I am actually curious, is there any point to doing dungeons before endgame or outside of a delve event?
I'm new to the game, but from what I've seen so far dungeons give you less xp, less money, and less loot than you would get for spending the same amount of time just farming the zone, and there is fairly cheap equipment on the Auction House that is better than the seal vendor stuff.
I agree but the players are only this way because of the flawed dungeon design... I mean the content is pretty unplayable unless people use exploits like add punting...
I dont think this is the case at all. This content is very playable. Its just boring because the only way to add challenge is by spawning more adds. No one HAS TO exploit and punt adds however. The community is the single biggest issue here, because they will continue to exploit as long as doing so is more efficient than killing everything. Justifying exploiting because the encounter design is terribad is just saying two wrongs somehow make a right.
What they need to do, is retune the dungeons to make them 1) shorter 2) WAY less adds and WAY less trash. 3) Remove Add punting in general - you can keep it as a mechanic for a select fights if you want.. but make it more fun too - like TONS of slower very hard hitting mobs with giant HP pools (oh what thats what it currently is)....
But seriously... try doing a fight that DOESNT revolve around punting adds... Heck most boss fights like FH, you just have 1 person kite all the adds, everyone DPS down the boss then typically dies and bam your done... Shouldnt the mechanics be harder?
Ive said this in other games, and ill say it here. When the best optimal strategy is to kite most of the mobs, boss encounter design is horrible. Some games have bosses that do extremely different things. This one has bosses that all spawn a ton of adds and do the same 2-3 things afterward, where any single one character an gain their attention and run them in huge circles indefinately.
The devs take exploits very seriously and I'm sure they're working to patch many of the ones used. Personally I find shortcuts to not be exploitative in any way, like skipping a group of mobs that would take a few minutes. Your first suggestion would basically ban shortcuts and would make runs very time consuming. Your other suggestion of a bonus for a 100% kill rate is excellent. I think that banning shortcuts would cause people to stop playing. Adding incentives not to skip mobs would get people to kill everything. Positive reinforcement, simple as that.
My not knowing the right path to jump over the walls to avoid the mobs or getting lost when the group runs off on the short-cut I don't know is what makes me quit doing dungeons. Also some of us like to get gold and reg loots that drop off mobs, this is how I get gold for healing potions. Skipping to the boss may save 5 minutes, but can also cost you huge amounts of time when a player is dropped or kicked and you can't fill group right away, especially when the one who drops is a healer or a tank.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited July 2013
The terrain shortcuts will be removed. Be sure to send in reports because they are absolutely not intended.
As for the changing of rewards...
I think the guaranteed drops need to go. Guaranteed drops are bad on so many levels and causes the deflated market we have.
The game would be far better off without the DD Chest giving guaranteed top end loot and should instead give potions and astral diamonds in the cases when it doesn't give actual loot drops. Furthermore bosses and minibosses should act similarly.
About the only drop I ever got which I was jumping for joy when seeing was the "Avatar of War" helm because I knew it was 750K AD. Most of the other drops have sadly become so deflated due to the drop rates that they have no oomph. No excitement. It's just a "yay" there's my 10-20K AD because nothing has any value.
Almost all the drops should be worth something in the auction house rather than a disappointment or nonchalant action. The only way that will happen is if the loot drops weren't so dang common.
1st - Punting / Knocking creatures to their death is not an exploit. The game is designed this way and even the DEVs do this in their testing. This has been discussed to death and even posts by DEVs stating it is their intention.
2nd - Short-cuts are not exploits and why players are not banned for using them. Many hidden paths are design elements while leveling in many of the quest dungeons and some have chests hidden deep in the paths. When the Dev's find an unintended path they patch and remove it.
Please stop the QQ as everyone has the option to play the game they want. If you are of the minority that believes punting and short-cuts are unacceptable practice, then do not queue without a full group. If you do not know the short-cuts in dungeons then state that at the beginning of the run and others will show you.
-doing acrobatics: Staple part of DnD, climbing a wall, jumping over a pit, crossing hard to cross terrain requires a good and sometimes amazing acrobatics roll, but it usually results in skipping through an area that would have taken much longer to fight through.
There is a major fundamental difference between making a tumble or jump roll to get through specific terrain versus falling through some imaginary hole in the pixelated world in order to end up 9/10s of the way closer to the boss mob in the dungeon.
-Using stealth to unlock stuff without clearing the way: Seriously? is this not one of the absolute staple things a DnD rogue does?
In a video game this can lead to lack of game balance because leveling a stealth class will be alot faster than leveling a non stealth class, especially since the majority of the XP is handed out by the quest giver after completion. P&P and this video game are 2 different incarnations and go by 2 different rules.
-agro mechanics: so retreating is not an option? Fight mob to the death or you're a cheater?
In D&D mobs dont simply run a specific distance then rubberband back to their spawn point never knowing you existed in the first place. This is what they do in a video game however. Due to these fundamental differences between the two incarnations of the game, P&P versus the video game, there needs to be 2 different lines drawn as to what is considered legit versus what is not.
Just because you don't personally like something doesn't mean it wasn't intended to be in the game. Time reducing tactics are very helpful, especially to those of us that don't have 8 hours a day to dedicate to the game.
