@tamtoucan It really does not matter if you are 10k or 40k - exactly because it caps your IL for the HP and Base Damage calculation. You can get some upper hand by better choices of item/companion bonuses, but the raw baseline is the same. That is actually a good thing on this change.
To the difficulty of Dread Legion - I passed it on 33k rogue (assassin - encounter: smokebomb, path of the blade, blade flurry; at-will: duellists flurry/cloud of steel.) CC became vital and I could not face-tank anything (but through avoiding clashes during encounter cool-downs I finished without dying even once). It should be breeze for a 5 man team IF they know their classes and play smart (...I have no idea if such 5 man team is realistic on the live server.)
Boss was a bit let down - all in all, he is a summoner - and his speed to summon creatures and their amounts are far inferior to what the game threw on you before the boss fight.
0
arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
Hi. I haven't given this a full test, but with the latest xxx203e.4 version I re-spec'ed my toon (HR warden) to as good as I could and tried Avernus and got on fine. However I then tried Dread Legion Skirmish which I can solo no bother just now and got completely wiped. Maybe this is intentional since it's meant to be 5 people, but it's 10k IL and I had 40k.
Also, it capped my HP and Damage and said I am fighting at a different Item Level which I'm still unclear as to how this works in the new system.
Thanks.
Queued content is not meant to be done solo. A large reason as to why you could before was because scaling was a broken system. Now, some people may still be able to solo, and devs don't have an issue with it, but when you do it's supposed to be a challenging experience. The use of CC becomes important, since you are only doing the damage of 1/4-1/5 of the party.
Hi. I haven't given this a full test, but with the latest xxx203e.4 version I re-spec'ed my toon (HR warden) to as good as I could and tried Avernus and got on fine. However I then tried Dread Legion Skirmish which I can solo no bother just now and got completely wiped. Maybe this is intentional since it's meant to be 5 people, but it's 10k IL and I had 40k.
Also, it capped my HP and Damage and said I am fighting at a different Item Level which I'm still unclear as to how this works in the new system.
Thanks.
On the current system, item level has no real value. It is just a number they put on items to lock players out of content they deem you are not ready to handle. This new system changes that by basing all your stats on item level. As you enter the game your item level is 5,000 in most cases. Divide by 10 and 500 is your base damage. Your HP is 50,000 a multiple of 10. If you were put in a fight with yourself it would take 100 full strikes at max damage to kill you. That is the simplest explanation of this new system. It now validates the item level system.
As you progress to level 80, you will be picking up new gear. This gear will add to your item level raising your HP and damage. Mounts and companions also add to the item level. The more stuff you have, at the highest quality and rank, will increase due to item level. Any stat raised up over your current item level is wasted and will show in orange.
Dungeons and skirmishes are suppose to be done in a party,it is my opinion, nothing should be made to be done alone in D&D. If you cannot find people to join you, maybe seek a guild. They are easy to find and I have joined some rank 20 guilds with ease. Use the O key to open the social menu, Find Guild tab on the right, sort the guilds by rank and add any other criteria you wish. Whisper a recruiter, they will appear on a list when you double click the name of the guild, you would like to join their guild. They will be happy to help you in most cases -- as they need people to do quest for the guild -- at the same time you get paid in both currency and experience.
adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
edited December 2020
I decided to test something a bit different - pretend I was a brand new player, starting his first character - see the "first impression" of the game. So, I took a character from level 1 until I killed Karzov - figuring that a new player would have made up his mind about the game by then.
And, I have good news and bad news.
Meet Testus... The good news is that the difficulty felt "just right" for a first time player. Nothing was too hard - Karzov went down easily with a daily and a few encounters, and at-wills and encounters took care of everything else. The gameplay felt a bit easy to me, but as I said, a brand new player might make more mistakes, like pulling too many enemies or getting surrounded, so...overall, the difficulty is "right".
However.
As you notice, Testus has no gear, and that is basically to draw attention to the point that gear is irrelevant. You stay at 45%, regardless of whether you run around like this or use the gear you get, and that is due to the 5000 "base" IL you start with. Getting a few additional points or so does not really make a difference the first 10 levels.
As gear makes no difference at low levels, there is initially no sense of progression - no motivation to get better gear when it literally does not matter whether you have any gear at all.
