Sharandar ep2 - Visually very nice but on the other hand ...

blackmagid · April 2021

I am really missing comms between the devs and the player base .., I really miss being able to see patch notes posted on preview before they went live, CDP ideas, road maps and to be honest - engagement from the devs with the community. This game now feels very hollow. a very one sided relationship to be honest - hope this changes course very quickly,

Thanks
Magi

armadeonx · April 2021

Totally agree, but I'm starting to hear rumours of things happening within Cryptic itself... Good things? Only time will tell.

hadestemplar · April 2021

blackmagid said:
I am really missing comms between the devs and the player base .., I really miss being able to see patch notes posted on preview before they went live, CDP ideas, road maps and to be honest - engagement from the devs with the community. This game now feels very hollow. a very one sided relationship to be honest - hope this changes course very quickly,

Thanks
Magi

It's good when there are chatting with devs/players.

However staff a lot of work to do, not just add new content but also rework previous content and also fix tons of gliches, some are are very old.

Other thing is that, most threads in forum went in similar path. Which is from reasonable talk and debates ends up in fights between player, and whole thread go fully offtopic.

So it's not suprise that staff staying out of this.

If you want chat with any developer, there is private messages..

As for visuals, indeed thats a big improvement.

sandukutupu · April 2021

I agree, I had some correspondence with Thomas Foss, back when he was the Lead Developer on Neverwinter. I congratulated him on the success of Ravenloft, and scolded him about canning the Foundry. He always had a positive response for me, regardless of my own mood or opinions. I no longer bother the man, since he is hard at work on Cryptic's 4th game and is not working on Neverwinter. Private messages are more personal and I never divulged any secrets he may have inadvertently let slip.

I don't know why people are laughing at your post @hadestemplar#9918 but the visuals are about the only improvement. If I were a Cryptic developer, I would be ducking the forums too. I really don't know, if the current NW team is as open to respond to personal messages these days.

mushellka · April 2021

sandukutupu said:

I don't know why people are laughing at your post @hadestemplar#9918

Becouse he said:

hadestemplar#9918 said:

However staff a lot of work to do, not just add new content but also rework previous content and also fix tons of gliches, some are are very old.

Unknown · April 2021

This content has been removed.

oktlryk · April 2021

Well sometimes, as in this case the whole reflection is distorted lol - so maybe its due to so many factors (like Lock Down) - but I can bet it will pick up well enough - if not soon - there's a lotta DnD going on right now and NW is in the right place at the right time! Looking forward to the new DnD Era! L8ER!

odanobunaga · April 2021

Sharandar is indeed visually nice, but the rest ... Just mindless grinding for diamond shards and not-BIS companion gear, at least for tanks. Sorry, but I have better things to do and there are better games where effort is actually rewarded.
The Vault of Stars is a challenging dungeon. Now if they would fix the flaws like the gardener's black ray showing up late and the Prince of Frost's broken AoE which rotates when it should stay static (Demogorgon had this error too after Mod 20 landed), then it would be even better.

cracklepants · April 2021

The visuals are nice, but it causes problems for many that play on systems with a standard graphics capabilities. If I use the "pretty" settings, the game is unplayable due to crashes, and now, if you play on lower settings, there are quest objectives that cannot be seen (gathering ingredients for the oil of insubstantiality) and some mobs that render very slowly. I would rather have playable than pretty (although I do appreciate the "pretty")

hadestemplar · April 2021

cracklepants#2252 said:
The visuals are nice, but it causes problems for many that play on systems with a standard graphics capabilities. If I use the "pretty" settings, the game is unplayable due to crashes, and now, if you play on lower settings, there are quest objectives that cannot be seen (gathering ingredients for the oil of insubstantiality) and some mobs that render very slowly. I would rather have playable than pretty (although I do appreciate the "pretty")

Just for curiousity, what kind system are you using? No need much in details. Just some basic stuffs would bre more than suficient.

cracklepants · April 2021

hadestemplar#9918 said:
Just for curiousity, what kind system are you using? No need much in details. Just some basic stuffs would bre more than suficient.

Older laptop with HD graphics and an i5 processor. It has worked well for the game up until about a year ago, and now I have to dial back the settings to avoid crashes. Shouldn't need to do that.

hotfrostworm · April 2021

cracklepants#2252 said:

hadestemplar#9918 said:
Just for curiousity, what kind system are you using? No need much in details. Just some basic stuffs would bre more than suficient.
Older laptop with HD graphics and an i5 processor. It has worked well for the game up until about a year ago, and now I have to dial back the settings to avoid crashes. Shouldn't need to do that.