It has nothing to do with personal preference, and everything to do with the way the developer intended the game to be played. If they say it was not intended to be played by skipping 9/10s of the content due to being able to fall through an imaginary invisible hole in the pixelated world, then doing so is exploiting and needs to be fixed.
The terrain shortcuts will be removed. Be sure to send in reports because they are absolutely not intended.
As for the changing of rewards...
I think the guaranteed drops need to go. Guaranteed drops are bad on so many levels and causes the deflated market we have.
The game would be far better off without the DD Chest giving guaranteed top end loot and should instead give potions and astral diamonds in the cases when it doesn't give actual loot drops. Furthermore bosses and minibosses should act similarly.
About the only drop I ever got which I was jumping for joy when seeing was the "Avatar of War" helm because I knew it was 750K AD. Most of the other drops have sadly become so deflated due to the drop rates that they have no oomph. No excitement. It's just a "yay" there's my 10-20K AD because nothing has any value.
Almost all the drops should be worth something in the auction house rather than a disappointment or nonchalant action. The only way that will happen is if the loot drops weren't so dang common.
Remove guaranteed drops? Now you are advocating the hamster on the wheel. RNG drops coupled with the fact that only 1 item drops from the boss is asking folks to run an absurd amount of dungeon runs for a 'CHANCE' at the item they need.
You then say the helmet cost 750k AD. How much are you advocating to be in a DD chest then?
I dont think this is the case at all. This content is very playable. Its just boring because the only way to add challenge is by spawning more adds. No one HAS TO exploit and punt adds however. The community is the single biggest issue here, because they will continue to exploit as long as doing so is more efficient than killing everything. Justifying exploiting because the encounter design is terribad is just saying two wrongs somehow make a right.
Have you ever TRIED doing bosses like Spell/CN without punting adds? Its ALOT harder then it should be... Spell has a GS min requirement of what 8300? I would LOVE to see a group of 9k GS players trying to do Spell WITHOUT punting ANY adds... Its just not realistic... Maybe a FEW people can because they are very skilled, but the majority of people would not...
Not to mention the only dungeon where you CANT really exploit = DV... How many people farm DV? How many people with <10k GS can farm DV?
Doesnt that give a hint that maybe the dungeons are a little too overwhelming with adds?
Ive said this in other games, and ill say it here. When the best optimal strategy is to kite most of the mobs, boss encounter design is horrible. Some games have bosses that do extremely different things. This one has bosses that all spawn a ton of adds and do the same 2-3 things afterward, where any single one character an gain their attention and run them in huge circles indefinately.
I agree here 100%. When the most commonly played way is to boot adds, that typically means ALOT of things are missing:
1) ample rewards FOR killing trash... (honestly t2+ mobs should have a chance to drop R5 enchants.. This would be pretty adequate rewards)
2) TOO much time wasted on adds... (reduce the length of time spent in dungeons by removing a portion of the meaningless adds)
3) Too many adds at once... (reduce the number of adds on each pull but maybe increase health pools a little)
4) Ease of throwing mobs... (This can be fixed a myriad of ways)
5) Boss fights spawn WAY too many adds to handle... (Reduce the number of each spawn so its manageable to kill in a reasonable time)
If they did all this people would actually play the dungeons the way they are meant to...
The terrain shortcuts will be removed. Be sure to send in reports because they are absolutely not intended.
That is incorrect as the game has many hidden paths designed into the map with CHESTS. If they are not intended then why do they have CHESTS at the end?
If you are referring to the "unintended" paths you need to clarify your blanket statement or have a DEV make a post on the subject.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Remove guaranteed drops? Now you are advocating the hamster on the wheel. RNG drops coupled with the fact that only 1 item drops from the boss is asking folks to run an absurd amount of dungeon runs for a 'CHANCE' at the item they need.
You then say the helmet cost 750k AD. How much are you advocating to be in a DD chest then?
This is a pretty basic concept, you get the item you 'need' or you get value over time to purchase it. One way or another you will get the item but the difference is that items will actually be worth more than a few dailies.
There are players who want to get that physical drop. That's fine and dandy except for the fact that they ignore the fact they could purchase virtually all the gear they need on any character within a week because the drops are so common. If you choose to ignore the Auction House that is your choice but for the menagerie of people who do use the Auction House it's a mess.
That is incorrect as the game has many hidden paths designed into the map with CHESTS. If they are not intended then why do they have CHESTS at the end?
If you are referring to the "unintended" paths you need to clarify your blanket statement or have a DEV make a post on the subject.
The paths to chests are not really shortcuts. Almost/None of them skip content or mobs but are rather side passages to obtain extra loot.
The shortcuts are unintended and it should be pretty self-explanatory which ones are intended and which ones are not.
If you really want people to stop exploiting, and take ages to do a dungeon, just put an invisible wall before the bosses,that only opens if you kill all the previous mobs before that boss, could be done thru a quest count.
This is a pretty basic concept, you get the item you 'need' or you get value over time to purchase it. One way or another you will get the item but the difference is that items will actually be worth more than a few dailies.
There are players who want to get that physical drop. That's fine and dandy except for the fact that they ignore the fact they could purchase virtually all the gear they need on any character within a week because the drops are so common. If you choose to ignore the Auction House that is your choice but for the menagerie of people who do use the Auction House it's a mess.
I don't get it. If there are less drops, there will be less of them on the AH and they will be more expensive, meaning people won't be able to get them 'within a week'. Or am I seriously missing your point?
