Protector's Jubelee - 10th Anniversary Abject Failure

khol · June 2023

What was supposed to be a "Momentus Occasion" in the annuls of Neverwinter, has been nothing but an abject failure. It has been either Broken or Bug ridden since it dropped on day 1 and continues to be plagued by problems. Anything legendary of mythic (Insigs/Motes) needs a miracle to be found. I've been told by numerous players that they've opened in excess of 1000 bounties without an item of this nature. From a personal experience, I've open several hundred to no avail. Something as simple as "Fetch Quests" like the parade horses and party boxes are proving to be hit or miss at best, if they work properly at all. Party boxes was supposed to have been fixed after the 1st day of the event, but that appears to have done little or NOTHING to fix the problem. The event skirmish is plagued by bugs, with the most notable being the "Bloodforge" version. You kill the miniboss then destroy the forge, only for the forge to reappear as if you did nothing. This has happened to me a number of times. Also, with the amount of "Lag" and "Rubber banding" happening during these skirmishes it's amazing people don't just abandon them. Personally, I've completed the skirmish and handed them in to Elminster for the completion reward only for the quest to reappear as if I haven't completed it at all.

From what I'm hearing, what I've posted here is only "Scratching the Surface" of the problems associated with this event.

khol · June 2023

In addition to the above comments, The "Merchant Protection" aspect of the event is another point of concern. Those players who choose to participate are rewarded with between 3-8 Bounties. Those who choose to "CAMP OUT" are still getting the same rewards. This has been a point of concern since the inception of the Merchant Protection part of the event and it seems the dev's either "DON"T CARE" about this problem or are incapable of creating a fix for this issue.

trinity706 · June 2023

khol#0753 said:
Those players who choose to participate are rewarded with between 3-8 Bounties. Those who choose to "CAMP OUT" are still getting the same rewards. This has been a point of concern since the inception of the Merchant Protection

Exactly. It's wild how many potential rewards simply from AFK'ing and the merchant getting killed at the end with multiple characters by the campfire...

Not sure why they won't make the merchant escort so it is not beneficial to AFK'ers. Hell, they tend to make the game much harder for everyone BUT the AFKers (lol).

Suggestions To Reduce Merchant Encounter AFK Benefit:

Have the merchant encounter function similar to a skirmish (behind the scenes).
The start of the encounter is the first "phase" and each scripted merchant stop begins another "phase".
Damage/defeat mobs within the purple "general area" to gain "points".
Damage/defeat mobs within the merchant's "gold circle" to gain "bonus points" (general + gold area).
More points equal more protector's bounty boxes.
If you don't actively escort the merchant from start to finish (score across multiple phases) it will be reflected in your rewards (minimum of 1 bounty box reward for simply participating/only scoring in the last phase?).
Don't necessarily have to show any results at the end, just use the data that would be shown to calculate rewards.

This 10 year Protector's Jubilee event feels quite lackluster. You would think that going a bit out, if not all out would have been on the menu though sadly it doesn't seem to be the case, more like an AFK'ers paradise.

fritz · June 2023

Or you know, you could have left the Merchant as it was and giving drops from killed mobs along the way. AFKers still get a couple Bounties at the end, but it was much more effective to actively participate in the escort.

What I think is they overthought stuff as always. They wanted to combat AFK by turning the escort into a HE and have access to the participation threshold mechanic. Turns out the threshold was wayyyyyyy to restrictive and wasn't working for utility classes at all. Hence they did the 180, now everybody gets credit who touches the HE. Thus it's even more beneficial to AFKers, who suddenly get more Bounties than under the old system.

trinity706 · June 2023

They should have left well enough alone without testing the changes first.

They keep trying to fix things with coding rather than occasionally using good ole "boots on the ground" moderation where it can immediately be effective.

