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Status of the game, economy, and level progression.
argantis
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
I have been a long time MMO player, a fan of fantasy fiction, and a PnP player since the days of Red Box. From UO in the MMO genera, to the gold box SSI games, to the old DnD game for the Intellivision. I am a lifetime consumer of products such as Neverwinter, along with a veteran MMO player that has been in several exclusive beta programs and seen the life span of the most popular MMO to date, the almighty, but dwindling, WoW. Giants have come and gone before then. The aforementioned UO, along with EQ and DAoC and others. Thus far Cryptic has yet to make a mark and leave their footprint. Sure there is some folks from the old CoX days. But those days are long gone, and Cryptic is hardly the same entity. With this in mind, I have some things to say.
First, please Cryptic, Jack, Andy, powers that be above you at PWE, do NOT fall into the quarterly earnings report trap. Do not be so set on financial goals that you lose site of what makes your product sell. The customer. I think you guys do a pretty good job of this, but I just wanted to reiterate that you should never let your guard down, or get so full of yourselves, that you forget this.
Secondly, and on to specific game topics to Neverwinter, allow a self imposed, voluntary, wipe of player accounts. Put up a fresh shard at the end of open beta, where players that choose this option will have their accounts reset to any Zen purchased, and original pre-open beta account status. Make it so that players who choose this option have all of their account wiped and reset. All characters lost, erased, and access to the previous shards of Beholder, Dragon, and Mindflayer permanently locked out. Allow us legitimate players to choose a fresh, non exploited game to play in. Redo the early access for founders on this new shard for the official launch, and never, ever, merge it into the community of exploiters that currently exists in the game.
Third, there are three big issues that need to be addressed for the health of the game. One is the speed of character progression and leveling, another is the Foundry and making it a viable end game option, and the last is the PvP endgame.
On the character progression speed, it is just too fast. A player can power level a character in two to three days. This is just going to kill the longevity of the game if there is not a severe adjustment. Several issues come up with the leveling speed.
First, players do not really get to experience a zone. When you are done with it in a couple of hours everything feels very.... automated. It is like you are playing a robot character that you cannot invest any real emotion or care into while leveling. Being level 50 means nothing more than being level 10. They are both just speed bumps on the way to 60.
Another issue is that players do not really get to immerse and experience the content. There is no real point in building up a lower level character, because any gear acquired is only going to live a hour or so of playtime, if not less. Even the blue seal gear only lasts for a short time, measured in hours, not days or weeks. Without any real value to the gear, it makes it all seems very superficial.
There is also a severe lack of ability to actually play content at any given level. If you PvP or Foundry, you will quickly out level the skirmish and dungeon delve queuing system. Even if you have several bad groups that cannot complete a dungeon, you may out level the ability to queue. With no sidekick system, or ability to queue with out of level players, it makes it a very tedious system that penalizes players who want to explore the Foundry or PvP while leveling. Player experience should be about 20 percent of its current rate, or at the least, the ability to toggle XP gain needs to be implemented into the game if a sidekick system is not in the works.
In the end, fast character progression leads to less emotional investment of a player to the character they make, which will lead to players holding less long term interest in the game.
The Foundry issues not already mentioned relate to end game progression. Currently there is no real reward for running foundry content at level 60. You get no crafting nodes, only green gear drops, and the most you will get out of it is some AD for doing a daily quest turn in. Players that want to farm AD will opt for skirmishes much faster since both the rewards and AD gain per hour are much greater.
The first thing that needs to be done is to allow players to put skirmish and delve bosses into the Foundry missions. I realize the concern of gear farming here by players creating boss only type of missions. To counter this a second resource system needs to be put into the Foundry. It would be a simple X to the Y = Z system where players need to put in X amount of trash mobs, to the amount of Y quantity, to = the amount of Boss Monster resources they are allowed to spend in their missions. These bosses need to be full on with appropriate level blue drops. So players that want to take on a level 60 version of Vansi Bloodscar in a Foundry mission can get some level 60 blue gear from defeating her.