And it's happening already. For some sets almost everything is cheap besides the one item that's almost never on the AH or priced a whole lot higher.
You need T2 gear to have a decent chance in a T2 dungeon, but if all you can afford is T1, what are you to do then? Selling T2 gear to get the AD is, obviously, not the right answer, and T1 is the stuff that sells for a peanut and an egg. This will get even more horrific when the loot will be BoP.
The paths to chests are not really shortcuts. Almost/None of them skip content or mobs but are rather side passages to obtain extra loot.
The shortcuts are unintended and it should be pretty self-explanatory which ones are intended and which ones are not.
Well, obviously it isn't that self-explanatory. Punting is, as seen in this thread, seen by some as very obviously cheating. And where is the line between cheating and smart use of the environment if by making a handstand and tap your heels three times you somehow shift through the wall and get clear across to the other side?
It seems to me anyway we only know something was unintended when the patchnotes say the devs are trying to fix it. Up to that point, anything that works is (or can be) considered fair game.
Imo, the balance between risk/investment and reward is horribly skewed. All the trash are not there to get a chance at rewards but to delay getting at the reward: the boss and/or the DD chest. There's really no point in risking pots and kits only to spend more time getting nothing.
And even if the trash would drop the random good gear, people will still want to get rid of them as soon as possible, simply because getting overwhelmed will kill the party. It's just not worth the risk/investment. So when shortcuts are found that make people feel they get more reward for their time, they will be used. Intended or otherwise, it's just human nature.
Have you ever TRIED doing bosses like Spell/CN without punting adds? Its ALOT harder then it should be... Spell has a GS min requirement of what 8300? I would LOVE to see a group of 9k GS players trying to do Spell WITHOUT punting ANY adds... Its just not realistic... Maybe a FEW people can because they are very skilled, but the majority of people would not...
Still not an excuse for exploiting, where they have declared instakilling mobs by throwing them is. If what you claim is true, and the majority of people would not be able to complete, then this needs to be addressed by better quest design, not be exploiting the game to the point where each encounter requires at least one class that can push mobs in the air to move them wherever they wish as an easy button.
Not to mention the only dungeon where you CANT really exploit = DV... How many people farm DV? How many people with <10k GS can farm DV?
Doesnt that give a hint that maybe the dungeons are a little too overwhelming with adds?
Using poor quest encounter design to justify exploitation is saying two wrongs somehow make a right. Maybe this needs to happen and they need to see it so they can stop designing boss encounters which require
I agree here 100%. When the most commonly played way is to boot adds, that typically means ALOT of things are missing:
1) ample rewards FOR killing trash... (honestly t2+ mobs should have a chance to drop R5 enchants.. This would be pretty adequate rewards)
Yes, this would stop people from exploiting holes in the world to skip 95% of the content just to kill the boss.
That is incorrect as the game has many hidden paths designed into the map with CHESTS. If they are not intended then why do they have CHESTS at the end?
If you are referring to the "unintended" paths you need to clarify your blanket statement or have a DEV make a post on the subject.
Many unintended shortcuts are fixed patch after patch. Players find workarounds though. Don't tell me that "LFG for Frozen heart fast runs, last boss only" or "LFG spider, last boss suicide" was the intended way to play dungeons. Thats silly and i'm sure you're not that stupid. Yes, sometimes there are secondary paths, and those pathes allow the team to skip one, maybe two mobs packs. No issue there. Skipping 20 mins or the whole dungeon is one. No one with some common sense and a brain can say it's the intended design.
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degraafinationMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited July 2013
Give me a reason to fight through trash mobs. Five copper and one or two Rank 4 Enchantments? People skip through dungeons because there's no incentive to do the whole thing.
I don't get it. If there are less drops, there will be less of them on the AH and they will be more expensive, meaning people won't be able to get them 'within a week'. Or am I seriously missing your point?
You missed the point. If gear was rarer it would go up in value and therefore not be achievable within a week of grinding dailies.
The heart of the problem is gear is too common to give any viable reason to use any gear other than the top end gear because the demand for such items is not high enough to deal with the supply.
Gamers like to think now, now, now. More rewards = more value but as any economist can tell you economies don't work like that. Giving more rewards drops the value because especially in a video game there is a pretty set amount of demand and it's clear the supply far exceeds the demand in Neverwinter.
Well, obviously it isn't that self-explanatory. Punting is, as seen in this thread, seen by some as very obviously cheating. And where is the line between cheating and smart use of the environment if by making a handstand and tap your heels three times you somehow shift through the wall and get clear across to the other side?
I don't see how it's all that hard to tell the difference. I don't get told a list of intended and unintended actions from the developers but I can make a very educated guess based on nothing more than common sense. If you have to describe a shortcut as doing a handstand and tapping your heals three times to shift through a wall it's pretty clear that's not intended.
As the saying goes, if it's too good to be true; it is.
If you a climbing the walls and going out of the map in order to bypass content it's probably not intended. If it doesn't look like you're supposed to be there then chances are you shouldn't be there.
Bugs and other unintended errors aren't exactly spelled out when you find them because, well, if game developers knew it existed they would have removed said bugs and unintended errors. Common sense and deductive reasoning is required.
