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A Casual MMO Player's Perspective
hragli
Member Posts: 4 Arc User
Hello Neverwinter players. First let me openly disseminate that I am not a high level player, nor am I really accustomed to end game content in MMOs. There are a few exceptions: WoW end game was always fairly easy to attain, and I struggled in LOTRO against a lot of tedium to get to end game content out of love for the setting and Middle-earth, and in a few other games I've dabbled loosely in raid content. But generally I play MMOs to enjoy the relaxed, laid back leveling experience, explore the different game environments, do crafting, things like that. Before the combat changes, Neverwinter was a great game for that. It was a loose, fast and fun hack and slash-like MMO that made it a unique and approachable experience. I wound up making a lot of characters and enjoying the gameplay.
I didn't make it very far up the leveling experience before the changes hit. Like many have attested before me, I have to say my experience of these changes have been completely negative. Now, like I said, I am a noobie, my interaction with Neverwinter has been completely contained to the lower levels and the leveling experience. I'm not fighting any angels or demons in Baator or anything. And even if I do wind up attaining the higher levels, I probably won't be interested in agonizing over the spreadsheets of stats people pore over to min/max their characters and prep for the highest tiers of content in MMOs. So I don't really know the minutiae of how these stat details affect my character, and I'll be the first to admit that. That being said, at such a low level, I don't feel my concern should be on this stuff. Most of my gear doesn't even HAVE enchantment slots and I've only barely put a few points into my major traits.
So I am going to give my perspective on what it's like to level in the game right now, and hopefully some of you can give me some advice on what I can do to improve it.
Alright... so before the changes it seemed like my health went down fast if I didn't pay attention to what I was doing, i.e. my positioning, avoiding big strikes, dodging around bosses and staying out of big groups of enemies. Thankfully though lesser enemies were easy to kill, usually just taking a few hits from my At-Wills and a few hits from an Encounter ability. This seemed sensible. What I noticed was that harder monsters, minibosses and even major bosses, were laughably easy to kill. I would usually kill a major story boss within 2-3 seconds of the fight. That didn't seem right.
Now, however, with the changes, ordinary minions seem to take twice or thrice as long to kill. Each individual enemy I encounter requires a good long whacking with my At-Wills in COMBINATION with multiple uses of my Encounters, which of course have cooldowns... That isn't so bad, after all in the average MMO I am used to the same experience, waiting for cooldowns to finish one or two enemies. Not every MMO is as fast-paced as Neverwinter used to be. The problem is I still take hefty damage, and these groups of mobs, some of which are pretty significantly large as before you were meant to wipe them aside easily, just WAIL on me while I wait for my Encounters to recharge. My At-Wills basically do next to no damage to them and it's extremely common for me to finish the average fight with less than half health. Just to survive I usually have to do a stupid dance around the group of mobs and completely expend my stamina dodging or fleeing while I wait to use my next Encounter to shave off a bit of decent HP from the swarm. Having to pop one or two or even several health potions is not uncommon. In fact it's often additionally necessary to survive the average encounter.
This is... bad. It's not "hard", so the people using the refrain of "get good" aren't really being helpful, because it's not a matter of skill at all. I only have 6 abilities to use, excluding my ultimate-esque Daily abilities, it's not exactly like that's a complicated balancing act or as though there's a lot of tactics I can inject into the situation. On my barbarian for instance I jump in with my leap, do AoE damage, use my other AoE, run around like an idiot, pop my Battlerage when it's available, run around like an idiot, heal with my Bloodletter, run around like an idiot, pop a health potion... and the mobs are all still like half health. It's not "hard". It's just bad. It's stressful and tedious, like trying to keep a disabled kitten on top of a unicycle. It's DOABLE, the task is comprehensive and I know what I'm supposed to do, it's just boring and awful.
The most ironic thing is that story bosses and minibosses are still laughably easy to kill. They are lumbering idiots with bad mechanics and I can easily dance around their telegraphed abilities. The only thing that makes story boss encounters remotely difficult now are the annoying little immortal minions he summons that I'll have to tediously contend with while I shave off his health pool. In my opinion, again from my perspective as a casual player and a leveler, from my bracket of content from around level 1 to level 30, these changes have only made the game worse, not more enjoyable.