I see this as a problem. Gear progression is a driving force for many players - but if gear does not matter initially, it may discourage people driven by a desire to progress. Sure, gear matters later on, but first impressions matter a lot regarding how people view a game.
Today's test is in the Limited Available area, Monsters on Ice in Twilight Tor.
Character 1 was a freshly ported character from Live, 33k Cleric, in her solo-Arbiter build. I was surprised to see the Monsters on Ice set to scale me UP to 35k, which is higher than Avernus. On live, this character at 27k IL and decent power and crit scores can take out groups pretty quickly and build up some competitive points if the zone has an average mix.
On Preview, this character overpulled and died. Despite trying a few different comps, positioning for CA with the Comp, all it took was 1 bad pull as the previous group respawned on me. Couldn't get many points when I was fighting so slowly. Can't imagine my Healer loadout.
Immediately noticable is that her best Augment comp and her best Combat comp have the same stats still. At Epic, it's like no point in using Augments. Only the slotted powers matter.
So test two was to take a version that has Mythic-ed up all comps and mounts, hitting 47k IL and added some Indom runestones to the gear with Offense slots. Here, I was able to take enemies out faster than respawns. Still not as fast as live, but I can live with that. And here it's more noticeable the extra boosts of Augment comps, the extra stat they give (usually just 1 thing) is more than a combat comp. Tradeoff being no CA and no comp damage, so still bad. Augments now strictly for group play, perhaps, and still feel like they've been eviscerated.
Again, I can't afford to do that on live, so if that's what it will take to make my character playable again, then I won't stay on this game. Because again, the rewards for time invested are proportionally shot.
Maybe it's time to revive my Clr/Warpriest on NWN2 again.
Call me El, she/her only. Currently Professions-only until the next combat change fixes this mess.
As gear makes no difference at low levels, there is initially no sense of progression - no motivation to get better gear.
This is actually a problem at 50k as well... or at any other point. You would need more than 1% bonus of your total IL in the new gear piece to somehow pretend there is an impact for your gameplay. 1% is still too insignificant change, but it is unlikely to happen on a single piece of gear. And lets be honest, even at 5% "pretending I noticed" it would mostly be.
In the new system, most gear upgrades will be "accidental", not "sought for".
Hi. I haven't given this a full test, but with the latest xxx203e.4 version I re-spec'ed my toon (HR warden) to as good as I could and tried Avernus and got on fine. However I then tried Dread Legion Skirmish which I can solo no bother just now and got completely wiped. Maybe this is intentional since it's meant to be 5 people, but it's 10k IL and I had 40k.
Also, it capped my HP and Damage and said I am fighting at a different Item Level which I'm still unclear as to how this works in the new system.
Thanks.
Queued content is not meant to be done solo. A large reason as to why you could before was because scaling was a broken system. Now, some people may still be able to solo, and devs don't have an issue with it, but when you do it's supposed to be a challenging experience. The use of CC becomes important, since you are only doing the damage of 1/4-1/5 of the party.
The solution is to not run old content, too much effort, no reward. Are we going to get new content to replace these obsolete stuff? Or is there nothing to do in the game other than recycle ad from the zax and collect your daily keys?
1
arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
Hi. I haven't given this a full test, but with the latest xxx203e.4 version I re-spec'ed my toon (HR warden) to as good as I could and tried Avernus and got on fine. However I then tried Dread Legion Skirmish which I can solo no bother just now and got completely wiped. Maybe this is intentional since it's meant to be 5 people, but it's 10k IL and I had 40k.
Also, it capped my HP and Damage and said I am fighting at a different Item Level which I'm still unclear as to how this works in the new system.
Thanks.
Queued content is not meant to be done solo. A large reason as to why you could before was because scaling was a broken system. Now, some people may still be able to solo, and devs don't have an issue with it, but when you do it's supposed to be a challenging experience. The use of CC becomes important, since you are only doing the damage of 1/4-1/5 of the party.
The solution is to not run old content, too much effort, no reward. Are we going to get new content to replace these obsolete stuff? Or is there nothing to do in the game other than recycle ad from the zax and collect your daily keys?
I can't speak on how much new content, but we are on the verge (sometime in January/Feb) of finding out about M20. Like, this combat rework doesn't mean we aren't getting content. M20 and new content is a discussion for another thread.