Have a few in-game GM's go invisible during an event such as this, server hop, witness players that are AFK farming and take out the trash using temporary bans (30 mins > 1hr > 2hr > Etc.). Over a brief amount of time 40+ instances with let's say 50% AFK farmers can be cut down to 20+ while leaving room for players to form proper farm instances without leeching (or as much).

mintmark · June 2023

Today, the "come back tomorrow" step in the 10th anniversary quest (from yesterday) did not complete until after I had done an RTQ. I had already done some jubilee quests and the protector's speech, but they didn't count towards today's quest steps, so I had to do them again.

Just in case i happens to someone else...

Hopefully, tomorrow will be the fifth day.

hadestemplar · June 2023

trinity706#8838 said:
They should have left well enough alone without testing the changes first.

They keep trying to fix things with coding rather than occasionally using good ole "boots on the ground" moderation where it can immediately be effective.

Have a few in-game GM's go invisible during an event such as this, server hop, witness players that are AFK farming and take out the trash using temporary bans (30 mins > 1hr > 2hr > Etc.). Over a brief amount of time 40+ instances with let's say 50% AFK farmers can be cut down to 20+ while leaving room for players to form proper farm instances without leeching (or as much).

Keep old version? I would not agree on that, cuz previous version was more an extortion than escort.

The old mechanic was that. Player "protected" merchant from creatures/enemies.. Once any of them( enemy) step in Merchants range( yellow aura), it stops and wait till players wipe enemies. Once it's done they get rewarded. If during escort no creatures/enemies cross the path, system will spawn them.

Now what you do if want highest quantaty of rewards from this event?? You do extortion. On purpose lure various enemies/creatures in to merchants aura/area.. Which stop him, and once you wipe enemies, you get rewarded.

In stronghold if I do normal ( intended) way, I get one reward, but if do extortion, I get double or tripple reward..
But stronghold is not only place you do merchant escort. and this extortion worked in all areas..

Now rewarding those who do dmg.. Ok.. So what's about tanks? Healers?? Have you forgot them?
Other thing, nailing AFK players.. What if there is guy who simply went AFK for moment, to grab something to drink.. GM have to ban him too?? As you can see that idea would not work.
On top of that, in all areas all creatures/enemies are too weak, so only one dps wipe them all, while rest of players who participated in escort gets minimal rewards. So what's gona happen?? /follow_ ( main/dps guy). and you can go AFK..

In order to trully fix this issue. It need to split this event in two groups and also moved to other/new areas.
Or even create new temp event purpose instance.

The split should be for like players bellow 55k IL and players who are above 55k IL..

Then add Demonic Heroic encounters mechanic. More players participate = more and stronger enemies appear, and thus also increase reward rates.

Also if it's would be in seprate /event purpose instance, then add multiple routes with multiple ending spots.. And routes should change randomly.. I mean you got in one path while first two escorts merchant turned left, now it do turn to right side and move to other path..

Reason of doing it is simple..

The current events escort path is same. So players know where enemies will spawn, and lot of players precast their abilites. And most of enemies dies in same moment they spawn.. Other thing, since it's same and haven't change ( route wise), it's not hard to set up bot to do farming for you.. And yes there are still those who do use them..

rockster · June 2023

khol#0753 said:
The event skirmish is plagued by bugs, with the most notable being the "Bloodforge" version. You kill the miniboss then destroy the forge, only for the forge to reappear as if you did nothing. This has happened to me a number of times.

I have been running behind the bloodforge itself, ignoring everything else and just hitting the sht out of it and killing it and it seems to work that way, once dead stays dead.

The one gripe I've got about the Protector's Speech generally is that they've re-worked it to be much harder, the mobs hit like trucks and it's extremely hard not to die. Even on a mid 70's character with maxed defense. And it's un-scaled too as far as I can recall. This event was supposed to be a fun frolic and was easy to complete for the whole life of the game but suddenly out of nowhere for the 10th anniversary they've seen fit to tweak it and make it much harder to survive, so thanks a lot Devs for making it more of a chore and less fun than it used to be.

trinity706 · June 2023

hadestemplar#9918 said:
Keep old version? I would not agree on that, cuz previous version was more an extortion than escort.