So, being someone who is unfamiliar with complex stat management, doesn't get into the math behind MMOs that much, and is currently stuck in a lower level bracket of gameplay with story-awarded green gear as his only equipment... I guess I am desperate for some advice on how to make this game as fun as it was. What can I do? What should I do? I just want to stop nearly dying the instant I pick off a small group of enemies. Like I said, chugging health potions and dancing around like a moron, I am just barely able to survive, but it isn't fun. Should I be buying better gear off the auction house? What? I am confused and disheartened, like many others appear to be.
I didn't make it very far up the leveling experience before the changes hit. Like many have attested before me, I have to say my experience of these changes have been completely negative. Now, like I said, I am a noobie, my interaction with Neverwinter has been completely contained to the lower levels and the leveling experience. I'm not fighting any angels or demons in Baator or anything. And even if I do wind up attaining the higher levels, I probably won't be interested in agonizing over the spreadsheets of stats people pore over to min/max their characters and prep for the highest tiers of content in MMOs. So I don't really know the minutiae of how these stat details affect my character, and I'll be the first to admit that. That being said, at such a low level, I don't feel my concern should be on this stuff. Most of my gear doesn't even HAVE enchantment slots and I've only barely put a few points into my major traits.
So I am going to give my perspective on what it's like to level in the game right now, and hopefully some of you can give me some advice on what I can do to improve it.
Alright... so before the changes it seemed like my health went down fast if I didn't pay attention to what I was doing, i.e. my positioning, avoiding big strikes, dodging around bosses and staying out of big groups of enemies. Thankfully though lesser enemies were easy to kill, usually just taking a few hits from my At-Wills and a few hits from an Encounter ability. This seemed sensible. What I noticed was that harder monsters, minibosses and even major bosses, were laughably easy to kill. I would usually kill a major story boss within 2-3 seconds of the fight. That didn't seem right.
Now, however, with the changes, ordinary minions seem to take twice or thrice as long to kill. Each individual enemy I encounter requires a good long whacking with my At-Wills in COMBINATION with multiple uses of my Encounters, which of course have cooldowns... That isn't so bad, after all in the average MMO I am used to the same experience, waiting for cooldowns to finish one or two enemies. Not every MMO is as fast-paced as Neverwinter used to be. The problem is I still take hefty damage, and these groups of mobs, some of which are pretty significantly large as before you were meant to wipe them aside easily, just WAIL on me while I wait for my Encounters to recharge. My At-Wills basically do next to no damage to them and it's extremely common for me to finish the average fight with less than half health. Just to survive I usually have to do a stupid dance around the group of mobs and completely expend my stamina dodging or fleeing while I wait to use my next Encounter to shave off a bit of decent HP from the swarm. Having to pop one or two or even several health potions is not uncommon. In fact it's often additionally necessary to survive the average encounter.
This is... bad. It's not "hard", so the people using the refrain of "get good" aren't really being helpful, because it's not a matter of skill at all. I only have 6 abilities to use, excluding my ultimate-esque Daily abilities, it's not exactly like that's a complicated balancing act or as though there's a lot of tactics I can inject into the situation. On my barbarian for instance I jump in with my leap, do AoE damage, use my other AoE, run around like an idiot, pop my Battlerage when it's available, run around like an idiot, heal with my Bloodletter, run around like an idiot, pop a health potion... and the mobs are all still like half health. It's not "hard". It's just bad. It's stressful and tedious, like trying to keep a disabled kitten on top of a unicycle. It's DOABLE, the task is comprehensive and I know what I'm supposed to do, it's just boring and awful.
The most ironic thing is that story bosses and minibosses are still laughably easy to kill. They are lumbering idiots with bad mechanics and I can easily dance around their telegraphed abilities. The only thing that makes story boss encounters remotely difficult now are the annoying little immortal minions he summons that I'll have to tediously contend with while I shave off his health pool. In my opinion, again from my perspective as a casual player and a leveler, from my bracket of content from around level 1 to level 30, these changes have only made the game worse, not more enjoyable.