How far into the leveling quest line did you take Testus? I have been leveling a Fighter, and found the low level content extremely hard before level 30 (Paragon selection + Forte activation).
I decided to test something a bit different - pretend I was a brand new player, starting his first character - see the "first impression" of the game. So, I took a character from level 1 until I killed Karzov - figuring that a new player would have made up his mind about the game by then.
And, I have good news and bad news.
Meet Testus... The good news is that the difficulty felt "just right" for a first time player. Nothing was too hard - Karzov went down easily with a daily and a few encounters, and at-wills and encounters took care of everything else. The gameplay felt a bit easy to me, but as I said, a brand new player might make more mistakes, like pulling too many enemies or getting surrounded, so...overall, the difficulty is "right".
However.
As you notice, Testus has no gear, and that is basically to draw attention to the point that gear is irrelevant. You stay at 45%, regardless of whether you run around like this or use the gear you get, and that is due to the 5000 "base" IL you start with. Getting a few additional points or so does not really make a difference the first 10 levels.
As gear makes no difference at low levels, there is initially no sense of progression - no motivation to get better gear when it literally does not matter whether you have any gear at all.
I see this as a problem. Gear progression is a driving force for many players - but if gear does not matter initially, it may discourage people driven by a desire to progress. Sure, gear matters later on, but first impressions matter a lot regarding how people view a game.
The initial pieces of gear are very low item level, which is the bigger issue. Because of that, the increase in item level of critters is very slow in the early levels, since players aren't gaining much in item level.
We have a leveling flow revamp coming with m21 which should make that experience, the value of gear, and even the tutorials along the way a better experience. There wasn't time to tackle all of that at the same time as these changes unfortunately.
There wasn't time to tackle all of that at the same time as these changes unfortunately.
So you plan to break character progression for an entire milestone, and expect to retain a player base? You're kidding, aren't you?
As long as the game difficulty isn't too hard, it should be fine. Not having noticeable progression for a few hours isn't game breaking.
While you are technically correct, up till now it was nice to get a new green or even blue piece here and there. If something was too hard, you got yourself a new weapon or so and tried again. There was some motivation behind actually building your character, making small investments (in game currency, in game time) on a regular basis.
The feeling that you are getting better is not something that should be easily discarded. So, most of the early game you are not getting better by gear - or the game rewards in general? While that might not be an issue for a veteran running his 30th alt, a brand new player can now fall only for the story... however, with the lvl.70 there is an indisputable switch. If the new guy stayed a bunch of hours strictly for the story, (well, the game did not give him any other experience,) then he will leave. An abrupt swap from pure story to pure grind feels like a way too good opportunity to leave.
2
arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
There wasn't time to tackle all of that at the same time as these changes unfortunately.
So you plan to break character progression for an entire milestone, and expect to retain a player base? You're kidding, aren't you?
As long as the game difficulty isn't too hard, it should be fine. Not having noticeable progression for a few hours isn't game breaking.
While you are technically correct, up till now it was nice to get a new green or even blue piece here and there. If something was too hard, you got yourself a new weapon or so and tried again. There was some motivation behind actually building your character, making small investments (in game currency, in game time) on a regular basis.
The feeling that you are getting better is not something that should be easily discarded. So, most of the early game you are not getting better by gear - or the game rewards in general? While that might not be an issue for a veteran running his 30th alt, a brand new player can now fall only for the story... however, with the lvl.70 there is an indisputable switch. If the new guy stayed a bunch of hours strictly for the story, (well, the game did not give him any other experience,) then he will leave. An abrupt swap from pure story to pure grind feels like a way too good opportunity to leave.
I honestly would prefer that a new player find ways other than 'just get better gear' to improve their gameplay. Maybe then players will no longer just stand in red zones, have better positioning, learn enemy tells, and in general be a better teammate. It's been too long that players can just ignore game mechanics. BTW, the above mechanics is the majority of being able to beat ToMM or ZC, aside from having enough EHP to survive the unavoidable damage.
Also, keep in mind that new players will focus more on the story than with character building.
Also, keep in mind that new players will focus more on the story than with character building.
I'am not so sure about that. Mostly, people just don't read at all. Not to mention focus on story. This is not solo RPG game. They don't care about the story. They want to get into action ASAP. If not, well, there're other mmorpg games with less "story" (waste of time).
