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An open letter to the Developers of Cryptic Studios.....
methuselas
Member Posts: 275 Arc User
First off, let me thank you for a great game. I’ve been playing MMOs since EQ started and NW is slowly becoming the one I love the most. I commend you for your efforts and in keeping your player base up to date when there are issues concerning the game. Being a developer myself, I know how hard it can be fixing bugs, working out kinks, doing game balancing, even though I work in the Art Department and not on the coding aspects.
However, for as much as I want to congratulate you on your efforts, the cons FAR outweigh the pros right now. I intend to summarize the major problems I’ve seen within the game, in groups, so it’s easier for you to realize just how game-breaking these problems truly are. I fear I may be long winded here, but this really is a positive post and I’d appreciate it if all the “fanbois” and “fangirls” (no chauvinists we!) could just keep quiet for a while. For all the b*tching and moaning we’ve seen on the forums about problems, you “fanbois” (and “girls”) that keep screaming, “shut up!”, “quit playing!” or “there’s always one!” are *NO* better than the people constantly complaining in a severely negative tone about things, especially since they typically have genuine grievance about the game. People reporting bugs, complaining about exploits, griping about game imbalance are part of the SOLUTION, whereas your constantly saying “Wow! Another whiner!” or whatever are part of the PROBLEM.
BUG REPORTS
Every time I find a bug, I go through the “trouble” of reporting it. Almost EVERY TIME, the bug reports fails, can’t be sent and tells me to send an email to customer service. What’s the point of sending a bug report, if it crashes and expects me to send a separate email, outside the game when the in-game system is apparently broken? I have tried at least 6 times to report that the Plate Gauntlet Lvl 6 Rare forging for the Platesmithing Profession shows an icon and a “reward” of Plate Boots, to no avail. I have noticed this over a week and I still can’t seem to get a bug report in, nor can I find it already listed. You seriously need to make the in-game bug reporting a priority, since the game is in Beta and these are things that need to be fixed, ASAP. You can’t fix bugs, if we can’t get bug reports.
GAME BALANCE
Dungeon Drops
This right here is the biggest annoyance and my (current) biggest complaint in the entire game. For this, I’m going to give you an example. Typically, when I play, I am in a party with my wife. We run dungeons ourselves and do surprisingly well, alone, ‘cos it’s a lot easier to deal with, doing it ourselves, rather than dealing with other, greedy “adventurers.” Sure, I’m going to have the “fanbois” and “girls” chime in to “get over it!”, “Get your own 5 party for it!” or whatever, but the fact is, this is a *BAD* problem in the game.
Earlier today, she and I decided we wanted to run the Mad Dragon Dungeon. We joined a random group that consisted of my Guardian Fighter, her Rogue, another Guardian Fighter and Rogue, plus a Great Weapon Fighter. Now, she and I had learned, very quickly that when you run in a party of people you don’t know, humanity’s selfish nature comes out, garnering us to “Need” any items that are specifically GF or TR related. We don’t have a choice either, ‘cos of how poorly loot drops are coded. Most of the time, however, the rest of the group chooses to “Greed” on everything. That kind of comes with the territory, which is why we prefer dungeon delving alone.
So, as we’re running this dungeon, I started to notice I was losing items to the other Rogue, so I checked the chat box, noticing they were choosing to “Greed” everything (go figure….) Anyway, during a fight, there was a Rare Long sword drop. I chose “Need” on it (since I did need it), my wife chose “Need” as well, since we live together, we were already commenting on how skewed the drops were going to this other Rogue. Since I started playing this was the FIRST rare loot drop I had ever encountered, pertaining to my class. Any other rare items that dropped, were for other classes and I would pass on them, especially if I had a teammate (notice the word, “team” there) who could use it.
The other Rogue, however, chose “Greed” once again and won. At this point, I tell her (It was a female character, so I assume she was female) how she should give me that item, since I can use it, it was a Guardian Fighter weapon and her being a Rogue, she couldn’t use it. That’s when I heard the most asinine and ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in an MMO, ever:
”I need it for my other character.”