Personally I work with WINE (Linux OS) and found the older the PC, the better it handles Neverwinter. This game is a real oddball when it comes to trying to sort out how to make it happy (function properly) between modules. For example; prior to module 18 it was operating at platinum rank (100% no errors) using Linux OS. After the module dropped we had to change it to gold rank (needs workarounds) due to a complete loss of the chat module between character swaps. It is my opinion, there is nothing to be missed in game chat, but my wife felt differently. So far nothing else has happened to lower the rank to silver or bronze.

I have been able to get it working on systems with as little as 2 GB of RAM and mobo GPU. It doesn't look pretty at that level, with a frame rate of 15, and in a windowed mode, I think you would rather play something else. However, I also have worked with Cryptic's Champions Online and it still operates on 32 bit systems, has no frame rate issues, and a Platinum rank. I know people want and need 64 bit and WINE can handle both and does very well with Windows apps in most cases. However Neverwinter is the definitive odd duck.

In my line of work, I also have to test programs in Windows 10 on this same computer. The performance of course is better, but the Windows OS eats a lot more RAM to make it work better. It would be improbable to get Windows 10 to even operate on a 2 GB system. My client was running this application on Windows 10 with 8 GB RAM, i7 core, with Nvidia 2GB RAM adapter. He was lagging, the frame rate was awful, the graphics deplorable. I added more RAM +8 GB and tweaked the OS (ok I nerfed the OS), after that he was in better shape. Prior to this he had no issues running Champions Online or Star Trek, both made by the same company and game engine.

With gaming, I always recommend additional RAM if it fits, is affordable, and you are not just buying it for the one game. You can also attempt to debloat the Windows OS. Seems pretty silly to do all of that work just for one game.

Otherwise you can download and install a light version of Linux OS (XFCE, LXDE, or Ubuntu OpenBox) most novice users are not going to notice much of a difference. Then install WINE to run additional windows programs. If you don't want to leave Windows 10, you can install Linux OS to a thumb drive and boot from USB. On my current machine, it takes about 90 seconds to 2 minutes to boot from a Live USB and only 30 seconds to boot from the SSD. Performance will still depend primarily on your hardware.

I really appreciate game companies who release in Linux OS, but I certainly don't expect that to happen here.

hadestemplar · April 2021

cracklepants#2252 said:

Older laptop with HD graphics and an i5 processor. It has worked well for the game up until about a year ago, and now I have to dial back the settings to avoid crashes. Shouldn't need to do that.

If you would tell me at least how old is your laptop, then I may guess which gen intel CPU your laptop have.. Cuz word older cpu can be various. From 2 or 3 years old or as far as first gen intel i5

Now here is thing,, when I started play Neverwinter online, I used laptop. Toshiba Satellite L750D-14E. I bought it in 2013.

Spec: AMD Quad-Core Processor A6-3400M APU ( first gen APU)
SInce it's APU, thats mean CPU and GPU are build on same chip. But it was slighly different than of Intel iGPU.

The CPU part : quad core, x4 threads( no multithreading). 1.4ghz, 2.3ghz turbo core.
The GPU part: AMD A6-3400M APU with Radeon™ HD 6520G

THe gpu where strong,, but problem lies in that as APU it shared same 6gb of DDR3-1333 mhz RAM pool.
And ddr3 are not the best option for gpu and it's tasks..

It took time, but I manage to run Neverwinter on this laptop. I had decent frame rates, and visuals while where not ultra high/max, it where not ultra low either.

Now if I manage to force that poor laptop handle this game before, I doubt that any current days or even 4 years old mid range laptops would have any issues to run Neverwinter.

But if happens it is some issues, then simply need look to how far it's possible to optimise it.

hotfrostworm · April 2021

@hadestemplar#9918 I don't know if you saw what I wrote, but as I stated, I think it is a matter of RAM and not the CPU. One person posted here years ago, before they made a core change from 32 to 64 bit, was running it on a Zotac micro PC. I could "juice" the setting up and have the system running about 3 frames per second with no doubt.

@cracklepants#2252 try messing with the render settings in chat. The slider is limited in the menus, but you can scale the setting in chat;
/renderscale 1.5
Is 150% scale and gives you a much sharper image.
/renderscale 0.75
Is 75% scale, image is fuzzy but the performance will improve.

These settings will trade off performance vs. image quality no matter what you have running. I don't recommend settings above 2 (200%) unless you want the PC to lock up. While it is hilarious you can try out 0.1 (10%) or run it in a windowed mode so tiny it looks like an old Gameboy!

lantern22 · April 2021

. . . . . but on the other hand, boring as hell.

cracklepants · April 2021

Mine is a 2011 Inspiron. i5 2410 2.3GHz with 6GB RAM. Worked perfectly up until about a year ago with the exception of CODG elevator.