Give me a reason to fight through trash mobs. Five copper and one or two Rank 4 Enchantments? People skip through dungeons because there's no incentive to do the whole thing.
The more gear drops, the less valuable it is. If mobs dropped 10k ADs each, ADs wouldn't have any value. If purple dropped from minions, purple would barely be vendor trash, people would complain, get a full T2 set within a 2 days and quit the game because they have nothing left to do. I know many people who quitted the game because they got their BiS gear wayyy too quickly.
So, you don't need any reasons to fight through adds, it's the intended design to slow down everyone's progression, which is really extremely fast currently anyway. I can get a full T2 set on a new char within 10 days, and i don't need to use the AH. T2 drops like mad, like one every 3 runs. No wonder why it's worthless, this T2 gear is farmed with exploits, and there is too much of it on the AH.
If you really need a reason, well, if you like this game, you like fighting mobs, because it's what we do here anyway. If you don't... Well, you could uninstall the game, you'd get more value for your time.
Can I see a show of hands for the people who play PnP DnD... ok 1..2...3... ok put your hands down. That is what I thought. To many people run this from a MMOers perspective. If you in DnD found a cave you would search everywhere for magic items, secret doors, taps, etc leaving no stone unturned all the while killing all the enemies you can. If there is a secret door unlocked the DM shows you or hints at it. I have never though seen a player try to take his character outside the "playmat" to try to "win" the adventure.
This is a mindset problem not a dev problem, nor a game-based issue, a mindset problem. Somehow today players think that only the end game is the "real game" but thats not true. When you ignore the levels before you what is the point?Why did you build a character that is immune to poison rather than fire? Because you were tired of the DM's poison critters knocking you unconscious.
Why did you spend so many points in dex? Because you wanted to be able to backflip over the enemies. The journey is there to be the game, not to lead up to it. Your character should be shaped by what you think might be cool not by a chart you found online. DnD is game where imagination and doing "odd things" with your characters is not only key, but make it fun.
Yes you might not play DnD but how long has cheating been condoned? Did you ever cheat in NwN and the DM just excused it? I dont know about you but not with me. My daddy woulda had my hide for cheating not only in normal games but in video games also. Screen hacking in Halo, cheatcodes on Fate, duplicating items in Diablo, it just wasn't allowed and was looked down upon. So why and when did it go from being shameful to a "necessary thing".
I know it isnt just in Neverwinter and that exploits need to be fixed, but so does the mindset of players. When all the players want to do is cheat there way to the top rather than stop sniff the flowers and kill the ogres where is the DnD. Yes I know though, you avoided a boss in PnP DnD, or a group of baddies or jumped off a tower and swan-dived into a moat to avoid certain death. I understand that is what happens. It isnt that you do not try to avoid enemies or escape death, it is that you should not try to cheat your way through the game.
So overall although things need fixin it is the players fault. This entitled cheat-to-win mindset that some players have is causing issues with the community. So lets shape up people. Its time to show what you really can do. You say you can beat CN but can you defeat all of it? or even just make it through without exploits? I challenge this community to rise up and be better. To not use or look for exploits, to help each other, to avoid cheaters, and to report all bugs, exploits, and cheats with the /reportbug feature.
1st - Punting / Knocking creatures to their death is not an exploit. The game is designed this way and even the DEVs do this in their testing. This has been discussed to death and even posts by DEVs stating it is their intention.
I can agree with this for the most part, but there where some areas they didn't intend this to happen and have put up walls to prevent it.
2nd - Short-cuts are not exploits and why players are not banned for using them. Many hidden paths are design elements while leveling in many of the quest dungeons and some have chests hidden deep in the paths. When the Dev's find an unintended path they patch and remove it.
True, such as in the Grey Wolf Den. Again, though some short-cuts are exploits not intended to be used as they are.
Please stop the QQ as everyone has the option to play the game they want. If you are of the minority that believes punting and short-cuts are unacceptable practice, then do not queue without a full group. If you do not know the short-cuts in dungeons then state that at the beginning of the run and others will show you.
Completely disagree with you here. Even if you advertise that you do not want to speed run you will get 1 or 2 who will try and force a speed run after you start. If you don't they will quit. The closest I ever got to anyone showing me a short-cut after saying I didn't know them was "Idiot" and promptly got booted.
You missed the point. If gear was rarer it would go up in value and therefore not be achievable within a week of grinding dailies.
Sure I'd like some loot to be extra special and unique. But I also like casual gameplay and get in T2 dungeons. I had to pool al the AD from 5 character leveled to 60 to get even 1 dressed in something like T2, to survive a T2 and start selling T2 stuff in order to buy the T2 stuff I need. Now, if the banks were willing to make loans.... but alas.
Granted, I'm sure there are other ways to make AD's, but T1 stuff just isn't adding any real benefit, not moneywise, not stat wise. Raising prices and lowering T2 droprate will only increase the gap between the have's and the have-not's, imo.
So I think I did get your point, I'm just not agreeing with it
Gamers like to think now, now, now. More rewards = more value but as any economist can tell you economies don't work like that. Giving more rewards drops the value because especially in a video game there is a pretty set amount of demand and it's clear the supply far exceeds the demand in Neverwinter.
Hmm, actually, that's exactly how a consumer-driven economy works.
As the saying goes, if it's too good to be true; it is.