I won’t even get into the fact it’s near impossible to “trade” items between multiple characters on the same account, meaning this person was either using two computers for the same account, or has multiple accounts, which in itself, is ridiculous (it also shows how cheap a person can be, creating a second or more account, rather than spend money to purchase multiple character slots.) Thankfully, one of the other members of the party, the Great Weapon Fighter, had my back and pointed out that the Rogue’s “other” character wasn’t with us, helping run the dungeon, earning the drops we were getting and therefore, the Rogue Player didn’t “need” it. Rather than be a better person, the Rogue chose to run off and attack other monsters, ignoring us completely. After the said fight, she realized that the other two members of our party, the other Guardian Fighter and Great Weapon Fighter, chose to drop the party, rather than deal with selfish players. At this point, the person feigns shock, as to why they would ditch us, leading both my wife and I to rip into the selfish nature of the other Rogue, pointing out they were constantly choosing to “Greed” every drop. We, too, chose to drop the dungeon ourselves, not wanting to deal with such selfish actions, either. After we dropped the dungeon delve, I checked the logs and of approximately 15 dropped items, the said Rogue chose “Greed” on every one and won NINE. I, however, only won a single loot drop and my wife didn’t get any. Ironically, this group was the first one that actually said greetings to one another, in the beginning…..
While we, as human beings, can’t control the selfish nature of others, the code, however, CAN. When there is a Great Weapon Fighter specific drop and a GWF chooses “Need”, it stands to logic and reason that THEY should have a higher chance of winning over another class choosing “Greed” or “Need.” More often than not, however, they do not and I’ve noticed on more than one occasion a skewing of loot drops to the same character. I’ve also noticed that there seem to be a higher number of Rogue drops than anything else. (Go figure – it appears to be the chosen class of the Devs and the players.)
In addition, if people want to constantly “Greed” on loot drops, when they’re playing with a party of other players, they should be penalized for their selfish and greedy nature. These dungeon delves require a group of 5, so someone that has constantly chosen to “Greed” every item, should get a penalty for attempting to “Greed” an Orb from a Control Wizard that hasn’t won a single loot drop or simply said they “Need” it. Remember, we’re talking balance here.
Loot drops need to be one of the first, if not the TOP, priority in your current bug fixes. In addition, do us ALL a favor a drop some enchanted keys from time to time, so we won’t have our chat windows constantly flooded with “WTB 2 keys 10 GP!” or “WTT 50 lockboxes for 1 key!” It’s annoying and even if it’s just a 2 or 3% chance on a rare drop, it shows that you *DO* care about your user base, plus it will stop the incessant spamming.
Class Balance
God, where do I even start with this? Rogues are INSANELY overpowered. In fact, I will go so far as to say that in Neverwinter the Rogue IS the “tank class.” What’s the point of playing a Great Weapon Fighter or a Guardian Fighter when a Rogue runs circles around EVERY other class, in EVERYTHING? They get the most loot drop items, seem to have the fastest recovery times, do ridiculous amounts of damage, including armor penetration and crits, but that’s not even including their Encounter Powers. My wife’s Rogue hits for about twice what I do with her base “A” attack, but I’m higher level, a supposed “Tank” and I have a higher strength, with a weapon that is listed to do about 30+ more points of damage?
Sure, Guardian Fighters and Great Weapon Fighters can soak up the damage, but it’s useless when I’m fighting a single Deathplague Gnoll or whatever they’re called and my wife’s Rogue can not only kill one of her own, but numerous weaker archers and melee gnolls and I haven’t even killed my single target yet, when I’m clicking my Level 3 feats, as fast as my recovery is allowing me and I’m around 4 levels higher than her??!? Fighter Classes have hit points and are only good for one thing: To stay alive when the rest of the party dies, long enough for them to run back and finish the job on a Boss, before the “tank” dies, causing the encounter to reset. And what’s the point of having a “guard meter”, when blocking is pretty much broken, not to mention you don’t even *SEE* the guard meter in the UI?
Rogues are there to disarm traps, but not only do they NOT get experience for it, they’re not even told if they have failed or not, not to mention, even if they do succeed the trap still seems to go off, injuring the rest of the party. What’s the point of even having a Rogue in the party if they can’t disable traps for the rest of the group? Oh wait. I forgot, they’re the “tank class.” *rolls eyes*
Clerics, however, get the shortest end of the stick. Not only are they the token healers, but they’re expected to tank, when their fighting abilities are WORSE than the Fighter Classes, which are appalling to begin with *AND* they’re expected to heal the party as well. All the while, they have the highest threat and agro ratings with monsters. That’s not fair to ask of ANY class! I don’t know how many times I have used Taunt to agro monsters only to have them completely bypass me, going straight for my Cleric Companion or Cleric party member, pounding them into oblivion, while I’m frantically trying to get them OFF the poor Healer, but my hapless Guardian Fighter (whose supposed to be a “Tank” and defender, remember?) can’t do **** for damage. Once again, the Rogue typically comes to the rescue, knocking out weaker monster in typically one blow…..