So, being someone who is unfamiliar with complex stat management, doesn't get into the math behind MMOs that much, and is currently stuck in a lower level bracket of gameplay with story-awarded green gear as his only equipment... I guess I am desperate for some advice on how to make this game as fun as it was. What can I do? What should I do? I just want to stop nearly dying the instant I pick off a small group of enemies. Like I said, chugging health potions and dancing around like a moron, I am just barely able to survive, but it isn't fun. Should I be buying better gear off the auction house? What? I am confused and disheartened, like many others appear to be.
15
Comments
Here's what people are going to point out: you mention levels 1-30. Have you gotten past that? Because one of the changes, the Forte thing, is quite broken for levels 1-30. It was posted on Preview Server months ago now and never addressed, but essentially, your stats are broken because you haven't hit 30 and selected a Paragon yet. When you do, you'll get a stat boost that will improve balance slightly.
What I noticed was that things got moderately better at 30, but not by much. Since many fights take longer and consume more resources, the fun factor shrivels up. It's not that we can't do it, it's just more aggravating, tactics and stat sheets be cursed.
Some classes seem to be handling this better than others. I did it on a Wizard and it just never got much better, and I've heard Paladins say the same.
The other big thing I noticed was that as I approached level 80, the "pain curve" gets a little better. If you hit 80 and manage to collect even a couple of easy pieces of gear, be they farmed up or bought from AH, you will likely find a better game.
It's as if the whole game really is balanced around what they think is mid-high endgame. By that point, campaigns get easier since campaign zones aren't scaled (minus Avernus, which imo actually got easier by scaling up), but like many others have noted, group content may get a lot harder because the changes are effectively capping characters in weird places and making even max-endgame players feel pretty garbage.
Edit: As for advice, here's what I'm doing about it right now. I'm treating this as a Crafting game only, building up my professions with my daily Morale pool. Craftable gear is often slightly ahead of drops and quest rewards for much of the game, despite many people saying it's not worth working on. I'm working on Masterwork I at the moment for something to do, often selling off gear on AH or giving it to friends for transmutes. If you do this and get your XP from invokes, you may find it tolerable until a fix comes, if it does come.
So I've been playing this for a few days. I started with a Hunter-Ranger, got to somewhere in the low 20';s, then started a paladin, which I got to level 30 last night. There is just so much to learn for these online games as more and more content gets added.
As a new player to this particular mmorpg, there is a pretty steep learning curve beyond simply trying to find a decent build. Learning about upgrades to mounts, companions, all the different currencies. How to get astral diamonds, what good are the 50% AD drops from the Celestial Invocation good for as they do not show up in any part of the inventory. Crafting, professions, guilds, there's so much.
Thanks for writing this post. It's good to not feel like the only one.
All that said -- I like that lower level dungeons are a bit more challenging even for highly geared level 80 players and it's no longer just running through and one-shotting everything. I am sincerely glad they are tougher. But said higher level players should not be wiping repeatedly on Cloak Tower or Cragmire or other low level content. These lower level dungeons are taking 30 minutes now, similar to the high end content, and the rewards don't really justify that time investment. I hope as the devs keep tuning and tweaking, the lower level content will find some happy medium. (In particular, the bosses are fine. The number and ferocity of the adds they spawn needs to be taken down a notch or two.) Honestly, as someone with several alts with 31-34k item level, higher level dungeons and Avernus content are much easier than low level dungeons now, which is wrong. Low level stuff is much harder now, and Avernus is quite a bit easier. And the scaling is dumb as implemented. Putting on stronger gear should never make you weaker. I'm OK with diminishing returns on higher level gear in lower level zones and dungeons, but not zero or even negative returns.
(And don't get me started on the shamans in Chult.)
The along comes the update. I played 5 classes trying to enjoy the game again. It's now utterly unbalanced. The combat is doable, but it's like drudging through molasses, and any sense of progression either literally or perceptively comes to a halt. Additionally, not enough gold is dropping for low level characters to keep me in potions after my health stones ran out. One of my characters is stuck due to repeated deaths and can't complete the content, broke, and out of potions.
I played after the update for about a week, but haven't gone back. I just came to the site to check the news to see if there was a balance update, but there is none. I came to the forums to see what was being discussed and I find this post. Not from the day after the Combat Update, but two weeks later. I'll try again with the big update on the 9th, but if it's more of the same, I'll probably never return to Neverwinter which makes me sad because I was loving the game.
