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The uncomfortable truth
adinosii
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,294 Arc User
Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth - in particular when they are told they are making a mistake or a bad decision....and then we end up in a situation like we have now, where the game is full of angry and confused players.
Let me be absolutly frank here (yes, I know I will not score any popularity points), but the fundamental problem is that the game is developing in a direction that is not appreciated by a very substantial portion of the playerbase.
The stat rework added more problems than it solved.
Let me be absolutly frank here (yes, I know I will not score any popularity points), but the fundamental problem is that the game is developing in a direction that is not appreciated by a very substantial portion of the playerbase.
The stat rework added more problems than it solved.
- The situation fine for the first 20 levels or so. You start with 50% everywhere, and that is more than enough to get through everything at the start. (And, yes, I did really test this over on preview - took a character from level 1. There was one tough fight near the start (Karzov), but that's it.) No real complaints there.+
- The situation is also not too bad for players with, say, 50K+ IL and a full set of mythic mounts and companions. Yes, combat is annoyingly slow - critters may take 50-200% longer to kill than before, and for fights that were already long (like the Avernus T3 hunt) the current situation is just absurd, but it's not unreasonably hard....just tedious and less fun than before.
- Those really suffering are those between those extremes.....this includes mid-level players with maybe just one good companion, one or two epic mounts, a handful of mediocre artifacts, limited insignia, enchants and runestones. This also includes those who hurried to level 80, drove around Avernus to get treasure maps, and think they have good gear, but their IL is just 27K or so. Those are the people getting slaughtered, and they are not happy.
- I have to admit I do not have much sympathy for people who skip content and then complain that they are not strong enough, but on this subject, I think the game is going in the wrong direction, by discouraging progression through hard work. I have called this the "Marxist approach ", but the goal is to reduce the differences between the "have" and "have not" players. This is the wrong thing to do. Many players are motivated by progression - enjoy making their characters stronger, and the game is taking that away.....demotivated players are not likely to spend money or even to stick around. One example of this is the "0.2% per level" for the boons, and the reduction in the guild boons. The message that players are getting is that their hard work is irrelevant - all that matters how much money you spend. My recommendation would be to increase the boons to 1% per level and double the guild boon points. This would send a clear message that you are expected to play the various campaigns....not just skip them.
- You need to work on your reward/effort ratio. It was bad - it is worse now, in particular for the content that the "mid-level" players can do. People now have to work harder, and spend twice the time they spent before for the same pathetic rewards as before. Not good, not motivating. Maybe triple the drop rate for companions for a while to give more people stuff they really need?
- Many players enjoy the feeling of being powerful. Take something like the small instances in Dread Ring, Phantasmal Fortress and such. The very first time I did them they felt tough. Later they felt trivially easy. Now....well, things that previesly died with a single hit now require two. It's just more tedious than before but no more fun and no more rewarding. This is not something anybody wanted or asked for, but a clear example of why the players think the developers are totally out of touch with the playerbase. You really need to find out what motivates your players.....maybe, well, do an honest survey ?
- It is too easy to get "to the top" just by spending money...I used to say "The game is not P2W - it is more like pay-for-convenience or pay-to-avoid-grind.", but there is less and less you have to grind for and more and more you have to buy, which kind-of makes it difficult to justify the previous statement.
Hoping for improvements...
Post edited by adinosii on
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Only ToMM and Zariel were a real challenge, tell the truth.
Every change requires to adapt, more if they are bigger. People want to do the same as 2 days ago and tell "they nerfed me". No. The entire game changed, for everyone.
The problem is the rewards. That is the next step. We need good rewards for the effort in queued content, now that is more difficult . They promised that. We will see, but giving more rewards with the old system was impossible.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
And what good are rewards if you cannot get them?
I still think solo play and other things need tweaks. But group teamplay needed a change, it was a joke a dps going forward killing everything with 1-2 encounters.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
Ive played for 4 years now I think, swapped from Tank GF, to DPS GWF, to heal Cleric - three different play styles and toons.