Then we have Control Wizards, lobbing spells like it’s nothing. Did any of you Developers even PLAY pnp D&D? Sure they have next to no hit points, but in all the groups I’ve played with, I almost never see any monsters swarming spell casters, but the poor Guardian Fighters and Great Weapon Fighters, are constantly surrounded (just like Clerics), only they can’t do damage for nothing and only the GWFs have a decent AOE attack. The few options you have for GFs are absolutely pathetic. Gee, thanks for “knee breaker”, ‘cos it’s ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS! I guess it’s a good thing it seems one out of every THREE players is a Rogue…..
I find it sad that you’re already talking of implementing another Class (a “Ranged” one at that, implying a Ranger Class, which should have replaced the GWF or GF Class from the start), when the ones you currently have, aren’t balanced at all, and many of the feats don’t work properly. I only know of Guardian Fighters, but I get really irritated that I have to “charge” some of my Encounter Powers a second or two, just to use them, only to find that my targets have either a) moved out of the way or b) hit me, multiple times, disrupting my attack.
Class Leveling
I have been playing now near three weeks now and I am already 34th level. I really don’t have a lot of time to play and typically, my wife and I, if we can, try and get an hour or two of game play in each night, but when I was playing EQ, back in the early 2000s, during my mid-twenties, when I had 8 or more hours a day to play, I don’t think I leveled half that amount, in the same amount of time. Characters level too quickly, though this is my own opinion and one not shared by many, but still shared by some. If I get to level 60 within two months and it’s still in Beta, there’s a big problem and also why you’ve had a bit of an exodus of players, due to boredom (I’m disregarding bugs here.)
COMPANIONS AND MONSTERS
I can’t tell you how important this is. The Companion *AND* Monster AI needs a complete overhaul. They’re notoriously stupid or incredibly too smart. For example, in the Cragmire Crypts, my Guardian Fighter could agro archers and Battle Wights into the spiked pits, killing them. I can even agro Hulks and Skeletons into the Rift in the Graveyard. Gnolls and Hexers can be agro off cliffs in Blackdagger. It’s *BAD*.
On another note, there have been times when I have attempted to agro a horde of zombies, which works, but as soon as my Companion Cleric healed me, they instantly turned on her, attacking her, when zombies are supposed to be “mindless.” No, the only mindless person in this example, was my Cleric who, rather than defending herself, kept healing me, taking hits left and right, like an idiot.
I’ve seen Companion mages fire off spells a few seconds AFTER all the monsters have been cleared. I’ve seen Hexers cast spells at areas where there’s no character present. I’ve even seen gnolls lunging strike at walls and other, inanimate objects, when there was no character in the vicinity. Even Companion Animals are insanely stupid, doing nothing, while their owners are surrounded by monsters, getting pounded on relentlessly.
In addition, it seems that even though my rank 15 Cleric, is supposedly the equivalent of a 30th level character, she can’t seem to kill anything, doing appallingly mediocre damage, forcing me to go defend her, as though she were more like a 5th level character. What’s the point of having a “Companion” like that? I’m better off relying on healing potions. Even if she could attack, her stats are absolutely PATHETIC, even with runestones and one epic class icon. I’d get her an epic ring if I could, but once again THE AUCTION HOUSE IS BROKEN!
Also, when you make a Companion idle, if they keep their runestones, they should be able to keep their equipped items, as well. No offense, I know this is as a simple XML file stored on the client computer, it keeps things neat and orderly, not to mention doesn’t eat up 1-3 coveted bag slots, simply ‘cos you want to leave a Companion idle for a while. Personally, and I know I’m not alone here, but I don’t want to have to deal with putting an idle Companion away, to use another one, dealing with sorting their items, when you gave us like 20+ slots for Companions, meaning you WANT us to have more. All of your companions could be stored in a single XML file and since you already have it to where they remember their runestones, I know it’s some sort of system like that. I just haven’t bothered to research and verify it yet.
It would also be nice if you could pick the GENDER of your Companions, if they had one and this would really be easy to implement, since I know your models use the same character rigs and animations (humor me and just assume that I *DO* know something about character and game animation. ;P) Even though they’re the same Companion, it would be nice to see multiple versions of them, rather than just token fashion changes. I’m actually kind of tired of seeing the same Cleric, Panther, Sellsword, over and over.