I pushed my now level 41 Vanguard to 15k IL and i'm having problems with playing through Cloak Tower, which is a 5k IL dungeon - not to mention that even to get into a RDQ run, i sometimes have to wait for nearly half an hour as TANK! It feels like the "Combat Rework" in combination with "scaling" pretty much broke most of the low and mid level content, and players don't even bother with it anymore.
And nerfing XP enchantments into the ground is just adding insult to injury at this point.
Anyway, i'd really like to see Devs play through low and mid level content on fresh "F2P" characters, and then stream it weekly - go ahead and please show us how much "fun" you're having doing it...
Maybe the only problem is that it would cost some workload on devs side to adjust all rewards as I see no easy change.
WELCOME TO MY ART CORNER!
"I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
I despise even the notion of giving up on Neverwinter but with all the past changes and no doubt future changes that effectively negates every progression and accomplishment players and characters have already achieved, I'm about ready to try to find something that will offer a little quality down time enjoyment instead of signing on one day and trying to figure out what changed, how to accommodate or recover from those changes, just to get back to the playing level I used to be at prior to the changes... over and over again.
The straw that broke the camel's back was in a level 34-ish zone with my level 38 wizard, trying to complete a quest that brought me inside an instanced house with something like 10 Rotters and one undead spellcaster. I tried to finish this quest objective at least five times... each time I died within seconds. There was literally no completing it on my own. It was very frankly impossible.
I don't care how small a piece of content it is... NO CONTENT should be rendered IMPOSSIBLE by a broad, sweeping game change. I am speaking directly now to CRYPTIC. It is blatantly, patently, painfully obvious you did not playtest how ANY of these changes would affect the lower level brackets of gameplay. I doubt you spent more than a few seconds even contemplating the math of it. You have completely devastated low level players. It isn't fun. It isn't fair. It isn't smart.
It's boring, tedious, awful and stupid. I have already wasted money on your game, I'm not going to waste any more of my time until you fix it. It's an unplayable piece of junk right now and you owe a lot of people your consideration for the amount of their personal investment in this product which you have thoughtlessly wasted to appeal to one demographic of overpowered, bored high level players. It's unfathomable.
I'm tired of politely asking for change and I'm all out of patience and hope, so I think I'm just going to take a break. Will be keeping an eye out on Neverwinter news for any sign that this has been repealed.
"leveling areas" and "old campaign areas" seem to be generally designed to let us do it "solo", and for good reasons : they are usually less populated, so you mainly have to do by yourself. But in my opinion instances/mini-dungeons are a bit on a debate about weither or not "solo" is the true intended design.
It is certainly a change of paradigm for many, "I can't solo hence it is impossible", but nothing in these areas is even remotely hard as long as you aren't prevented from gathering a party to help you.
I admit that probably wasn't the target the devs had in mind though ^^.
Tell me that you dont laugh secretly when a dps goes forward to fill his paingiver ego and get murdered.
Teamplay has returned and thats good. Now we need better rewards but I feel something is changing already for what I see.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
If an area requires more than one player to complete it, the requirement should be clearly stated as part of the entrance requirements. Just like you cannot get into a dungeon without 5 players, you should not be able to start a mini-dungeon without the required players. It is not there, therefore it does not exist as a limitation. IF the area is not playable it is not the fault of the player, it is the fault of the designers/devs and their responsibility to fix it.
The solution might be as simple as removing all the DPS checking auto-spawns added since mod 16 dropped. It might be as simple as honoring the 'dot' protocol and making sure a 1 dot mob is really 1/3 of a 3 dot mob in HP/damage. And yes, the cooldown timing and At-Will damage needs to be adjusted for several classes to match the impact of the combat changes.
Or we can all just have nervous breakdowns from all the stress of trying to have fun.
After the third time of dying by himself - he ragequit. He was replaced a couple of mins later by a decent CW and we finished the dungeon without any further upset.
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
I've been playing Neverwinter for almost 6 years and reached a very high level in mod 16, after that I just play casually and stopped investing in my 8 characters. I have two more characters and I play with them from level 1 to 80, and then I start again. I have millions of AD and I don't even know what to do with them as it is not worth updating the equipment to be leveled up to the level of a novice player.