If you a climbing the walls and going out of the map in order to bypass content it's probably not intended. If it doesn't look like you're supposed to be there then chances are you shouldn't be there.
Bugs and other unintended errors aren't exactly spelled out when you find them because, well, if game developers knew it existed they would have removed said bugs and unintended errors. Common sense and deductive reasoning is required.
Probably not intended, common sense and deductive reasoning shouldn't be needed when something is totally obvious.
Even reallife laws don't work that way, in a make-believe game even less so.
Mind you, I'm not advocating cheating and exploiting, I'm just saying that when there's a way, people will use it. That's just common sense too
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cipher9nemoMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
The terrain shortcuts will be removed. Be sure to send in reports because they are absolutely not intended.
Good to know they're not intended. On that note no one can call them an exploit or not playing the game properly if you take them. After all, players are encouraged to explore in an MMORPG. If this was my content and someone found an unintended shortcut I'd pull a Microsoft and call it a "feature" instead of labeling players exploiters or cheaters.
How can anyone make the case that pushing mobs over the edge with CW is "cheating" in any dungeon other than CN? CN is the only one with railings that you have to bump them over. Spell has cliffs with lava underneath everywhere, it's just common sense. I played Spell on my CW in early OB and had never thought or heard about punting mobs before. One look at the terrain and I thought "lets try repel on tab, maybe these guys will die in that lava down there" and sure enough they did...
How is that even close to cheating or an exploit if the map is set up with huge drop offs or drop offs into lava/acid? Seems very self explanatory that that is a means of killing enemies quickly.
Guild Master of <Enemy Team>
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
Is it really so hard to tell the difference between a clear exploit and cheat and a clever use of tactics? Everyone with a bit of common sense can tell the difference. Pushing some mobs of a cliff is clearly no cheat but skipping content (like bosses) and other "shortcuts" are obviously not intended.
But all that aside, I can understand why a lot of people use exploits. I mean unless you run a premade where everybody is on the same page, it's next to impossible to find a group that is willing to do a legit dungeon run. And of cause, the meaningless adds and the amount of time it takes to clear them are the main reason. Another reason might be the very high reward (in my opinion much too high) in the final chest of a dd.
Some folks here suggested that the adds should drop some valueable stuff, like r5 enchantments or things like that, to make the players want to fight them.
I think that idea is very very bad. Altogether drops should not be increased, they should be decreased. If adds were to drop r5 or other items like that, it would not take long and these items would lose their value. Everyone saw it just with a short event and the value of dragoneggs. The same would happen with enchantments and very soon players would stop doing the adds for items that are worth only a few bugs in the ah.
Imo a much better incentive to fight adds (wich would make the dungeons maybe even a bit more ineresting) would be machanics similar to the beginning of Spellplage, where you have to destroy a certain number of things to be able to continue. The devs could even get quite creative. Maybe in frostheart the golems could drop iceshards and the group must collect 50 or so to be able to reach the final boss or whatever. They could also implement a system wich would allow the boss in the final battle to call his minions that are still alive to aid him. Skipping content would make the final battle a lot harder or nearly impossible. And maybe clearing all or at least 90% would make the fight easier than it is now.
I think this would be a much better way to get players to actually do the dungeons instead of cheat to the end. Better drops will not help. Like I said, it would help for a short while until the value equals zero and then the incentive stops.
Oh, and to the point i made about the dd chest content was too high:
For any class the best T2 set in the game costs maybe 500k to a million ad. The less desireable T2- sets and most T1-sets (Stalwart Set for the GF is the exception i think) cost nearly nothing and most self respecting players would not be seen dead in them. This is because exploiting and the possibility to do some dungeons 3 or 4 times in the dd hour, combined with the huge loot in the chest (what makes the exploits valueable in the first place) has devalued most of the loot in the game. It is devalued because people are able to cheat their way to the items (it would not be much worse if they would just type in a console command to get the item, i mean cheating is cheating) and people need to exploit, to get as many devalued items as possible to make at least some profit.
Anyway, ther are problems with exploits but there are pretty easy sollutions. Make the adds important to be able to finish the dungeon and reduce the loot from the final chest. And I don't belive that people would leave. Maybe some, but only because they don't like the game. I am also an advocate for changes in the design. I am all for less adds, mor intersting boss fight etc. but exploits need to stop.
Better drops will not help. Like I said, it would help for a short while until the value equals zero and then the incentive stops.
I'm glad someone else gets it. People asking for better rewards are actually just asking for more vendor trash they will complain about.
The only solution is punitive mechanics, like the boss not spawning if there isn't a total amount of damage of X in the dungeon (a kill count would just be an incentive to suicide npcs, cheaters are always creative). You're free to kill what you want and to push what you want off edges, but you have to do it. If you like the game, it should be fun anyway.
I'm glad someone else gets it. People asking for better rewards are actually just asking for more vendor trash they will complain about.
The only solution is punitive mechanics, like the boss not spawning if there isn't a total amount of damage of X in the dungeon (a kill count would just be an incentive to suicide npcs, cheaters are always creative). You're free to kill what you want and to push what you want off edges, but you have to do it. If you like the game, it should be fun anyway.
I would agree that some short-cuts appear to be unintended but it's not up to the player to decide what is and what is not. I'll will leave that to the DEVs to decide and patch the game as they see fit. I may not agree with all of the changes but I have the choice to play or not.