And please don’t make the training books ridiculously expensive, like the mount ones. That’s just pointless and honestly, the same problem with mounts. Why bother using one, when you can’t attack from horseback, you can get knocked off and the only thing it really does is make you go faster, which is something that can be gained from specific enchantments and equipment, especially when they cost near a million AD?
Lower and mid-range monsters need to be smarter and tougher, but when I mean tougher, I mean they need to deal out the pain! When I’m fighting 30th level monsters, it’s ridiculous that they’re doing a measly 100 damage, when my fighter has TWELVE THOUSAND hit points! Then, I come across a boss that just WAILS on me for 2-4 thousand damage a hit! I know the Foundry Quests are set to scale with your level, but sometimes, it almost seems like the monsters in those are tougher than the storyline quests, then you come across a Boss that can just pound on you, with his minions tearing you up just as much, ‘cos they’ve got the Boss with them. It’s very frustrating, especially when the monsters in the dungeon or area, seem completely weak and a cake walk to go through. It’s all about balance.
QUESTS AND SIDE QUESTS
One of the most annoying things is the inability for the Engine to realize that two people, running around in a party can STILL do the same “solo quest” together. I get *SO* annoyed when my wife and I are playing and that stupid popup comes up “You cannot share this quest!” Um, why not? Just ‘cos people are in a party together shouldn’t mean they can’t run quests together and if that’s the case, why do you even allow parties outside dungeon delving in the first place? The workaround we’ve found is to have her pick one quest, I pick another, we do them at the same time, complete them, and then SWAP the quests, doing them all over again. I’m sorry, but that’s a pain in the ***! Why should we be punished, ‘cos we want to play together?
You also need to fix that annoying bug with the journal that decides what quest you want to do, changing it on a whim, when it feels like it. If I manually pick a quest, it needs to stay with my choosing, till completion, before it decides I need to go do another quest. There have been numerous times when in the middle of a quest, I get lost, ‘cos I completed something, triggering another task, only to have the Engine decide to switch to another Quest, leading me off in another direction and then, I manually change it back, only to have it do it again, multiple times. Annoying!
Also, do something about Quest balance. I didn’t appreciate getting forcibly kicked in the final act of the Mad Dragon Quest, right in the middle of the Dragon fight by your crappy servers and then, when I FINALLY managed to get back in, I had to start from the beginning of the map, wasted a TON of potions trying to get back to my party, thanks to the respawning of imps, Legion Devils, etc. to the point I was completely overwhelmed, only to have to have them rescue me, ‘cos I couldn’t get past all them and as a “Guardian Fighter” I’m supposed to be a “tank.”
However, for as much as I want to congratulate you on your efforts, the cons FAR outweigh the pros right now. I intend to summarize the major problems I’ve seen within the game, in groups, so it’s easier for you to realize just how game-breaking these problems truly are. I fear I may be long winded here, but this really is a positive post and I’d appreciate it if all the “fanbois” and “fangirls” (no chauvinists we!) could just keep quiet for a while. For all the b*tching and moaning we’ve seen on the forums about problems, you “fanbois” (and “girls”) that keep screaming, “shut up!”, “quit playing!” or “there’s always one!” are *NO* better than the people constantly complaining in a severely negative tone about things, especially since they typically have genuine grievance about the game. People reporting bugs, complaining about exploits, griping about game imbalance are part of the SOLUTION, whereas your constantly saying “Wow! Another whiner!” or whatever are part of the PROBLEM.
BUG REPORTS
Every time I find a bug, I go through the “trouble” of reporting it. Almost EVERY TIME, the bug reports fails, can’t be sent and tells me to send an email to customer service. What’s the point of sending a bug report, if it crashes and expects me to send a separate email, outside the game when the in-game system is apparently broken? I have tried at least 6 times to report that the Plate Gauntlet Lvl 6 Rare forging for the Platesmithing Profession shows an icon and a “reward” of Plate Boots, to no avail. I have noticed this over a week and I still can’t seem to get a bug report in, nor can I find it already listed. You seriously need to make the in-game bug reporting a priority, since the game is in Beta and these are things that need to be fixed, ASAP. You can’t fix bugs, if we can’t get bug reports.
GAME BALANCE
Dungeon Drops
This right here is the biggest annoyance and my (current) biggest complaint in the entire game. For this, I’m going to give you an example. Typically, when I play, I am in a party with my wife. We run dungeons ourselves and do surprisingly well, alone, ‘cos it’s a lot easier to deal with, doing it ourselves, rather than dealing with other, greedy “adventurers.” Sure, I’m going to have the “fanbois” and “girls” chime in to “get over it!”, “Get your own 5 party for it!” or whatever, but the fact is, this is a *BAD* problem in the game.