Although bringing in additional mobs from the surrounding areas, defeating them close to the merchant and getting rewards from them as well may have been unintended by the devs, fair enough, though the old version overall rewarded players for their efforts and the AFK'ers got minimum rewards for doing nothing but sitting at the end. What could simply have been done in the old version was change it to where rewards would drop only from the "ambush" enemies, which would have inclined players to clear the areas ahead of and around the path of the merchant to make room for the ambush enemies to periodically spawn. AFK'ers would still get minimum rewards and players that actively escorted the merchant would get rewarded as "intended" (personally not sure if increased rewards from bringing in additional enemies was unintended, hell, essentially all the merchant knew was that he was being protected and was showing his gratitude lol).

hadestemplar#9918 said:
Now rewarding those who do dmg.. Ok.. So what's about tanks? Healers?? Have you forgot them?

You do know healers and tanks do damage as well right? Their companions can do damage as well which counts as their damage... The suggestion is to grant points for damaging/defeating enemies anywhere within the purple area (which is quite large and includes areas not directly on the path of the merchant) and additional points for damaging/defeating enemies within the gold circle around the merchant. If a healer/tank sees or feels that they are not getting credit (no damage numbers because there is high DPS defeating the enemies) they can go for nearby enemies off the path and still get points from them. Again, the suggested system is simply about players actively escorting the merchant (gaining points) across multiple "phases" which will determine if a player gets rewards or not and AFK'ers will only get one box if any at all. Personally feel players that AFK the merchant encounter should get nothing at all though personally not against granting 1 box for simply being present (someone could show up late to the instance who does not intend to AFK).

hadestemplar#9918 said:
Other thing, nailing AFK players.. What if there is guy who simply went AFK for moment, to grab something to drink.. GM have to ban him too?? As you can see that idea would not work.

There's a difference between a character sitting AFK for a few minutes then begins participating and a character that sits AFK for 10, 20, 30+ minutes or hours yet all the while they are getting rewarded for doing absolutely nothing other than taking up an instance slot and being rewarded the same as those actively escorting the merchant.

AFK farming the merchant event actually IS extortion because the legitimate players have a choice either not to escort the merchant and not receive any rewards or escort the merchant and the AFK'ers get rewarded as well. Have personally jumped between dozens and dozens of instances and have yet to come across any where there wasn't at least one AFK character.

Whens there's a big commotion going on policy enforcers for the most part don't sit there and try to figure out each and every person who is offending, they might give a warning or two before they start spraying mace which is supposed to affect everyone to try and gain control over the situation. The "what ifs" about why a character is AFK is not point, the point is there are large amounts of players AFK farming the merchant event, gaining rewards and it is negatively impacting the legitimate players. In an instance of 10 players, if you have 6 AFK at the campfire that leaves 4 players to escort the merchant, now multiply that by 50 instances... That's 300 AFK, potentially reward receiving characters and 200 characters doing all the work...

If a player has any notion that they may be AFK (especially for a considerable amount of time) they can take a few seconds, log out and be safe, go get a drink, food, check on whatever, etc. This same thing came up in another thread. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette and temporarily banning some players here and there for 30 mins (or more) with the premise of making things better for non-AFK players is not the end of the world. The point is AFK farming is against the ToS is it not? Whether your character is sitting AFK because you are being lazy or your house is on fire, the effect is still the same, gaining rewards by doing nothing while others do the work.

Personally took a larger, more involved suggestion:

- Add a auto-repeatable quest (not sharable and can only be picked up in Protector's Enclave) that activates the functions of the following (those without the quest prior to its start will be unable to interact with the Merchant escort Heroic Encounter).
- A stacking debuff for being AFK that will eventually kill AFK characters (stacks at a reasonable rate).

Similar to the one in Demogorgon where you have to cleanse it via standing inside a special area that hops around.
At a designated stack amount the character will not receive further rewards until the debuff is removed.

