want this game to die. And with your planned changes it die. Either it is by playerbase drop or because it will be Neverwinter 2.0
Maybe it is time to reduce the dev team to a healthy level that fit to the revenue of neverwinter. Instead of milk more and more to guarantee earnings. This will fail faster than you might think. And if that happens, there are no earnings left at all.
Does Cryptic Studios have a CEO with experiences in game industry?
Could you provide a link for us to see those standard forum guidelines? People have become very upset finding their posts deleted. I understand wanting threads to stay on topic, that's fair.
I'm very concerned for the game right now. I've sent Chris a letter through these forums and I hope he reads it. Right now millions and millions of our AD is being thrown out the window with the power changes. I'm 17k over cap right now on my main (pally healer) on preview. Radiants, Empowered Runestones, power insignia's, companions that give power boosts be it flat or %, and not to mention armor that we've all farmed for a very long time and worked hard to acquire. All of our years of hard work, including adjusting to the Mod 16 fiasco is all being tossed right out the window.
I can see making changes, minor tweaks and adjustments, improvements etc... but to completely rewrite the system every couple of mods causes severe stress and strain on the community. The past year has been really good and people have been returning! Right now many players (including myself) feel that the dev team (or whoever is in charge at the top) doesn't care about us at all. What is going to be done about all these power buffs, especially from Zariel/Hunts armor? Most of it's going to be completely worthless in Mod 20. Is anything going to be done to adjust this? Change every piece of armor that gives a power boost or power % boost to something beneficial that will still be in high demand?
We need answers and reassurance right now, and I'm not just speaking for myself here. I convinced a lot of players to tough things out in Mod 16 until you guys fixed it and it took a very long time but things did turn around eventually, too late for many though still. Right now people are complaining in almost every zone over these changes. We don't need to be told to be patient or to calm down or that everything is going to be fine. We need to know that all of our hard work isn't going down the drain. For some people, this game is their lives and when things like this happens, their lives are shattered The result is most of those players leave for other MMOs. I heard from some of my friends in game who said they dropped over $200.00 a piece on the game during Black Friday and right now they feel it was a waste and have said they too may quit the game.
I hope you guys are taking this seriously, more seriously than Mod 16 because the few hard core players who are loyal to the game who stayed in Mod 16 might not stick around this time. Please help by giving us some answers soon. Thanks for listening.
If you have some ultimate plan, fill us in with what you're replacing this stuff with because the anguish this is causing, is unfair. The way the new stuff shows up on preview is an absolute disaster and I do not know why.
The opinion is not made too fast, as we've seen what the Preview had in hand. The history of the Preview changes and feedback given for the sake of Bugs not to hit live almost always failed. People gave up giving reports on bugs and changes since player opinions are disregarded. This system we see now will in all likelihood hit the Live servers and leave a lot of people baffled. A lot of bugs will also hit Live servers.
Besides, whether the system is good or bad is beyond what the main issue is, which is - poor communication with the Playerbase, that keeps being the main and active problem. This change is forced, no other way to explain it. Nobody asked for this. I asked you to point to me who asked for this?
Extremely poor communication at that because our opinions are disregarded and thrown away, whilst only those opinions that benefit company's pockets are taken into the account rather than wanting to make a fun and exciting game.
This is, first and foremost, a Video Game and it should be fun to play, and not grind to play. You just gave an answer to yourself directly with "Yes the numbers are smaller". "The killing time is about the same from what I've seen" - You have no evidence for this whatsoever. I have data.
This is live
This is a direct transfer to Preview, minus Guild buffs, but with all Boons. Only thing that didn't work, that I slotted here was Green Slime since the tooltip is somehow messed up.
This is after everything was fully upgraded as much as it was possible, right off the bat, with 25 Mythic pets, all possible enchantments and getting the max CA. Only thing that didn't work, that I slotted here was Green Slime since the tooltip is somehow messed up.
This is a completely skewed point of view and an outright lie.