Earlier today, she and I decided we wanted to run the Mad Dragon Dungeon. We joined a random group that consisted of my Guardian Fighter, her Rogue, another Guardian Fighter and Rogue, plus a Great Weapon Fighter. Now, she and I had learned, very quickly that when you run in a party of people you don’t know, humanity’s selfish nature comes out, garnering us to “Need” any items that are specifically GF or TR related. We don’t have a choice either, ‘cos of how poorly loot drops are coded. Most of the time, however, the rest of the group chooses to “Greed” on everything. That kind of comes with the territory, which is why we prefer dungeon delving alone.
So, as we’re running this dungeon, I started to notice I was losing items to the other Rogue, so I checked the chat box, noticing they were choosing to “Greed” everything (go figure….) Anyway, during a fight, there was a Rare Long sword drop. I chose “Need” on it (since I did need it), my wife chose “Need” as well, since we live together, we were already commenting on how skewed the drops were going to this other Rogue. Since I started playing this was the FIRST rare loot drop I had ever encountered, pertaining to my class. Any other rare items that dropped, were for other classes and I would pass on them, especially if I had a teammate (notice the word, “team” there) who could use it.
The other Rogue, however, chose “Greed” once again and won. At this point, I tell her (It was a female character, so I assume she was female) how she should give me that item, since I can use it, it was a Guardian Fighter weapon and her being a Rogue, she couldn’t use it. That’s when I heard the most asinine and ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in an MMO, ever:
”I need it for my other character.”
I won’t even get into the fact it’s near impossible to “trade” items between multiple characters on the same account, meaning this person was either using two computers for the same account, or has multiple accounts, which in itself, is ridiculous (it also shows how cheap a person can be, creating a second or more account, rather than spend money to purchase multiple character slots.) Thankfully, one of the other members of the party, the Great Weapon Fighter, had my back and pointed out that the Rogue’s “other” character wasn’t with us, helping run the dungeon, earning the drops we were getting and therefore, the Rogue Player didn’t “need” it. Rather than be a better person, the Rogue chose to run off and attack other monsters, ignoring us completely. After the said fight, she realized that the other two members of our party, the other Guardian Fighter and Great Weapon Fighter, chose to drop the party, rather than deal with selfish players. At this point, the person feigns shock, as to why they would ditch us, leading both my wife and I to rip into the selfish nature of the other Rogue, pointing out they were constantly choosing to “Greed” every drop. We, too, chose to drop the dungeon ourselves, not wanting to deal with such selfish actions, either. After we dropped the dungeon delve, I checked the logs and of approximately 15 dropped items, the said Rogue chose “Greed” on every one and won NINE. I, however, only won a single loot drop and my wife didn’t get any. Ironically, this group was the first one that actually said greetings to one another, in the beginning…..
While we, as human beings, can’t control the selfish nature of others, the code, however, CAN. When there is a Great Weapon Fighter specific drop and a GWF chooses “Need”, it stands to logic and reason that THEY should have a higher chance of winning over another class choosing “Greed” or “Need.” More often than not, however, they do not and I’ve noticed on more than one occasion a skewing of loot drops to the same character. I’ve also noticed that there seem to be a higher number of Rogue drops than anything else. (Go figure – it appears to be the chosen class of the Devs and the players.)
In addition, if people want to constantly “Greed” on loot drops, when they’re playing with a party of other players, they should be penalized for their selfish and greedy nature. These dungeon delves require a group of 5, so someone that has constantly chosen to “Greed” every item, should get a penalty for attempting to “Greed” an Orb from a Control Wizard that hasn’t won a single loot drop or simply said they “Need” it. Remember, we’re talking balance here.
Loot drops need to be one of the first, if not the TOP, priority in your current bug fixes. In addition, do us ALL a favor a drop some enchanted keys from time to time, so we won’t have our chat windows constantly flooded with “WTB 2 keys 10 GP!” or “WTT 50 lockboxes for 1 key!” It’s annoying and even if it’s just a 2 or 3% chance on a rare drop, it shows that you *DO* care about your user base, plus it will stop the incessant spamming.
