First things first, I was aghast. I was amazed at how few threads I could find (in relation to the rest) that had a coherent, and well thought out conversation on "what this game is" vs "what D&D fans would like to see" that didn't end up off topic and a burn fest.
Well, there was one, and I had been watching it, and participating in it, and it had close to (if not over) 3k views and 12 pages of replies. Is that alot? Not really, but it was more than most threads had in the last week or so that weren't stickied.
The conversations contained within were well thought out, and finally, I thought, there was a place where we could air out our feelings on the state of the game and put in some constructive criticism that we hoped the devs would see (since they said that they read the forums and take our ideas to heart). And then without warning, the thread was closed with "Please make a thread which focuses on which aspects of D&D you would like to be expanded rather than a broad claim."
Which, to my understanding, is exactly what we were doing in our conversation. So, that being said, I'm posting this as a continuation of that thread, so please, sound off and answer the question. What do you want to see broadened as D&D fans, as opposed to what we have now?
Original thread can be found
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?335341-More-D-amp-D-and-less-of-whatever-this-is-please/
Comments
Player housing would be another area that could be expanded on using a Foundry like system...
Puzzles are sort of useless because you can always ALT+TAB google for the answers... /shrug
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Alignment
Yeah, but GW2 managed to get around that with jumping puzzles. Even if you look up the answers, it was still ridiculously hard to get around some of them... especially the clocktower puzzle they had at their halloween event. If they managed to implement things like that...that may work.
But i do have some ideas that i think could be implemented with this current format:
Passive character growth for one, There seems to be an awful lot of emphasis on timers and cooldowns and gizmos... This does not supply a D&D feel. It supplies a Diablo3 feel.
I also think the way we lvl is way out of whack, and feels "unnatural" Theres no reason to have to go all the way to 60. Its not necessary. Give us 20-40 lvls, make them 3 times as hard to obtain. And twice as powerful.
Numbers scaling. Whats with all the 22000 type numbers. LoL *points at number* That number is not a D&D number. 50 dmg can be just as effective as 22000. Tone down the bizarre scaling.
And DM intervention. This is the most important. There needs to be a couple actual "eye in the sky" real time DMs on there now and again. Looking out for little RP pockets and getting involved directly either in a very small and limited way all the way up to whatever mechanics and design of the game will allow. It then gives RP a warmer D&D feel even when DMs are not present. It breeds a better quality of play, and gives RP some relevance at least.
Dying, theres just got to be more repercussions when dying. That does not feel like D&D when you lose nothing for kicking the bucket.
Traps, locked doors, better companion control, cross classing, required skill checks for, like almost every other action.... could literally go on for days with this. Anything D&D, Everything D&D.
This game is an actionMMO.
This game does not have the capacity to be D&D imho.
This games sole purpose is to attract the much larger wow gen player pool. WOTC must get a slice of the mmo pie.
This game is not designed for the D&D community.
Yeah but if people WANT to figure them out then the option to not ALT+TAB is there.
Alignment could be added, however it would remain a purely descriptive roleplaying tool, so consider you can already add it to your character sheet, just write it down in the history tab!
"The harder the game, the better."
Make clerics real clerics, not these low damage, low healing, no buffing and gets dropped like a toilet seat versions.
Emphatically no. The canonical 'D&D cleric' crippled MMO design for the first couple of generations.
A heavy armor wearing, self-healing class with good melee abilities and offensive magic? Why no, that's not overpowered at all.
How would that even work? "Real clerics" can choose from 500+ spells, all different. Real clerics can wear full plate and use a shield. You cant implement D&D into an actionMMO. The reason this game wont ever be D&D is its not supposed to be. In name only. At the very very least i would say DM intervention would be the single most important thing, role play would grow from this. The single most important element to any D&D game. Is it even possible?
Hmmmm and how many people are waiting for a cleric as is? Cleric is the MOST thankless and least played class already.
Clerics almost completely blow goats in this game in PVE, and if anyone half way knows what they are doing, clerics are junk in PVP.
So tell me what makes them so great again?
I have to disagree they "crippled" MMO's the cleric has ALWAYS been a cornerstone of any adventuring group. Just because you are a jealous hater doesn't mean they crippled anything.
The Secret World did puzzles really well. Sure, you can Google the answers, but you could always solve them without the cheats if you wanted.
Another thing you can do with puzzles is to randomize the start conditions - e.g. in the Dead Rat's lair, there's a simple lever puzzle to drain the pit. If you randomized the start conditions, it'd be a lot harder. (And harder for the spoiler posters, with 15 possible initial states.)