Let's be realistic. In the past... gear made no difference to a new player, except for one piece... the weapon. A weapon with increased damage was everything. Power and defense from gear made a showing in the mid-game.
I think that the ideal scenario is precisely a good balance between history and progression for their equipment, it is a fact that most players do not read stories, and many do not know how to understand the language in which the game is found, English. for me a good progression is crucial, and I hope that with these changes planned for the M21 the level of difficulty is something well worked out, I would like to see newcomers dying a few times for not being well equipped for that enemy, and that I need to pay attention in the red areas from an early age to generate an end game player with more sense of combat in the game. In parallel to that we do need a good narrative, original quests, mandatory main quest line for accessing mid and end game content, in addition to perhaps bringing some other up options (which do not ignore the need to make the main quest line) ). Things like MHEs and BHEs on leveling maps, more balanced and challenging World Boss with newcomers and XP relevant to newbies. Special Mobes like Hunts on leveling maps for drops of rare items for that level, plus a good extra XP, COMPETITIONS !!!!, my friend the leveling map competitions was something that left me in the hype with the game when I started playing, and look that your prizes weren't even that relevant, but I didn't know that at the time, and imagine my sadness in discovering that on end game maps there were no competitions, this is a very badly explored content. Add prizes relevant to the Top 3 of the competitions among players from all instances of the map, of extra XP for those who participate, increasing this value based on their rank within the competition.
An MMORPG with several ways to farm XP is something very well seen, killing mobe should not give XP almost zero, it should be something rewarding, of course we need to adjust the system to avoid killing enemies from stronger maps giving you too much XP, put a block limit and or reduction to 10 levels above and 10 levels below your current level. All these UP options make the game richer and there will still be a line of main quests that players will need to do in order to unlock the following quests and maps, however, adding these various ways to earn XP the quet lines may be smaller , with more original quests, with a narrative more relevant to the main story giving an air of grandeur to the quest being made, avoiding the famous monotone quets of: kill 10 enemies X, drop 10 tools killing enemy Y, burn 5 boxes of supplements scattered around the map, I am not saying that quests like this are irrelevant, they can play their role as long as it is richly linked in the narrative. And if the player breaks the quets very quickly he has several XP sources on that map to level up to the level needed for the next map. Those are my 2 cents on that subject.
Comments
To the difficulty of Dread Legion - I passed it on 33k rogue (assassin - encounter: smokebomb, path of the blade, blade flurry; at-will: duellists flurry/cloud of steel.) CC became vital and I could not face-tank anything (but through avoiding clashes during encounter cool-downs I finished without dying even once). It should be breeze for a 5 man team IF they know their classes and play smart (...I have no idea if such 5 man team is realistic on the live server.)
Boss was a bit let down - all in all, he is a summoner - and his speed to summon creatures and their amounts are far inferior to what the game threw on you before the boss fight.
As you progress to level 80, you will be picking up new gear. This gear will add to your item level raising your HP and damage. Mounts and companions also add to the item level. The more stuff you have, at the highest quality and rank, will increase due to item level. Any stat raised up over your current item level is wasted and will show in orange.
Dungeons and skirmishes are suppose to be done in a party,it is my opinion, nothing should be made to be done alone in D&D. If you cannot find people to join you, maybe seek a guild. They are easy to find and I have joined some rank 20 guilds with ease. Use the O key to open the social menu, Find Guild tab on the right, sort the guilds by rank and add any other criteria you wish. Whisper a recruiter, they will appear on a list when you double click the name of the guild, you would like to join their guild. They will be happy to help you in most cases -- as they need people to do quest for the guild -- at the same time you get paid in both currency and experience.
PSN Zen AD Exchange - Forecasting Spreadsheet
And, I have good news and bad news.
Meet Testus...
The good news is that the difficulty felt "just right" for a first time player. Nothing was too hard - Karzov went down easily with a daily and a few encounters, and at-wills and encounters took care of everything else. The gameplay felt a bit easy to me, but as I said, a brand new player might make more mistakes, like pulling too many enemies or getting surrounded, so...overall, the difficulty is "right".
However.
As you notice, Testus has no gear, and that is basically to draw attention to the point that gear is irrelevant. You stay at 45%, regardless of whether you run around like this or use the gear you get, and that is due to the 5000 "base" IL you start with. Getting a few additional points or so does not really make a difference the first 10 levels.