As for the *** hats that kick you from a group because you don't know how to do short-cuts. They also did not know about the short-cuts till someone showed them or they read/watched it on a forum/video. You are better off not running with these players anyways because they will fail the run.
Good players are willing to teach others short-cuts and how to fight the bosses/trash, etc... and complete the dungeons faster.
Example: With an experienced group from my guild I can do Epic T2 Pirate in 4 Pulls! About 16-18 min runs. Clearing 99% of trash and all 3 bosses. I literally pull all trash from entrance to door then 1st boss. Pull trash from 1st boss to 2nd boss and then from 2nd boss to 3rd boss. It's pretty intense on the pain train following your groups butt but it's a lot of fun.
This type of thread seems to be a constant on the forums, and I'm of the opinion of play the game how ya want but always be civil about it. Example, if a group in CN wants to run as fast as possible then when in Zone Chat state that fact (honestly the usually do), and/or mention that as soon as someone new joins your queue. Vice versa also.
I guess it all comes down to being civil, if you wanna play a certain way by all means do so!
That being said, these type of threads always degenerate into a "He said, she said!" type of thing... *shrugs*
Nope. Same rewards, shorter dungeons. Fewer people taking shortcuts.
Yeah, why not a chest you can loot three times a day in protector's enclave? :rolleyes: If people get gear too quickly, they quit. I've stopped playing several games for this reason. No point playing it when you reach the cap.
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I'm new to the game, but from what I've seen so far dungeons give you less xp, less money, and less loot than you would get for spending the same amount of time just farming the zone, and there is fairly cheap equipment on the Auction House that is better than the seal vendor stuff.
I dont think this is the case at all. This content is very playable. Its just boring because the only way to add challenge is by spawning more adds. No one HAS TO exploit and punt adds however. The community is the single biggest issue here, because they will continue to exploit as long as doing so is more efficient than killing everything. Justifying exploiting because the encounter design is terribad is just saying two wrongs somehow make a right.
Ive said this in other games, and ill say it here. When the best optimal strategy is to kite most of the mobs, boss encounter design is horrible. Some games have bosses that do extremely different things. This one has bosses that all spawn a ton of adds and do the same 2-3 things afterward, where any single one character an gain their attention and run them in huge circles indefinately.
As for the changing of rewards...
I think the guaranteed drops need to go. Guaranteed drops are bad on so many levels and causes the deflated market we have.
The game would be far better off without the DD Chest giving guaranteed top end loot and should instead give potions and astral diamonds in the cases when it doesn't give actual loot drops. Furthermore bosses and minibosses should act similarly.
About the only drop I ever got which I was jumping for joy when seeing was the "Avatar of War" helm because I knew it was 750K AD. Most of the other drops have sadly become so deflated due to the drop rates that they have no oomph. No excitement. It's just a "yay" there's my 10-20K AD because nothing has any value.
Almost all the drops should be worth something in the auction house rather than a disappointment or nonchalant action. The only way that will happen is if the loot drops weren't so dang common.
2nd - Short-cuts are not exploits and why players are not banned for using them. Many hidden paths are design elements while leveling in many of the quest dungeons and some have chests hidden deep in the paths. When the Dev's find an unintended path they patch and remove it.
Please stop the QQ as everyone has the option to play the game they want. If you are of the minority that believes punting and short-cuts are unacceptable practice, then do not queue without a full group. If you do not know the short-cuts in dungeons then state that at the beginning of the run and others will show you.
Thanks,
There is a major fundamental difference between making a tumble or jump roll to get through specific terrain versus falling through some imaginary hole in the pixelated world in order to end up 9/10s of the way closer to the boss mob in the dungeon.
In a video game this can lead to lack of game balance because leveling a stealth class will be alot faster than leveling a non stealth class, especially since the majority of the XP is handed out by the quest giver after completion. P&P and this video game are 2 different incarnations and go by 2 different rules.
In D&D mobs dont simply run a specific distance then rubberband back to their spawn point never knowing you existed in the first place. This is what they do in a video game however. Due to these fundamental differences between the two incarnations of the game, P&P versus the video game, there needs to be 2 different lines drawn as to what is considered legit versus what is not.
It has nothing to do with personal preference, and everything to do with the way the developer intended the game to be played. If they say it was not intended to be played by skipping 9/10s of the content due to being able to fall through an imaginary invisible hole in the pixelated world, then doing so is exploiting and needs to be fixed.
Remove guaranteed drops? Now you are advocating the hamster on the wheel. RNG drops coupled with the fact that only 1 item drops from the boss is asking folks to run an absurd amount of dungeon runs for a 'CHANCE' at the item they need.
You then say the helmet cost 750k AD. How much are you advocating to be in a DD chest then?
Have you ever TRIED doing bosses like Spell/CN without punting adds? Its ALOT harder then it should be... Spell has a GS min requirement of what 8300? I would LOVE to see a group of 9k GS players trying to do Spell WITHOUT punting ANY adds... Its just not realistic... Maybe a FEW people can because they are very skilled, but the majority of people would not...
Not to mention the only dungeon where you CANT really exploit = DV... How many people farm DV? How many people with <10k GS can farm DV?
Doesnt that give a hint that maybe the dungeons are a little too overwhelming with adds?