First of all, although Power can be capped, by "most" other stats being at 50% simply means that you are effectively weaker as the enemies by default have 90% Deflection that you need to reach prior to actually being able to hit them for 10% of your previous force. Meaning, you have to work to be as slightly effective as you are on the Live server right now. You will never, at least not for another 6 months to a year, be able to hit anywhere near the amount of damage you can on Live right now. And this is true for many players.
I need your evidence for "same results" as the live server at this point, because you are sharing misleading info.
No. Why? Because we were told that this is a good thing over and over again, which suddenly isn't a good thing. In fact, people were rather vocal against Bonding Runestones became meta. Bonding Runestones slowly, but surely, became the cornerstone of any build, and right now you are basically saying that previous 15 mods or so were just wrong to have had Bonding Runestones and pets sharing power and whatnot. No, don't try it with me. You can't sell that to me when the most logical reason why these took a change is for the players to empty their pockets. Ask the developers who have been making that in the past several years, not me??? I still spent a lot of effort, time and resources to get to where I was only to see it taken away with a single update. And this wouldn't be the first time this happened, I'm tired and sick of it to the core. If you enjoy being slapped in the face every now and then, good for you, I'm not masochistic to accept these changes as a beneficial thing for the players when in fact all data points to the fact I'm weaker and we've no reasoning behind any of the changes.
"Players asked" & "Based on feedback" is just putting the blame on the players, when in fact it's the players who are dissatisfied with the changes to begin with. Except you, seemingly, for whatever reason. "Adding more choice" by removing all choice. You are funny at this point, borderline ridiculous. It's like one of those jokes where Genie being asked to make a wish gives you a literal definition rather than what the person wished for. Having more options refers to the Encounters, At-Wills, abilities to build toons, more content to play, various items that give same and/or similar stats.
Right now you have an ability to be weak in one way, or another way. Right off the bat. Transition to the new system, which right now is basically a completely new game, is more or less like this - We will take all your effort you put into making these enchantments, and make them completely obsolete simply because 95% of the playerbase are using them all the time. and don't tell me how that's a bad thing, it falls on Developers to make things more interesting or desirable for players to use WITHOUT making the players lose all their value for all their builds each time. It is just insincere and awful, a typical money scheme. There is no reason for bonding changes after everyone were using them and got used to them. That's another statement, you just chose to think that there is a reason behind it based on their statement which you do not want to question. Hahaha! So basically you're saying that
a) A completely new system taking away an ability that was there since M1, whilst making you 10x weaker and without ability to hit all caps, furthermore making you to lose all your ThreeStat enchantments (Like Black Ice which you couldn't even trade in for a Single Stat)) is somehow different from M16 which took away an ability that was there since M1, and made you 10x weaker and without an ability to hit all caps, on top of which it wants to yet again take all your enchants (Radiants) which in all likelihood won't be traded for any ThreeStat enchant, on top of which all Enchants were also superbly nerfed to the ground?
b) If you're not in CDP, your opinion doesn't count. (as if somehow the CDP's opinion will count rofl)
If this really was a plan all along, where is it mentioned that there will be a serious System overhaul? Where was it marketed? Where was it talked over? Where is the topic pointing to it? Where on the Roadmap is it located? Who stated, without any ambiguity, that there will be a severe System overhaul in terms of the mechanics? What you're doing right now is projecting your point of view and wishful thinking into trying to rationalize and give support to the people behind who are simply following the orders from higherups who are not even thinking about what the Players want. As I said earlier, this is a money scheme. Nothing else. They tried with Mounts, but people were quick to fight back. So now they did it with Companions and while at it - a new system altogether.
If the new system is there, then why the nerfs to Enchantments? Why suddenly being able to hit for 90% of time? Didn't we agree and were specifically told that SUCH a thing was the reason for why Recovery was removed? Because players were too good in reaching the hard/soft caps on the stats? So, please, please do not give me that half-way chewed-up argument how these changes are for our own good when we're just going in circles with the changes. Scaling as a whole is a horrible design. Also, I'm not surprised at the changes, I am disappointed at the company's disinterest to really engage in the community. CDP threads? Wasn't this like "We'll see about CDP guys, maybe in 2022?" It is just a way to make the most elite players or people who are sharing interesting ideas and info to feel special, but reality is that none of the devs nor higherups will listen to CDP things and most of the things will be disregarded completely for the sake of a quick cashgrab and money scheme. You think only Neverwinter has things like CDP? Seen around other MMOS and similar outcomes?