There are games I don't play because they don't work with my system and I have no problem with that. The main problem I was addressing, was that in Sharandar part2, they have quest objectives that cannot be seen on lower settings. That is not ok.

hadestemplar · April 2021

hotfrostworm said:
@hadestemplar#9918 I don't know if you saw what I wrote, but as I stated, I think it is a matter of RAM and not the CPU. One person posted here years ago, before they made a core change from 32 to 64 bit, was running it on a Zotac micro PC. I could "juice" the setting up and have the system running about 3 frames per second with no doubt.

@cracklepants#2252 try messing with the render settings in chat. The slider is limited in the menus, but you can scale the setting in chat;
/renderscale 1.5
Is 150% scale and gives you a much sharper image.
/renderscale 0.75
Is 75% scale, image is fuzzy but the performance will improve.

These settings will trade off performance vs. image quality no matter what you have running. I don't recommend settings above 2 (200%) unless you want the PC to lock up. While it is hilarious you can try out 0.1 (10%) or run it in a windowed mode so tiny it looks like an old Gameboy!

Maybe it's problem due ram, maybe it's not..

No need to rush in conclusions.. Lot of times, game issues lies not in hardware but in software..

If software can't take advantage of your hardware, then even if you add more RAM, it may give no noticible difference.

callumf · April 2021

Not sure if this will help but I ran Neverwinter on a really old [ten years?] laptop [fast processor when it was bought] really happily until they released Soshenstar River.The laptop couldnt handle all the tree graphics. It literally would send the processor fan into overdrive.

Back on topic - its a boring RNG fest of a chapter in a module.

sandukutupu · April 2021

Assuming you are not deaf, they really messed up on the voice overs. Commander Riverwind has two voices for Part 1 and Part 2. This was not caused by hiring 2 VO artists, it is the same artist. They messed this up by not having him do ALL the dialog for all the chapters back to back. First the artist is asked to do a tough elvish commander, then 5 to 6 weeks later asked to do the same voice. It doesn't sound even remotely the same, as if the commander is suffering a personality disorder! This is Cryptic being cheap and not developing all the dialog for the VO artist to read the lines in the same day.

Just stopped in for patching, seems like we are done, see you this weekend.

pitshade · April 2021

The charmed victims you rescue in episode 1 and other NPCs have two audio tracks playing at the same time. It's all pretty much a mess.

The extremely limited and repetitive quests just kill episode 2. You do the story quest with the displacer beasts and then do it over and over as a repeatable quest. I had one character tonight that got 'blessed' with that repeatable 3 times while getting the weekly haul. The bits with the Night Hag are just sad - the fight itself is just hitting the boss while she spams powers, then sit there while your character is repeatedly stunned and your AP drained. The hit her some more and she leaves. It isn't even giving campaign currency. The episode consists of kill oni, then kill more oni and break their stuff, then fight some displacer beasts, then wait for more displacers to spawn because there are only so you can kill those. Oh, maybe go click on some trees.

hadestemplar · April 2021

callumf#9018 said:
Not sure if this will help but I ran Neverwinter on a really old [ten years?] laptop [fast processor when it was bought] really happily until they released Soshenstar River.The laptop couldnt handle all the tree graphics. It literally would send the processor fan into overdrive.

Back on topic - its a boring RNG fest of a chapter in a module.

In order to run Neverwinter you need GPU, if laptop had no dedicated thats mean you where used iGPU ( integrated GPU) ..
Now thing is that, when comes fast CPU 10 years ago, by defacto it where Intel core. So, I assume it's intel core line with intel iGPU, which sadly is not the best option to run games..

So what actually who may bottleneck your game performance is not CPU part, but iGPU..

Now in any case, there is one thing need to adress.. We all know neverwinter is not the best opimized game up to day.. Sadly , even games who;s by system requirement are more demanding, actually run way better than Neverwinter..

As example.. I have acer nitro 5 laptop.

CPU: Core i5-8300H quad core, 8 threads. 2.30 GHz, 4ghz turbo boost.
GPU: Dedicated NVidia GTX 1050 4GB GDDR5
RAM: 8 gb of DDR4 2400 Mhz
Storage: 1TB, 5400 RPM

Also I bought and installed Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB as prime( for OS and games)
Sequential Read 3,500 MB/s
Sequential Write 2,300 MB/s
Random Read 250,000 IOPS
Random Write 550,000 IOPS

So by spec In theory I should have little to no problem to run Neverwiner on max settings.. But sadly thats not how it is.