As gear makes no difference at low levels, there is initially no sense of progression - no motivation to get better gear when it literally does not matter whether you have any gear at all.
I see this as a problem. Gear progression is a driving force for many players - but if gear does not matter initially, it may discourage people driven by a desire to progress. Sure, gear matters later on, but first impressions matter a lot regarding how people view a game.
Character 1 was a freshly ported character from Live, 33k Cleric, in her solo-Arbiter build. I was surprised to see the Monsters on Ice set to scale me UP to 35k, which is higher than Avernus. On live, this character at 27k IL and decent power and crit scores can take out groups pretty quickly and build up some competitive points if the zone has an average mix.
On Preview, this character overpulled and died. Despite trying a few different comps, positioning for CA with the Comp, all it took was 1 bad pull as the previous group respawned on me. Couldn't get many points when I was fighting so slowly. Can't imagine my Healer loadout.
Immediately noticable is that her best Augment comp and her best Combat comp have the same stats still. At Epic, it's like no point in using Augments. Only the slotted powers matter.
So test two was to take a version that has Mythic-ed up all comps and mounts, hitting 47k IL and added some Indom runestones to the gear with Offense slots. Here, I was able to take enemies out faster than respawns. Still not as fast as live, but I can live with that. And here it's more noticeable the extra boosts of Augment comps, the extra stat they give (usually just 1 thing) is more than a combat comp. Tradeoff being no CA and no comp damage, so still bad. Augments now strictly for group play, perhaps, and still feel like they've been eviscerated.
Again, I can't afford to do that on live, so if that's what it will take to make my character playable again, then I won't stay on this game. Because again, the rewards for time invested are proportionally shot.
Maybe it's time to revive my Clr/Warpriest on NWN2 again.
And lets be honest, even at 5% "pretending I noticed" it would mostly be.
In the new system, most gear upgrades will be "accidental", not "sought for".
White - +1 to one characteristic: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma
Green - Bonus stats +250
Blue - Bonus stats +500
Purple - Bonus stats +750
Legendary - Bonus stats +1000
Mythic - Bonus stats +1250
This will make Augments competitive with combat companions at all ranks, and give them more individuality.
The solution is to not run old content, too much effort, no reward. Are we going to get new content to replace these obsolete stuff? Or is there nothing to do in the game other than recycle ad from the zax and collect your daily keys?
How far into the leveling quest line did you take Testus? I have been leveling a Fighter, and found the low level content extremely hard before level 30 (Paragon selection + Forte activation).
I made a thread on the subject here ;
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1259151/leveling-new-toon-after-the-combat-sytem-changes
Input from other classes would be greatly appreciated 👍
We have a leveling flow revamp coming with m21 which should make that experience, the value of gear, and even the tutorials along the way a better experience. There wasn't time to tackle all of that at the same time as these changes unfortunately.
The feeling that you are getting better is not something that should be easily discarded. So, most of the early game you are not getting better by gear - or the game rewards in general? While that might not be an issue for a veteran running his 30th alt, a brand new player can now fall only for the story... however, with the lvl.70 there is an indisputable switch.
If the new guy stayed a bunch of hours strictly for the story, (well, the game did not give him any other experience,) then he will leave. An abrupt swap from pure story to pure grind feels like a way too good opportunity to leave.
Also, keep in mind that new players will focus more on the story than with character building.
An MMORPG with several ways to farm XP is something very well seen, killing mobe should not give XP almost zero, it should be something rewarding, of course we need to adjust the system to avoid killing enemies from stronger maps giving you too much XP, put a block limit and or reduction to 10 levels above and 10 levels below your current level. All these UP options make the game richer and there will still be a line of main quests that players will need to do in order to unlock the following quests and maps, however, adding these various ways to earn XP the quet lines may be smaller , with more original quests, with a narrative more relevant to the main story giving an air of grandeur to the quest being made, avoiding the famous monotone quets of: kill 10 enemies X, drop 10 tools killing enemy Y, burn 5 boxes of supplements scattered around the map, I am not saying that quests like this are irrelevant, they can play their role as long as it is richly linked in the narrative. And if the player breaks the quets very quickly he has several XP sources on that map to level up to the level needed for the next map. Those are my 2 cents on that subject.