"It's for your own good" - No, it's not for my own good to grind for three more months to be as 10% strong as I was before said changes, which by the time I finally feel good to play will change yet again making me to grind more. A Neverending Grind Online.
Yeah, I reported Wizard bugs for quite some time now. I want those to be dealt with. Many have reported bugs on Preview before they hit live, and never, not once, did these get fixed before hitting live. Which is misleading as people then believe that things are WAI. Nobody believes them anymore and because of things like these abrupt changes, they are completely right to not believe them one single bit.
"That is bound to happen" is not what you should be telling me, instead, if you are still curious about the system, you should be asking developers "Why is this system necessary and why removing Armor Penetration benefits us all even though it's been there for previous 5+ years without any issue". When I see that sort of a comment from you, with a genuine curiosity, I'll believe that you're not some form of Cryptic's underdog. Till then, tough chance. Everything you spawn sounds like a corporate bot-like theme. Hahaha, I can judge the extensive changes which begin abruptly and have no value to me. Especially when this isn't the first time it's happening, and especially after the time things like this happen - players tend to leave the game. Not because they are quick to jump to conclusions, but because they don't want their time to be wasted in doing something and achieving something without having anything to show for once these things get completely nerfed for the sake of company's funds and a hope that new players will spend extra cash. And in that way, your comments help to the company because you're trying too hard to damage control, but everyone knows it's a sham at best. I'm not biased in any way, form nor shape. I'm offering my complete detest of recent Cryptic's actions that are possibly forced by their higherups in the publishing world. As such, I know that nobody from the higherups will even care about either your nor my opinion, but at the face value you're helping them to attain as many players by trying to provide SOME optimism. At best, you look like a CM in training, and at worst like a Cryptic's underdog who's here solely for the sake of dealing with the backlash that's bound to happen.
Usually, in the MMO world, companies pay around $15-$30 on an hourly basis to attract bots, by using freelance services, and people who will openly defend any and all company's changes and reply to each and every "malicious" post they find on pretty much all of their social platforms. You're basically acting like a CM without actually being a CM, which is funny in its own right to some extent.
I'm not saying that's who you are, I'm not saying that's what you do, but I'm just noticing how you are acting and can't help but wonder if you are on a paycheck or not. Here's the absolute WIN of a comment. Yes, because M16 greatest issue was SCALING lol. Not hte fact it was a completely different game with encounters that took forever for a Cooldown.
You are here, given a theme, to defend these changes under the premise of "Scaling Issues" - If and however someone mentiones "Scaling", you're there to say how the biggest feedback by players was "Scaling Changes" rather than "Scaling Removal since it is Useless", and thus you avert people from actually thinking on what is really important question such as - why are these changes needed, who asked for them, how are these changes implemented, and what for, and if they are already implemented - WHAT in the Nine Hells is Cryptic doing to help this transition feel as smooth and painless as possible because of a big HAMSTER up in M16 that made so many people leave the game. That's what's important, scaling on its own is not important at all. The reason why Recovery was used the most is because Developers made Clerics & Paladins to share the game. That's the root of the problem, and not the LifeSteal & Recovery which were used to play this game somewhat interestingly. And even at that point M16 was the biggest letdown since M6, but this new thing happening now seems to fit yet another pattern that will happen.
I don't even want to ask people who spent like 6.000.000 to buy stuff like Hunt Lures about how they feel now when all of that is basically obsolete after, what, two weeks? Three weeks?
TBH I don't like what you have to say because I find it misleading, off the point, and you do not recognize that what company's doing is wrong and least transparent to the playerbase EVEN AFTER all the effort we, as players, have put to express why such a thing like M16 should never, ever, happen. and don't pretend how mimicking came to apologize solely for the Scaling changes. That's cherrypicking at best.