I had to turn off reflection and adjust shadows to minimal in game settings in order to get rid lag spikes and massive loads to laptop.

Now in comparison, though Black Desert online is way more demanding spec wise,, it cause way less problem for my laptop.

Thats clearly show difference in game engine optimaztions and capacities to take advantage of players hardware.

callumf · April 2021

hadestemplar#9918 said:

callumf#9018 said:
Not sure if this will help but I ran Neverwinter on a really old [ten years?] laptop [fast processor when it was bought] really happily until they released Soshenstar River.The laptop couldnt handle all the tree graphics. It literally would send the processor fan into overdrive.

Back on topic - its a boring RNG fest of a chapter in a module.
In order to run Neverwinter you need GPU, if laptop had no dedicated thats mean you where used iGPU ( integrated GPU) ..
Now thing is that, when comes fast CPU 10 years ago, by defacto it where Intel core. So, I assume it's intel core line with intel iGPU, which sadly is not the best option to run games..

So what actually who may bottleneck your game performance is not CPU part, but iGPU..

Now in any case, there is one thing need to adress.. We all know neverwinter is not the best opimized game up to day.. Sadly , even games who;s by system requirement are more demanding, actually run way better than Neverwinter..

As example.. I have acer nitro 5 laptop.

CPU: Core i5-8300H quad core, 8 threads. 2.30 GHz, 4ghz turbo boost.
GPU: Dedicated NVidia GTX 1050 4GB GDDR5
RAM: 8 gb of DDR4 2400 Mhz
Storage: 1TB, 5400 RPM

Also I bought and installed Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB as prime( for OS and games)
Sequential Read 3,500 MB/s
Sequential Write 2,300 MB/s
Random Read 250,000 IOPS
Random Write 550,000 IOPS

So by spec In theory I should have little to no problem to run Neverwiner on max settings.. But sadly thats not how it is.

I had to turn off reflection and adjust shadows to minimal in game settings in order to get rid lag spikes and massive loads to laptop.

Now in comparison, though Black Desert online is way more demanding spec wise,, it cause way less problem for my laptop.

Thats clearly show difference in game engine optimaztions and capacities to take advantage of players hardware.

Oh yeah I get that.

My point is that everything was fine before Soshenstar River. Something happened with that Mod.

My NW crashed a LOT and I mean a LOT, there were forum threads about it. There were comments on memory leakage. There were all sorts of problems. many workarounds were suggested, I put in tickets, others put in tickets, complaints continued over a couple of months until they dried out as players either left the game or upgraded hardware. There was definitely a "thing" that went wrong with that Mod, graphics wise.

sandukutupu · April 2021

callumf#9018 said:
My point is that everything was fine before Soshenstar River. Something happened with that Mod.

It seems that has happened again and again. Every time, I felt the game was running smoothly, they would introduce another patch or something, and it would break stuff they were not even working on elsewhere.

hadestemplar · April 2021

callumf#9018 said:

Oh yeah I get that.

My point is that everything was fine before Soshenstar River. Something happened with that Mod.

My NW crashed a LOT and I mean a LOT, there were forum threads about it. There were comments on memory leakage. There were all sorts of problems. many workarounds were suggested, I put in tickets, others put in tickets, complaints continued over a couple of months until they dried out as players either left the game or upgraded hardware. There was definitely a "thing" that went wrong with that Mod, graphics wise.

Well, the game issues with crashing started way before chult/Soshenstar River campaing release.

Now to understand why it happened and why it keep happening, need to remember some neverwinter history, more precise how game changed.

Now when I started play neverwinter in very early of mod 3, *( more less started play when it got released).

The main game concept where about dungeons, that is x5 players group.
Only Few big heroic encounters in Icewind dale campaing areas, and events like, Protecor Enclaves sieage where content which could bring multiple parties together.

So whole game, dungeon mechanics, content sizes, classes abilities and even campaing boons(legacy) where desing with in mid that game will be mainly about x5 players..

In mod 4, with Tyrany of Dragons campaing release, along warlocks class introduction, developers also added draconing Heroic encounters.

Neverdeath Graveyard Charthraxis
Ebon Downs Vartilingorix
Icespire Peak Merothrax
Rothé Valley Venfithar
Whispering Caverns Vilithrax

With it, it showed up that game become more problematic.. Lag spikes, disconnections become usual stuffs during these dragon fights..

Then in mod 5, it was added extension of campaing: Tyrany of dragons. Added well of dragon area and 25 players trial: Tiamat.

And ohh boy, all game weakness and falws was thrown in your face..

Power creep,, lag spikes, effect loops and etc, become usual thing during tiamat..