Class Balance
God, where do I even start with this? Rogues are INSANELY overpowered. In fact, I will go so far as to say that in Neverwinter the Rogue IS the “tank class.” What’s the point of playing a Great Weapon Fighter or a Guardian Fighter when a Rogue runs circles around EVERY other class, in EVERYTHING? They get the most loot drop items, seem to have the fastest recovery times, do ridiculous amounts of damage, including armor penetration and crits, but that’s not even including their Encounter Powers. My wife’s Rogue hits for about twice what I do with her base “A” attack, but I’m higher level, a supposed “Tank” and I have a higher strength, with a weapon that is listed to do about 30+ more points of damage?
Sure, Guardian Fighters and Great Weapon Fighters can soak up the damage, but it’s useless when I’m fighting a single Deathplague Gnoll or whatever they’re called and my wife’s Rogue can not only kill one of her own, but numerous weaker archers and melee gnolls and I haven’t even killed my single target yet, when I’m clicking my Level 3 feats, as fast as my recovery is allowing me and I’m around 4 levels higher than her??!? Fighter Classes have hit points and are only good for one thing: To stay alive when the rest of the party dies, long enough for them to run back and finish the job on a Boss, before the “tank” dies, causing the encounter to reset. And what’s the point of having a “guard meter”, when blocking is pretty much broken, not to mention you don’t even *SEE* the guard meter in the UI?
Rogues are there to disarm traps, but not only do they NOT get experience for it, they’re not even told if they have failed or not, not to mention, even if they do succeed the trap still seems to go off, injuring the rest of the party. What’s the point of even having a Rogue in the party if they can’t disable traps for the rest of the group? Oh wait. I forgot, they’re the “tank class.” *rolls eyes*
Clerics, however, get the shortest end of the stick. Not only are they the token healers, but they’re expected to tank, when their fighting abilities are WORSE than the Fighter Classes, which are appalling to begin with *AND* they’re expected to heal the party as well. All the while, they have the highest threat and agro ratings with monsters. That’s not fair to ask of ANY class! I don’t know how many times I have used Taunt to agro monsters only to have them completely bypass me, going straight for my Cleric Companion or Cleric party member, pounding them into oblivion, while I’m frantically trying to get them OFF the poor Healer, but my hapless Guardian Fighter (whose supposed to be a “Tank” and defender, remember?) can’t do **** for damage. Once again, the Rogue typically comes to the rescue, knocking out weaker monster in typically one blow…..
Then we have Control Wizards, lobbing spells like it’s nothing. Did any of you Developers even PLAY pnp D&D? Sure they have next to no hit points, but in all the groups I’ve played with, I almost never see any monsters swarming spell casters, but the poor Guardian Fighters and Great Weapon Fighters, are constantly surrounded (just like Clerics), only they can’t do damage for nothing and only the GWFs have a decent AOE attack. The few options you have for GFs are absolutely pathetic. Gee, thanks for “knee breaker”, ‘cos it’s ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS! I guess it’s a good thing it seems one out of every THREE players is a Rogue…..
I find it sad that you’re already talking of implementing another Class (a “Ranged” one at that, implying a Ranger Class, which should have replaced the GWF or GF Class from the start), when the ones you currently have, aren’t balanced at all, and many of the feats don’t work properly. I only know of Guardian Fighters, but I get really irritated that I have to “charge” some of my Encounter Powers a second or two, just to use them, only to find that my targets have either a) moved out of the way or b) hit me, multiple times, disrupting my attack.
Class Leveling
I have been playing now near three weeks now and I am already 34th level. I really don’t have a lot of time to play and typically, my wife and I, if we can, try and get an hour or two of game play in each night, but when I was playing EQ, back in the early 2000s, during my mid-twenties, when I had 8 or more hours a day to play, I don’t think I leveled half that amount, in the same amount of time. Characters level too quickly, though this is my own opinion and one not shared by many, but still shared by some. If I get to level 60 within two months and it’s still in Beta, there’s a big problem and also why you’ve had a bit of an exodus of players, due to boredom (I’m disregarding bugs here.)
COMPANIONS AND MONSTERS
I can’t tell you how important this is. The Companion *AND* Monster AI needs a complete overhaul. They’re notoriously stupid or incredibly too smart. For example, in the Cragmire Crypts, my Guardian Fighter could agro archers and Battle Wights into the spiked pits, killing them. I can even agro Hulks and Skeletons into the Rift in the Graveyard. Gnolls and Hexers can be agro off cliffs in Blackdagger. It’s *BAD*.