But speaking of beginners, it is not fair that players cannot finish a low level dungeon and cannot collect AD. It is also not fair that none of them can play the normal game content without continuing to die. I have helped many novice players to finish several maps that are now impossible to play solo.
It gives me the feeling that the developers don't realize that they are shooting themselves in the foot. With all these changes they are not only pushing away advanced players but also new players. For the sake of Neverwinter, a game that I loved but that I can only tolerate now, I hope that all this mess will change quickly.
Maybe some day there will be pick up groups in chat -
player one: LFG - house of horrors
player two: OMG go to dif house!
Player one: Want this one.
player two: U ded then
player one: lol yes! Come with!
Ghost Stories was kind of great from my perspective : players met, talked and helped each others on something that was unexpectedly hard for them individually. I truly don't know if the original intended design was solo or multi or multi that has been downgraded to solo because of the "age" of the instance. (multi starts from 2 for me)
We are diverging in mindset you and me, and maybe you are right and it's my mistake to still have this sort of "oldschool" way engraved in my brain, but I will keep thinking in a MMORPG the basic intention is players playing with each others, and a happy community of MMORPG players is not a community where we are playing separately parallelly solo, in a self-centered experience, pushing for things we can't do alone to be fixed and to make them solo-able.
Dungeons and such are where group play is expected to be necessary.
I'd personally like to see those short instances have scaling/difficulty rating based on the size of the party that enters, in order to keep them interesting.
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
I just did Ghost Stories today. It is very brutal for a casual player. I got through it but was defeated three times. I'm not certain if the whole issue is scaling or if it also something broken with mobs. The Blackdragon Claws are a little OP. I have no problem with the 'Rage' form, but there should be a timer on that like the barbarian as they remain that way for the duration. I do notice that after heading back after doing the campfire "run of shame" that they are reverted back so there is a reset involved somewhere when the PC is defeated. I also think the ones with the bows are hitting unusually hard, but I cannot say if that was me just not getting out of the way or if they are just overtuned.
You die alot! and there is a great deal of jogging but I have a female drow rouge assassin so she has two dirks. any way I make it a habit to murderhobo and as such I find my sell coming back alive next to the sales person who sells the good stuff that is really the crappy stuff but it's blue not green and is the same level then any thing you'll get in the zone. so you die alot you go through the same mobs and you buy a piece of armor every time you get 5 zone coins 5 for helm 5 for boots you get the idea helps out in the end facing the boos as you already have better gear then whats in the chest your killing theme for.
Not my first rodeo when did world of warcraft come out? 2004? doohh I digress again bad Xelphen.
Don't know if your near my leave but the potions at the vendors changes not good for a murder assassin hobo. up side you like tinkering with the crafting the workshop to the rescue. I don't know if I am doing it right but I have one of each and there all near 16 as I am doing the first quest to up grade. any who the alchemy person make healing potions yea awesome anyways kind of fun to watch tv and sit there bossing people around or buy the goods of the vendor to make stuff and collect it no more running around gathering pretty cool remember thousands of hours doing that mind numb task just to make junk to sell for good bla bla bla.
the big mobs you just hit turn and run turn hit run if you can LOL some times thats not an option but this only works if you can out run you companion yep the medic hes fishing chum half if not all the mob well attack them and I have never had mine die so far. I giggle when its the tank he is so annoying where as the medic is funny weird I am.
I get where your coming from with the extremely complicated top end I am only a week or so in and I am like yea no I mean world of warcraft turned in to a second and third job and it sucked all the joy out of playing so I quite. they were just phoning it in on the last couple expanses right around the panda one then the garrison oh boy second job space demons after the third job arrggg. so not really holding any hope for this one nickle and dime you to the poor house to the point your invested so deep it's near impossible to walk away and you become one of those hard core not fun to play with people like on world of warcraft. dungeon runners or the PVP people.
so kick back and enjoy what you like the workshops a thinker and you plan ahead keeps the gray matter sparking.
dooo deeee doo I am going to take a nap I been up all night killing. weird you can have a drow but not a troll I miss my troll she was awesome neon purple hair two handed axes one in each hand they fears me on the PVP field yep good times. zooom zooom poof. =P