This bit resonates with me totally "Those really suffering are those between those extremes.....this includes mid-level players with maybe just one good companion, one or two epic mounts..."
My main [now] is one of those, it didnt need a stable of companions just one orange and a few purples and it was fine.
My main has one mythic mount, a couple of oranges and it was fine.
The main complaint is do I really want to grind out to upgrade those mounts and companions? When new content only comes along twice a year? Do I really want to run CoDG every day for the rest of my life and see the goalposts moved just as I upgrade my tenth mount to mythic?
Not at all.
Do I want to spend money to bypass the grind?
Heck no.
And the free giveaways were an insult tbh - 20 companion upgrade tokens? If it had been 200 then yah, nice gift.
For me the game has just cheated me yet again. I know I only rent the pixels, but it just feels so damn wrong.
What I am hearing about most in chat is ToNG and other superior dungeons. Thing I question, are you going in with a good crowd or is this a the goof troop? I have no issues with teaching people how to run a dungeon but a PUG is not the way to do it. Random dungeons are full of first timers, and if a first time player is reading this; you need to stay out until you watch some tutorials on YouTube.
@darthpotater I don't find anything wrong with the combat rework on my end, but I am a mediocre player at best. I really don't play much end game content, and these days been playing a different game completely. I can relate to those complaining about the rework as this is the second one within 2 years. Given time players will figure it out, once they do, everyone will just copy whatever they lay down as the best method. I think the real issue should be all the bugs they released going live. I understand they had a chat bug and other issues that a combat rework should not even touch upon.
Have fun!
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
If the majority of players can't progress through the content of the game due to combat changes they are simply going to just quit and your game will lose 90% of it's playerbase.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
So, why should I bother to continue playing NW if it's not fun? I don't owe ARC or Perfect World any loyalty. In fact, as a long time player that spends $$ every month, their loyalty should be to me. So, explain to me why I shouldn't be exploring other MMOs.
That said, they didn't listen (yet again).
While technically the old content is not scaled (according to the devs), it now provides much more of a challenge than it has for the past few months. Ergo, a repeat of history. If people remember, the devs stated that "Combat is in a really good position right now" when Mod 16 was released. It wasn't, and the Devs had to tweak it over the next several months. The same happened in the Mod 6 debacle.
It's ok though--kind of. I do believe it can get better, and one instance that made me happy was the Dragon Herald Run in Well of Dragons. Before the change, it took one or two well geared people to kill a herald, sometimes before many of the players even arrived at the dragon. After the change, it took between 20-30 seconds to kill the dragon, and several people died. That makes sense, killing a powerful dragon. That "scaling" appears to be (to paraphrase the devs) in a good position right now. I like it. Group content that appears to be properly scaled with expected rewards for the time spent. Unfortunately, right now, that is the only positive example I can find. Most of the scaling I don't agree with or think that it is "in a good position".
We have all heard that is new combat system will make it easier to scale players. Great. Now we need to (again) provide the feedback to correct the garbage scale that is currently in place.
The OP mentioned many of the issues facing the game right now. And i agree with what he said. But we need to address one issue at a time and hope that all of the issues will be addressed sooner rather than later. Because those of us who weathered Mod 6 know what happens if it becomes later.
1. Getting stats re-distributed.
2. Getting companions upgraded.
Getting stats re-distributed is a learning process and the problem will be short-term. The companion issue is serious for many mid-level players who spend limited amounts (or no) money on the game. With some players at 100% bolster and others at 25% bolster, a division is arising. I think it's important for players to feel more opportunity instead of facing a years grind to get their bolster up. At this time some players are pondering the idea of checking out other games to see if they are more fun. This backdrop leads me to a suggestion:
* Give every account 75 more Companion Tokens
* Find a way for players to earn a 'free' companion token everyday for playing. (example: Add a companion token reward to the stronghold quest for running a daily dungeon)
Even before the patch I was struggling to find how to upgrade my companions and mounts. Even if I could upgrade any f my companions still would not overcome how difficult the game has become for me. I had even just started doing other campaigns that now are just too difficult.