On another note, there have been times when I have attempted to agro a horde of zombies, which works, but as soon as my Companion Cleric healed me, they instantly turned on her, attacking her, when zombies are supposed to be “mindless.” No, the only mindless person in this example, was my Cleric who, rather than defending herself, kept healing me, taking hits left and right, like an idiot.
I’ve seen Companion mages fire off spells a few seconds AFTER all the monsters have been cleared. I’ve seen Hexers cast spells at areas where there’s no character present. I’ve even seen gnolls lunging strike at walls and other, inanimate objects, when there was no character in the vicinity. Even Companion Animals are insanely stupid, doing nothing, while their owners are surrounded by monsters, getting pounded on relentlessly.
In addition, it seems that even though my rank 15 Cleric, is supposedly the equivalent of a 30th level character, she can’t seem to kill anything, doing appallingly mediocre damage, forcing me to go defend her, as though she were more like a 5th level character. What’s the point of having a “Companion” like that? I’m better off relying on healing potions. Even if she could attack, her stats are absolutely PATHETIC, even with runestones and one epic class icon. I’d get her an epic ring if I could, but once again THE AUCTION HOUSE IS BROKEN!
Also, when you make a Companion idle, if they keep their runestones, they should be able to keep their equipped items, as well. No offense, I know this is as a simple XML file stored on the client computer, it keeps things neat and orderly, not to mention doesn’t eat up 1-3 coveted bag slots, simply ‘cos you want to leave a Companion idle for a while. Personally, and I know I’m not alone here, but I don’t want to have to deal with putting an idle Companion away, to use another one, dealing with sorting their items, when you gave us like 20+ slots for Companions, meaning you WANT us to have more. All of your companions could be stored in a single XML file and since you already have it to where they remember their runestones, I know it’s some sort of system like that. I just haven’t bothered to research and verify it yet.
It would also be nice if you could pick the GENDER of your Companions, if they had one and this would really be easy to implement, since I know your models use the same character rigs and animations (humor me and just assume that I *DO* know something about character and game animation. ;P) Even though they’re the same Companion, it would be nice to see multiple versions of them, rather than just token fashion changes. I’m actually kind of tired of seeing the same Cleric, Panther, Sellsword, over and over.
And please don’t make the training books ridiculously expensive, like the mount ones. That’s just pointless and honestly, the same problem with mounts. Why bother using one, when you can’t attack from horseback, you can get knocked off and the only thing it really does is make you go faster, which is something that can be gained from specific enchantments and equipment, especially when they cost near a million AD?
Lower and mid-range monsters need to be smarter and tougher, but when I mean tougher, I mean they need to deal out the pain! When I’m fighting 30th level monsters, it’s ridiculous that they’re doing a measly 100 damage, when my fighter has TWELVE THOUSAND hit points! Then, I come across a boss that just WAILS on me for 2-4 thousand damage a hit! I know the Foundry Quests are set to scale with your level, but sometimes, it almost seems like the monsters in those are tougher than the storyline quests, then you come across a Boss that can just pound on you, with his minions tearing you up just as much, ‘cos they’ve got the Boss with them. It’s very frustrating, especially when the monsters in the dungeon or area, seem completely weak and a cake walk to go through. It’s all about balance.
QUESTS AND SIDE QUESTS
One of the most annoying things is the inability for the Engine to realize that two people, running around in a party can STILL do the same “solo quest” together. I get *SO* annoyed when my wife and I are playing and that stupid popup comes up “You cannot share this quest!” Um, why not? Just ‘cos people are in a party together shouldn’t mean they can’t run quests together and if that’s the case, why do you even allow parties outside dungeon delving in the first place? The workaround we’ve found is to have her pick one quest, I pick another, we do them at the same time, complete them, and then SWAP the quests, doing them all over again. I’m sorry, but that’s a pain in the ***! Why should we be punished, ‘cos we want to play together?
You also need to fix that annoying bug with the journal that decides what quest you want to do, changing it on a whim, when it feels like it. If I manually pick a quest, it needs to stay with my choosing, till completion, before it decides I need to go do another quest. There have been numerous times when in the middle of a quest, I get lost, ‘cos I completed something, triggering another task, only to have the Engine decide to switch to another Quest, leading me off in another direction and then, I manually change it back, only to have it do it again, multiple times. Annoying!
Also, do something about Quest balance. I didn’t appreciate getting forcibly kicked in the final act of the Mad Dragon Quest, right in the middle of the Dragon fight by your crappy servers and then, when I FINALLY managed to get back in, I had to start from the beginning of the map, wasted a TON of potions trying to get back to my party, thanks to the respawning of imps, Legion Devils, etc. to the point I was completely overwhelmed, only to have to have them rescue me, ‘cos I couldn’t get past all them and as a “Guardian Fighter” I’m supposed to be a “tank.”