I agree here 100%. When the most commonly played way is to boot adds, that typically means ALOT of things are missing:
1) ample rewards FOR killing trash... (honestly t2+ mobs should have a chance to drop R5 enchants.. This would be pretty adequate rewards)
2) TOO much time wasted on adds... (reduce the length of time spent in dungeons by removing a portion of the meaningless adds)
3) Too many adds at once... (reduce the number of adds on each pull but maybe increase health pools a little)
4) Ease of throwing mobs... (This can be fixed a myriad of ways)
5) Boss fights spawn WAY too many adds to handle... (Reduce the number of each spawn so its manageable to kill in a reasonable time)
If they did all this people would actually play the dungeons the way they are meant to...
That is incorrect as the game has many hidden paths designed into the map with CHESTS. If they are not intended then why do they have CHESTS at the end?
If you are referring to the "unintended" paths you need to clarify your blanket statement or have a DEV make a post on the subject.
This is a pretty basic concept, you get the item you 'need' or you get value over time to purchase it. One way or another you will get the item but the difference is that items will actually be worth more than a few dailies.
There are players who want to get that physical drop. That's fine and dandy except for the fact that they ignore the fact they could purchase virtually all the gear they need on any character within a week because the drops are so common. If you choose to ignore the Auction House that is your choice but for the menagerie of people who do use the Auction House it's a mess.
The paths to chests are not really shortcuts. Almost/None of them skip content or mobs but are rather side passages to obtain extra loot.
The shortcuts are unintended and it should be pretty self-explanatory which ones are intended and which ones are not.
Then just watch half your playerbase rage quit.
I don't get it. If there are less drops, there will be less of them on the AH and they will be more expensive, meaning people won't be able to get them 'within a week'. Or am I seriously missing your point?
And it's happening already. For some sets almost everything is cheap besides the one item that's almost never on the AH or priced a whole lot higher.
You need T2 gear to have a decent chance in a T2 dungeon, but if all you can afford is T1, what are you to do then? Selling T2 gear to get the AD is, obviously, not the right answer, and T1 is the stuff that sells for a peanut and an egg. This will get even more horrific when the loot will be BoP.
Well, obviously it isn't that self-explanatory. Punting is, as seen in this thread, seen by some as very obviously cheating. And where is the line between cheating and smart use of the environment if by making a handstand and tap your heels three times you somehow shift through the wall and get clear across to the other side?
It seems to me anyway we only know something was unintended when the patchnotes say the devs are trying to fix it. Up to that point, anything that works is (or can be) considered fair game.
Imo, the balance between risk/investment and reward is horribly skewed. All the trash are not there to get a chance at rewards but to delay getting at the reward: the boss and/or the DD chest. There's really no point in risking pots and kits only to spend more time getting nothing.
And even if the trash would drop the random good gear, people will still want to get rid of them as soon as possible, simply because getting overwhelmed will kill the party. It's just not worth the risk/investment. So when shortcuts are found that make people feel they get more reward for their time, they will be used. Intended or otherwise, it's just human nature.
Still not an excuse for exploiting, where they have declared instakilling mobs by throwing them is. If what you claim is true, and the majority of people would not be able to complete, then this needs to be addressed by better quest design, not be exploiting the game to the point where each encounter requires at least one class that can push mobs in the air to move them wherever they wish as an easy button.
Using poor quest encounter design to justify exploitation is saying two wrongs somehow make a right. Maybe this needs to happen and they need to see it so they can stop designing boss encounters which require
Yes, this would stop people from exploiting holes in the world to skip 95% of the content just to kill the boss.
I think this is fixed by your first point, making trash meaningful, rather than just an obsticle in the way of the boss.
Or manipulate boss design so the boss mob itself is the real danger, and not the 9 million other trash mobs in the room.
Different methods of CC that do not have players tossing mobs.
Mob AI needs to improve so the bosses are more dangerous, then they dont have to rely on high quantities of trash to provide difficulty.
Many unintended shortcuts are fixed patch after patch. Players find workarounds though. Don't tell me that "LFG for Frozen heart fast runs, last boss only" or "LFG spider, last boss suicide" was the intended way to play dungeons. Thats silly and i'm sure you're not that stupid. Yes, sometimes there are secondary paths, and those pathes allow the team to skip one, maybe two mobs packs. No issue there. Skipping 20 mins or the whole dungeon is one. No one with some common sense and a brain can say it's the intended design.
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You missed the point. If gear was rarer it would go up in value and therefore not be achievable within a week of grinding dailies.
The heart of the problem is gear is too common to give any viable reason to use any gear other than the top end gear because the demand for such items is not high enough to deal with the supply.
Gamers like to think now, now, now. More rewards = more value but as any economist can tell you economies don't work like that. Giving more rewards drops the value because especially in a video game there is a pretty set amount of demand and it's clear the supply far exceeds the demand in Neverwinter.
I don't see how it's all that hard to tell the difference. I don't get told a list of intended and unintended actions from the developers but I can make a very educated guess based on nothing more than common sense. If you have to describe a shortcut as doing a handstand and tapping your heals three times to shift through a wall it's pretty clear that's not intended.
As the saying goes, if it's too good to be true; it is.
If you a climbing the walls and going out of the map in order to bypass content it's probably not intended. If it doesn't look like you're supposed to be there then chances are you shouldn't be there.