It was nice to look forward to relaxing and playing this... now there is nothing to look forward to or relaxing about it.
As a healer, i like the fact that now yes or yes the tank needs to go first but my healing is so low i ran out of soulweave pretty fast, but is maybe cuz ppl still needs to adapt and stop runing all over the place.
Soulweaver: The Lovely Red
Minstrel: The Rose Troubadour
- they can't earn Rough Astral Diamonds, because of the 15k IL requirement to join a Random Dungeon Queue
- they can't even finish Cloak Tower on their own, since enemies in there will shred them within seconds
A start in fixing this mess could be increasing the bolster from companions and mounts:
+ rares could give 3%
+ epics could give 5%
+ legendary could give 7%
+ and mythic would keep their 10%
and then adjust the damage any regular enemies are doing right now.
Not to mention that the reward system should have seen at least some boost by now...
With that said, I, again, feel like I was correct. These changes feel rushed and not thought through, at all. Like someone said earlier - this isn't Dungeons and Dragons, this is a gauntlet where you are always underpowered. The carrot just didn't move more mid-game players this time, it HAMSTER teleported. This change is under-tested and not even remotely thought through.
Also - Arc Defender is still HAMSTER stupid.
The trouble is that I have absolutely no idea what to do now. I know that my toon's main stats are now tied to my item level. I know that you can get your total percentage up to 90%. That's it. How do I get my percentage up? At what percentage is my toon going to be somewhat viable? What stats are important for my Cleric healer main and my Rogue? I have been saving some resources knowing that a big change was coming, but how do I spend those resources? Just tell me what I need to grind and do and I'll be happy to do it, even if it's terribly difficult. The (what I assume is) official video from Cryptic basically says "your main stats are now tied to your IL and you can get your percentage up to 90%". How? I don't want to spend a bunch of resources not knowing if it's going to be helpful or if I'm going to be spending them on the wrong stats and in the wrong places. From what little I can gather about the changes, you need to upgrade mounts and companions. I upgraded the Polar Bear Cub on my Cleric to mythic. My stats changed a little. I tried swapping out a few enchantments. My stats changed a little. I don't know what to do!
At this point, all I know to do is wait for a couple of weeks until the content creators come up with viable builds. That's assuming that there aren't a bunch of changes and it's more like a month or two before the smart people come up with viable builds. If I can't log in and play my toons somewhat comfortably, I doubt I'll be around long enough for that to happen.
No, I didn't download ESO, I have Morrowind and I really don't care for Bethesda. I got Assassin's Creed from my husband as a gift, I am writing my stories for Ubisoft these days. Also since I am stockholder in Ubisoft. Does that seem a bit like an advert? I really wanted to invest my inheritance with Cryptic, but I couldn't, my broker advised me not to invest into overseas and Chinese companies. I am getting some good dividend checks, I figure I might as well play their games.
Anything can be repaired, but as my husband pointed out, before all this went live, all the players in the world are not about to roll back the $10 million dollars worth of work spent. He was told his opinion didn't matter, more or less. I barely understand what the big geek says myself, but I still respect his opinions. If you stay here to play, try to assist other players the best you can.
The whole update was a monstrous cash grab, following several other badly conceived monstrous cash grabs, and this will fail even worse than mod 6 or mod 16.
This dev team never devotes time, energy or budget to fixes. They never have. They have never listened to players since they went ahead with the mod 6 disaster. I'm frankly amazed this game is still around, with how hard they've tried to drive players away.
Like selling the Alpha comphy knowing it was going to be near useless or making folks grind hard or pay cash for a holy vorpal no one will use till next rework, if we do make it to next rework.
Business is business it man that was cold.