Post edited by methuselas on
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I know, right?
/10 char
Yep. That was the point where I stopped reading the epic.
And like I said, I checked the chat logs and every item he/she "rolled" on was "Greed." I've seen it skewed like this a dozen times before this. It's broken, pure and simple, just like the rest of the entire game.
And the dif with diablo 3 is that it wasnt beta and it wasnt free.Also btw It was aslo blizzard
oh ps: remeber this- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZidgohZaws - 2 bs!!!
not to mention all of the xp repeatable abuse that went on in game to get maxx level ina few hours.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbvuQXBQXY8
so please cyptic is doinga good job.At least they not blizzard.
- I Me Mine Lyrics
Performed by The Beatles
Written by George Harrison
Lead singer George Harrison
From the Beatles album "Let It Be"
Released 07 May 1970
NEED always wins over GREED. (As for you seeing it, screen shot it. Since I've never seen another complaint about this, I doubt its veracity.)
You just mail it to yourself. Either to your specific character or to your @name. Really not difficult.
As for everything else... yes, classes need balance, yes there are aggro issues, yes the clerics will grab aggro because hey, they're healing, and yes the DPS will kill things faster than you as a GF.
And they're working on it...
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
A GF's 'mark' ability generates 4 points.
Powers tagged as aggro-generating, (like many GF abilities), grant 3 points.
Damage and debuffs grant 2 points
Healing grants 1 point
Actively dodging subtracts a point for monsters within a certain range of the character that used it - like say 5' or so.
I'd also like to note that these figures would probably need adjusting, as the rate a character can output damage is quite higher than, for instance, a GF's ability to use encounters or dailies that generate aggro.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
Heather - Ranger
James - Paladin
Jet - Warlock
Royal - Cleric
Gray - Rogue
Red - Wizard
Ios - Barbarian
This is perfectly normal and how it's supposed to work. So, play on :cool:
And since I haven't seen a screen shot of your "seeing (sic) a Need roll of 1 and still win. NEED always wins over GREED." I have to doubt it's veracity, as well.
That, I did not know about, but to have the audacity to say "my other character needs it" when you're playing with another character is BS! The loot drop function is still broken.
Kinda like they were working on the AH exploit that was reported weeks in advance, that they knew about over a year ago, since NW and STO use the same, game engine? Don't kid yourself.
Considering we were both commenting on how this same character was constantly picking GREED on every item, not to mention the other group members said the same thing, I fail to see the correlation. The group I went DDing with today, we actually shared items. It wasn't rocket science. If it was an item you couldn't use, but someone else in the party could, you pass on it. Nobody was "farming for items for their other characters." You want items for another character, go play that character. How hard is that to fathom?
Yeah, even using Enhanced Mark, I'm still seeing mass amounts of monsters bee-line straight past me and go straight for healers. It doesn't make sense at all.
You have proof of that? I've lost NEED rolls of 64 to GREED, so NO, NEED does NOT always win over GREED.
Seriously dude get over it, run the dungeon again and it will drop again the loot isn't that complex I see the same drops from bosses every single run.........
They purposely put aggro onto the healers, his job would not be to just sit there and heal and be safe the whole fight, think about if you are killing someone and someone is constantly healing the thing you are killing, would u keep attacking that thing or switch to the healer ?
http://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/1do928/a_whine_from_a_tank/
Read the comments.......
LMAO! So, I'm a "crybaby" for reporting numerous problems with a "soft launch" game, but the only thing people seem to comment on is something that happened, they all claimed didn't, but weren't there to witness, ignoring everything else?
Once again, I know what I saw and if you have proof, back up your claim, since I'm obviously "lying."
This thread has clearly gone under the bridge.
That a little impossible to do, when you're swarmed by adds, bleeding hit points, 'cos the GWF and 2 TRs can't keep them off you, so you can focus on the "boss" and the block for the GF is broken again, since the last hot fix.
That was going to be one of my points.
The others are that, first, I have never seen an MMO where Greed beats any Need roll, and have not seen it in Neverwinter, yet. Second, the normal etiquette is that if you do not Need the drop, then you do Greed it. This is because a Need will always beat the Greed, and if everyone happens to Greed then you aren't out of possibly getting a drop that no one else in the group had a Need of taking.