Not true. GF is least played. (This is based on queue times - GF is basically zero wait time, while DC actually has wait times)
You are doing it wrong.
PvP balance is a mirage. Cryptic will be chasing it as long as the game is alive.
You should try reading the posts. I didn't say that they were great. I said that the 'canonical D&D' cleric is overpowered. Not its Neverwinter incarnation.
Uh, so? In fact, the idea that the cleric is a cornerstone is a point in favor of it being overpowered, not the reverse.
You almost made it through without a personal attack. Too bad. Try harder next time.
So I am guessing the voting and spending dollar of the actual consumer makes a statement. Just like this game will.
Clerics in this MMO, is definitely the red-headed step children, that's why most clerics I have talked to, already have a level 60 alt they will play something else.
Traps for one in epic dungeons need to be fairly common and most of all they need to be able to kill your azzzz. This ties directly into dying. Which needs way more repercussions. Those alone would add a very very small D&D element.
Puzzles, lots of possibilities here. Hard puzzles that change every say 48 hours so once figured its not always a walk-through forever.
Puzzles that prevent dungeon progression unless dealt with. Thats the two key elements there to add another very very small D&D element.
Locked doors, self explanatory. If you dont have a rogue in your party. Just turn around because your quest is over now. Simple. and D&D through and through.
All of these need rewards too. That will make them even more important and add yes, yet another very very small D&D element. Add this up and youve got a decent D&D element. The best part is, these seem like changes that can be implemented in an actionMMO, which by nature is option limited.
In short D&D is hard, that's what makes it great, its supposed to be hard. Thinking. Gotta get players to think more and mash buttons less.
Ohhhh we fall back on the L2P comment? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I am wrong... yes so much so my cleric if he decides to PUG and queue up, he's instantly in... yea his wait time isn't nothing.
heck I logged on this morning and had 4 tells for CN, I couldn't because I have my 5 year old son... But yea, I guess you're right clerics are a dime a dozen and simply amazing! No one is EVER waiting or announcing in multiple zones "LFM one DC (insert GS here).
LOL ohhhh k. :-/
Short explanation:
When you meet the requirements you can choose to take a multiclassing feat of 1 class (each feat has it's own requirement, e.g: Pact Initiate (Requirement: 13 Cha - Character chooses 1 skill viable for a warlock (Arcana, Bluff, History, Insight, Intimidate, Religion, Street-wise, Thievery), and an eldrich's blast of choice).
After than you choose the multiclassing feat, you can take power-swap feats: Novice (At-will), Acolyte (Utility), Adept (Daily); of the other class and swap it for one of your main class powers.
Lastly, if you have all the power-swap feats, you can choose paragon multiclassing, that allows you to take powers of the secondary class and follow it as a paragon path, instead of taking a paragon path of your class.
Also, the paragon paths should not only have passive powers (+5% defense, etc), but encounter and daily powers as well.
"The harder the game, the better."
There's plenty of time to expand.
The base game design already supports skill checks. Rudimentary at the moment, but I would love to see them become more robust.
More spells abilties and powers for each class would also be nice - but there's time for that.
I think they're off on a great start.
Making a certain class required to progress is bad design, though. Unless you're going to have checks for different classes? And then what will you do when there are seven classes and five to a party?
Actually all your suggestions are more in the line of DDO rather than NW. NW was designed to be an action MMO. So they set out from the beginning to make a button masher.
I think multi-classing would be fun, but I also think it would be a nightmare to balance. Probably beyond Cryptic's capabilities
Its not a bad start. But its also clear that creating the complex D&D environment so many of us want doesn't seem to be the "goal". However there is time to expand. I still contest that the game is intended to grab at a larger audience. The wildly popular wow gen mmo stuff. If this is true, and i believe it is. Implementing classic D&D ideologies isnt going to happen. Hope im dead wrong though.:)
Several people in my guild are leveling Cleric alts.
I'm having fun with mine so far.
Doesn't really feel like a D&D Cleric. But, it's OK.
Healing others is more of a challenge in Neverwinter than other MMOs.
Neverwinter has captured D&D lore exceedingly well.
The combat roles are kind of OK.
There's room for some growth. I dunno about adding complexity.
Yea pre-60 Cleric is exciting and fun, post 60 its another story.
DDO isnt fun for me and NWN/NWN2 ive played for 7 years. What i am looking for along with a large number of other players is NWN2/DDO remade and improved. With awesome graphics and a flawless walkmesh and of course some kind of D&D core rules to run it all. Most of us agree it should not be the dumbed down quadruple garbage 4e though. As for me i thought that this game would be just that. And at least so far has been disappointing.