Next, there needs to be an epic toggle for Foundry missions. I can understand keeping the dropped gear from bosses exclusive to the Cryptic developed content. This will provide the incentive for players to farm them for those specific pieces. However, the foundry could allow the earning of Unicorn and Drake Seals at a reduced rate, along with a random piece of Unicorn or Drake gear in an end chest during specific event times. Very much like the epic dungeons currently do during the dungeon delve events. Allow the player a chance to get a piece of that Unicorn or Drake gear from a special end chest that is only active during dungeon delve event time in a Foundry Epic Dungeon. There could also be a chance to get blue gear instead such as can currently happen in the Cyptic developed content.
Lastly, there needs to be some sort of system of auto populating the maps with crafting nodes. Or at the very least a special end chest in Foundry missions that also award crafting resources based on the average time spent in the mission. You could even put a small chance to pull a crafting pack from it during the crafting bonus events.
The above changes to the Foundry would allow it to be a true end game option for players to run. Right now, it is just a novelty, because in the end game there is only gear and crafting progression and currently the foundry offers none of that. On top of that, the lack of true bosses in the Foundry content makes everything seem pretty... limited and vanilla.
The last issues with PvP. First of all there needs to be more missions. Take a page form the shooter games to start with. Add in Team Death Match and Demolition styles of missions. Domination is fun, but boring. If you want to spice up domination, put in a pyramid style of map that has three factions all vying for control of four points. The home bases on the points of the triangle would only be worth minor point gain for the match win, but a mid point, a "king of the mountain" style of control point, would be worth major points if any one faction could control it.
Secondly, there needs to be a full set of PvP gear, and it needs to match the same kind of gear ratings that Epic Dungeon gear does. With the types of survival bonus on PvP gear, not too many players are going to want to wear it in PvE content. There is no harm in making a full set of gear, rings, neck, waist, and all available. The current gear is a partial tier one equivalent at best. PvE players should never, ever, walk into PvP with an advantage over those who are dedicated to PvP. Right now tier two and three players have pretty significant advantages, not to mention the players that farm purple PvE gear for the missing slots that PvP has none for.
Listen to your customers Cryptic, remember, the keys to the car are in our hands now...
First, please Cryptic, Jack, Andy, powers that be above you at PWE, do NOT fall into the quarterly earnings report trap. Do not be so set on financial goals that you lose site of what makes your product sell. The customer. I think you guys do a pretty good job of this, but I just wanted to reiterate that you should never let your guard down, or get so full of yourselves, that you forget this.
Secondly, and on to specific game topics to Neverwinter, allow a self imposed, voluntary, wipe of player accounts. Put up a fresh shard at the end of open beta, where players that choose this option will have their accounts reset to any Zen purchased, and original pre-open beta account status. Make it so that players who choose this option have all of their account wiped and reset. All characters lost, erased, and access to the previous shards of Beholder, Dragon, and Mindflayer permanently locked out. Allow us legitimate players to choose a fresh, non exploited game to play in. Redo the early access for founders on this new shard for the official launch, and never, ever, merge it into the community of exploiters that currently exists in the game.
Third, there are three big issues that need to be addressed for the health of the game. One is the speed of character progression and leveling, another is the Foundry and making it a viable end game option, and the last is the PvP endgame.
On the character progression speed, it is just too fast. A player can power level a character in two to three days. This is just going to kill the longevity of the game if there is not a severe adjustment. Several issues come up with the leveling speed.
First, players do not really get to experience a zone. When you are done with it in a couple of hours everything feels very.... automated. It is like you are playing a robot character that you cannot invest any real emotion or care into while leveling. Being level 50 means nothing more than being level 10. They are both just speed bumps on the way to 60.
Another issue is that players do not really get to immerse and experience the content. There is no real point in building up a lower level character, because any gear acquired is only going to live a hour or so of playtime, if not less. Even the blue seal gear only lasts for a short time, measured in hours, not days or weeks. Without any real value to the gear, it makes it all seems very superficial.