- Make the mobs that spawn more difficult to defeat (The Protector's Speech skirmish was made more difficult, keep that same energy).
- Spawn a boss at the end of the path when the Heroic Encounter starts.

The boss is invisible and immune to all damage until the merchant gets close (so that the merchant can be "surprised" when it appears).
The boss has a large AoE range.

- Have the encounter function to similar to how the zone contests used to though also function like a phased skirmish.

Each merchant stop is a "phase", so if you don't actively escort the merchant from start to finish it will be reflected in your rewards (if any).
Damage/defeat mobs to gain "points".
More points equal more rewards.

and reduced it down to something simpler and that pretty much already exists in the games coding:
- Zone contests that used to happen periodically in particular zones. For example Fire Catcher!

the Merchant Heroic Encounter would be the "contest".
points would be granted for damaging/defeating mobs inside the large purple area (may require additional coding).
additional points would be granted for damaging/defeating mobs inside the gold area around the merchant (may require additional coding).
there would be no scoreboard or "winner", just rewards for consistent participation.
players don't have to be on a DPS class to get points/rewards.

- Skirmishes with phases

each Merchant stop would start a new phase that isn't announced (if you are near the Merchant you will know what is going on anyway).
points gained across multiple/all phases would ensure rewards upon completion of the encounter.
AFK'ing would result in 0-1 reward.

trinity706 · June 2023

rockster#6227 said:
This event was supposed to be a fun frolic and was easy to complete for the whole life of the game but suddenly out of nowhere for the 10th anniversary they've seen fit to tweak it and make it much harder to survive, so thanks a lot Devs for making it more of a chore and less fun than it used to be.

You KNOW they weren't coming up off that 30 day VIP voucher easily (lol)

rockster · June 2023

I think it's more they like justifying their paychecks by fiddling with things which should never be touched and putting their own fingerprint on it.

trinity706 · June 2023

Wouldn't put it past them.

Wonder how far staff get that care about the player base...

rockster · June 2023

Well I was thinking when doing this skirmish yesterday and we were constantly all bunched in corners with nowhere to get out of the red, that whoever was responsible for placing the mobs and main targets apparently doesn't play the game themselves. Some of those locations are entirely unsuitable in those tight little trapped-off corners for trying to deal with mobs and kill a main target at the same time, especially for melee classes.

hadestemplar · June 2023

trinity706#8838 said:

hadestemplar#9918 said:
Now rewarding those who do dmg.. Ok.. So what's about tanks? Healers?? Have you forgot them?
You do know healers and tanks do damage as well right? Their companions can do damage as well which counts as their damage... The suggestion is to grant points for damaging/defeating enemies anywhere within the purple area (which is quite large and includes areas not directly on the path of the merchant) and additional points for damaging/defeating enemies within the gold circle around the merchant. If a healer/tank sees or feels that they are not getting credit (no damage numbers because there is high DPS defeating the enemies) they can go for nearby enemies off the path and still get points from them. Again, the suggested system is simply about players actively escorting the merchant (gaining points) across multiple "phases" which will determine if a player gets rewards or not and AFK'ers will only get one box if any at all. Personally feel players that AFK the merchant encounter should get nothing at all though personally not against granting 1 box for simply being present (someone could show up late to the instance who does not intend to AFK).

Not gona go in details but simply expain current issue with rewarding those who dps..

Current enemies/creatures are too weak.. Since all path is same all time. Players know where all enemies are or where to spawn.. So they preceast their abilites..
I give you quick example.. When group of enemies spawn, before warlock finish cast Hellfire ring encounter all of them are already dead.

now.. take group of players.. Good luck for everyone of them to land even one hit. Enough for rogue to precast The Path of the Blades. and that's it. All get wiped in moment thye had to spawn.. And I don't even talk about dps companions, they didn't even react what the h**l happened.
And I so in action, like 10 min ago..

So in the end whole group would follow merchant would had not receive any rewards. And counted as AFK guys..