In first three months when tiamat got introduced, for Devouted Clerics( now clerics), where forbiden to use their at will called: Astral Seal.

Astral Seal. - Deal radiant damage to target enemy. For the next 9 seconds, whenever you or an ally damage the target you are healed. This effect may occur once every 4 seconds per ally.

If any cleric in tiamat used this at will, which caused effect loop, which caused massive send/receive pacages between server and players game client.
The quantity of send/receive pacages where so big,, to put in numbers would be like> Numbers where from one screen to other screen side.. In short, quantity of send/receive so high that number didn't fit in screen.

So most common outcome where, players got disconnected.. And unlike now,, there where no chance to bring players back.. Cuz only first 25 lucky ones may get in tiamat. Other could not.. And if someones game crashed, well good luck for the rest..

Thats why, since tiamat release, game have no larger scale content. Cuz mechanics, classes abilities and etc interaction between them started cause too massive lag spikes and game crashing..

But tiamat trial also show more than just game crashing and laging. It also clearly showed up the classes abilities stacking and effect loop issues..
Way latter when tiamat trial where added in private q list.. 25 clerics did tiamat.

And what they found is that multiple clerics by using own abilities, power sharing and buffs, caused loop of power creep. Now how high?

Clerics hit 3kkk,( yup billion) power. Even it was for moment, it clearly showed that classes desing where falwed..

Here is video where player hit 1kkk and players oneshoting tiamat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbg_wAfL4Qc

Now to be fair,, players at that time had no 100k power

but still due buff/debuff could push damage to insane level..

Thats why, since tiamat there are no larger scale pve content.. Even instances for all areas are limited to have max 25 or 20 players..

Pvp also suffered rather similar fate.. 5 vs 5 maybe ok.
10 vs 10. need strong internet and strong pc/laptop.
20 vs 20. good luck with this..

When guild war, 20 vs 20 where still in preview server, it was already considered as dead game feature.. The lag spikes where too massive most players to even participate in it.. Not mentioned if paladin with Aura ability walk in enemy team. Due his and other players legacy feats and boons interaction, he could kill anyone without doing anything.. The main fights where between feats and boons but not between players..

In mod 10, where I started play as Forgotten warlock build. Temptation.. Which used Aura of Despair feat.
In pvp, if there is no other players, my ping is low, no lag spikes.. Any other team player get in range of aura of despair, the ping becoem insane high and game start run with 3fps.. If me and other player land any hit.. Then ping goes out of scale, and either my game crash or I stand froze.

In mod 12 Tomb of Annihilation ( Soshenstar River/chult campaing). Devs tryed adress this issue and make some changes..

Though they fixed aura effects which cause massive send/recive pacages loop. The game still suffered lag spikes..
Eventually in mod 15 game hit barrier.. Effect/stat lopp and creep become meta, and lag spikes also become new game feature..

Why do you think in mod 16 devs cut all legacy feats and boons?? The game engine was unable to handle this load of code fights and loops.

And with each new feature adds extra load to engine, which sadly but can't handle much, so content removal and rework will become only possible way to add new content.

Unless Cryptic Studios, core team of software engineers who developed engine, would make miracle and rework engine.. But it's hardly possible, cuz same engine used for other games too..

hotfrostworm · April 2021

@hadestemplar#9918 You may want to start another thread, we seem to have derailed from how great module 20 visuals appear.

However, I have read other topics about players begging them to upgrade this game engine, it won't happen due to funding and budget constraints. You would have an easier time getting them to replace the engine with something cheaper. There are a lot of prefabricated 3D engines available, but then they have retrain staff, or train new staff, after they fire the old staff. Building from scratch costs a lot of scratch, in the terms of programmer's salaries. I suppose you could hire a staff of mercenaries (aka contractors) to do the job, but depending on the size of your team it could take years to complete it.

If I were to start such a project, I would go with a prefab engine, such as Amazon's Lumberyard or if I wanted proprietary rights, I would just fork an open source project, such as Blender and Armory3D. Then I would hire multiple contractors to work on it for the short term. Long term staff would be database engineers, 3D artists, and scripting coders. Once the engine is complete, don't monkey with it at all.

Unless something unique happens in this market, I don't see MMOs as being the cash cow they once were before. The money for playing games on Twitch and YouTube seems to be subsiding as well. I don't think the "gaming streamers" are making as much as they have in the past. Kind of like wanting to go pro in the NFL, every kid with a console and camera thinks they will be the next Richard "Ninja" Blevins. It is my opinion, not to set your goal to be the very best and make tons of cash. Just do it for fun, and if it happens, don't be a jerk about it.

Sharandar ep2 - Visually very nice but on the other hand ...

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