There is also a severe lack of ability to actually play content at any given level. If you PvP or Foundry, you will quickly out level the skirmish and dungeon delve queuing system. Even if you have several bad groups that cannot complete a dungeon, you may out level the ability to queue. With no sidekick system, or ability to queue with out of level players, it makes it a very tedious system that penalizes players who want to explore the Foundry or PvP while leveling. Player experience should be about 20 percent of its current rate, or at the least, the ability to toggle XP gain needs to be implemented into the game if a sidekick system is not in the works.
In the end, fast character progression leads to less emotional investment of a player to the character they make, which will lead to players holding less long term interest in the game.
The Foundry issues not already mentioned relate to end game progression. Currently there is no real reward for running foundry content at level 60. You get no crafting nodes, only green gear drops, and the most you will get out of it is some AD for doing a daily quest turn in. Players that want to farm AD will opt for skirmishes much faster since both the rewards and AD gain per hour are much greater.
The first thing that needs to be done is to allow players to put skirmish and delve bosses into the Foundry missions. I realize the concern of gear farming here by players creating boss only type of missions. To counter this a second resource system needs to be put into the Foundry. It would be a simple X to the Y = Z system where players need to put in X amount of trash mobs, to the amount of Y quantity, to = the amount of Boss Monster resources they are allowed to spend in their missions. These bosses need to be full on with appropriate level blue drops. So players that want to take on a level 60 version of Vansi Bloodscar in a Foundry mission can get some level 60 blue gear from defeating her.
Next, there needs to be an epic toggle for Foundry missions. I can understand keeping the dropped gear from bosses exclusive to the Cryptic developed content. This will provide the incentive for players to farm them for those specific pieces. However, the foundry could allow the earning of Unicorn and Drake Seals at a reduced rate, along with a random piece of Unicorn or Drake gear in an end chest during specific event times. Very much like the epic dungeons currently do during the dungeon delve events. Allow the player a chance to get a piece of that Unicorn or Drake gear from a special end chest that is only active during dungeon delve event time in a Foundry Epic Dungeon. There could also be a chance to get blue gear instead such as can currently happen in the Cyptic developed content.
Lastly, there needs to be some sort of system of auto populating the maps with crafting nodes. Or at the very least a special end chest in Foundry missions that also award crafting resources based on the average time spent in the mission. You could even put a small chance to pull a crafting pack from it during the crafting bonus events.
The above changes to the Foundry would allow it to be a true end game option for players to run. Right now, it is just a novelty, because in the end game there is only gear and crafting progression and currently the foundry offers none of that. On top of that, the lack of true bosses in the Foundry content makes everything seem pretty... limited and vanilla.
The last issues with PvP. First of all there needs to be more missions. Take a page form the shooter games to start with. Add in Team Death Match and Demolition styles of missions. Domination is fun, but boring. If you want to spice up domination, put in a pyramid style of map that has three factions all vying for control of four points. The home bases on the points of the triangle would only be worth minor point gain for the match win, but a mid point, a "king of the mountain" style of control point, would be worth major points if any one faction could control it.
Secondly, there needs to be a full set of PvP gear, and it needs to match the same kind of gear ratings that Epic Dungeon gear does. With the types of survival bonus on PvP gear, not too many players are going to want to wear it in PvE content. There is no harm in making a full set of gear, rings, neck, waist, and all available. The current gear is a partial tier one equivalent at best. PvE players should never, ever, walk into PvP with an advantage over those who are dedicated to PvP. Right now tier two and three players have pretty significant advantages, not to mention the players that farm purple PvE gear for the missing slots that PvP has none for.
Listen to your customers Cryptic, remember, the keys to the car are in our hands now...
Post edited by argantis on
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As a fellow long term PnP and MMO player, the above seems pretty accurate. I would add to that, that there needs to be more armor and weapon skins in-game as well. Not only does a new piece of equipment have a failry short shelf life, the equipment that replaces it, ussually looks just like it.
Neverwinter has the makings of a really great game after some polish, despite what many have expressed as a significant deviation from the DnD titles they are used to. But I think a common mistake that developers make is thinking world-centric, as opposed to player-centric. As the OP noted, emotional investment in a player's character is what keeps them playing.
A few more art assets and tools in-game (not just in the Zen Store) for player expression would really go far.