And this how it where like for years. So clearly rewarding those who dps is not the best idea with current enemies dificulity..

plasticbat · June 2023

hadestemplar#9918 said:

trinity706#8838 said:

hadestemplar#9918 said:
Now rewarding those who do dmg.. Ok.. So what's about tanks? Healers?? Have you forgot them?
You do know healers and tanks do damage as well right? Their companions can do damage as well which counts as their damage... The suggestion is to grant points for damaging/defeating enemies anywhere within the purple area (which is quite large and includes areas not directly on the path of the merchant) and additional points for damaging/defeating enemies within the gold circle around the merchant. If a healer/tank sees or feels that they are not getting credit (no damage numbers because there is high DPS defeating the enemies) they can go for nearby enemies off the path and still get points from them. Again, the suggested system is simply about players actively escorting the merchant (gaining points) across multiple "phases" which will determine if a player gets rewards or not and AFK'ers will only get one box if any at all. Personally feel players that AFK the merchant encounter should get nothing at all though personally not against granting 1 box for simply being present (someone could show up late to the instance who does not intend to AFK).

Not gona go in details but simply expain current issue with rewarding those who dps..

Current enemies/creatures are too weak.. Since all path is same all time. Players know where all enemies are or where to spawn.. So they preceast their abilites..
I give you quick example.. When group of enemies spawn, before warlock finish cast Hellfire ring encounter all of them are already dead.

now.. take group of players.. Good luck for everyone of them to land even one hit. Enough for rogue to precast The Path of the Blades. and that's it. All get wiped in moment thye had to spawn.. And I don't even talk about dps companions, they didn't even react what the h**l happened.
And I so in action, like 10 min ago..

So in the end whole group would follow merchant would had not receive any rewards. And counted as AFK guys..

And this how it where like for years. So clearly rewarding those who dps is not the best idea with current enemies dificulity..

In the current setting (good or bad or ugly), positioning characters with decent companion in the various choke points and not moving will give everyone reward. Need a starter. After that, everyone will get a fair share of their hit chance. Basically, don't escort the whole path. Just escort in your designed area if needed. You can do your killing before and after the yellow ring comes.

trinity706 · June 2023

hadestemplar#9918 said:
Not gona go in details but simply expain current issue with rewarding those who dps..

trinity706#8838 said:
The suggestion is to grant points for damaging/defeating enemies anywhere within the purple area (which is quite large and includes areas not directly on the path of the merchant) and additional points for damaging/defeating enemies within the gold circle around the merchant. If a healer/tank sees or feels that they are not getting credit (no damage numbers because there is high DPS defeating the enemies) they can go for nearby enemies off the path and still get points from them. Again, the suggested system is simply about players actively escorting the merchant (gaining points) across multiple "phases" which will determine if a player gets rewards or not and AFK'ers will only get one box if any at all.

Not sure what is hard to understand about the suggestion.

trinity706#8838 said:
there would be no scoreboard or "winner", just rewards for consistent participation.

Enemies anywhere within the purple area will grant points. DPS classes that follow the merchant for the most part do not stray off the path and if they do, not by much. Those enemies around the corner? Far off in the distance? On another path where the merchant doesn't walk anywhere close to and players skip over? All will grant points. Doesn't matter if you are a Cleric or a Paladin, you damage or defeat an enemy, you get points, you don't damage or defeat any enemies, you get nothing.

irene · June 2023

Actually I see it as an indirect success haha.
- The afk people worked with the few who escorted and together they profit. Teamwork beats more work.
- The coal and other premium items are very rare drops, so not everyone can farm them and destroy the economy.
- There are many 'trade' request where they shared 99 hospitalities
- Lots of people log in and play, result in lag and rubberbanding
- The skirmish system allows any party - even a lv5 is allowed to experience the fun

- low dps group face the issue of a building destroy struggle. It's not really a broken system, it's that the dps is.. low..

Protector's Jubelee - 10th Anniversary Abject Failure

Comments