Bugs and other unintended errors aren't exactly spelled out when you find them because, well, if game developers knew it existed they would have removed said bugs and unintended errors. Common sense and deductive reasoning is required.
The more gear drops, the less valuable it is. If mobs dropped 10k ADs each, ADs wouldn't have any value. If purple dropped from minions, purple would barely be vendor trash, people would complain, get a full T2 set within a 2 days and quit the game because they have nothing left to do. I know many people who quitted the game because they got their BiS gear wayyy too quickly.
So, you don't need any reasons to fight through adds, it's the intended design to slow down everyone's progression, which is really extremely fast currently anyway. I can get a full T2 set on a new char within 10 days, and i don't need to use the AH. T2 drops like mad, like one every 3 runs. No wonder why it's worthless, this T2 gear is farmed with exploits, and there is too much of it on the AH.
If you really need a reason, well, if you like this game, you like fighting mobs, because it's what we do here anyway. If you don't... Well, you could uninstall the game, you'd get more value for your time.
My responses in grey.
Sure I'd like some loot to be extra special and unique. But I also like casual gameplay and get in T2 dungeons. I had to pool al the AD from 5 character leveled to 60 to get even 1 dressed in something like T2, to survive a T2 and start selling T2 stuff in order to buy the T2 stuff I need. Now, if the banks were willing to make loans.... but alas.
Granted, I'm sure there are other ways to make AD's, but T1 stuff just isn't adding any real benefit, not moneywise, not stat wise. Raising prices and lowering T2 droprate will only increase the gap between the have's and the have-not's, imo.
So I think I did get your point, I'm just not agreeing with it
Hmm, actually, that's exactly how a consumer-driven economy works.
Probably not intended, common sense and deductive reasoning shouldn't be needed when something is totally obvious.
Even reallife laws don't work that way, in a make-believe game even less so.
Mind you, I'm not advocating cheating and exploiting, I'm just saying that when there's a way, people will use it. That's just common sense too
Good to know they're not intended. On that note no one can call them an exploit or not playing the game properly if you take them. After all, players are encouraged to explore in an MMORPG. If this was my content and someone found an unintended shortcut I'd pull a Microsoft and call it a "feature" instead of labeling players exploiters or cheaters.
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How is that even close to cheating or an exploit if the map is set up with huge drop offs or drop offs into lava/acid? Seems very self explanatory that that is a means of killing enemies quickly.
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
But all that aside, I can understand why a lot of people use exploits. I mean unless you run a premade where everybody is on the same page, it's next to impossible to find a group that is willing to do a legit dungeon run. And of cause, the meaningless adds and the amount of time it takes to clear them are the main reason. Another reason might be the very high reward (in my opinion much too high) in the final chest of a dd.
Some folks here suggested that the adds should drop some valueable stuff, like r5 enchantments or things like that, to make the players want to fight them.
I think that idea is very very bad. Altogether drops should not be increased, they should be decreased. If adds were to drop r5 or other items like that, it would not take long and these items would lose their value. Everyone saw it just with a short event and the value of dragoneggs. The same would happen with enchantments and very soon players would stop doing the adds for items that are worth only a few bugs in the ah.
Imo a much better incentive to fight adds (wich would make the dungeons maybe even a bit more ineresting) would be machanics similar to the beginning of Spellplage, where you have to destroy a certain number of things to be able to continue. The devs could even get quite creative. Maybe in frostheart the golems could drop iceshards and the group must collect 50 or so to be able to reach the final boss or whatever. They could also implement a system wich would allow the boss in the final battle to call his minions that are still alive to aid him. Skipping content would make the final battle a lot harder or nearly impossible. And maybe clearing all or at least 90% would make the fight easier than it is now.
I think this would be a much better way to get players to actually do the dungeons instead of cheat to the end. Better drops will not help. Like I said, it would help for a short while until the value equals zero and then the incentive stops.
Oh, and to the point i made about the dd chest content was too high:
For any class the best T2 set in the game costs maybe 500k to a million ad. The less desireable T2- sets and most T1-sets (Stalwart Set for the GF is the exception i think) cost nearly nothing and most self respecting players would not be seen dead in them. This is because exploiting and the possibility to do some dungeons 3 or 4 times in the dd hour, combined with the huge loot in the chest (what makes the exploits valueable in the first place) has devalued most of the loot in the game. It is devalued because people are able to cheat their way to the items (it would not be much worse if they would just type in a console command to get the item, i mean cheating is cheating) and people need to exploit, to get as many devalued items as possible to make at least some profit.
Anyway, ther are problems with exploits but there are pretty easy sollutions. Make the adds important to be able to finish the dungeon and reduce the loot from the final chest. And I don't belive that people would leave. Maybe some, but only because they don't like the game. I am also an advocate for changes in the design. I am all for less adds, mor intersting boss fight etc. but exploits need to stop.
I'm glad someone else gets it. People asking for better rewards are actually just asking for more vendor trash they will complain about.
The only solution is punitive mechanics, like the boss not spawning if there isn't a total amount of damage of X in the dungeon (a kill count would just be an incentive to suicide npcs, cheaters are always creative). You're free to kill what you want and to push what you want off edges, but you have to do it. If you like the game, it should be fun anyway.
Or ...
The dungeons could be shorter.
I would agree that some short-cuts appear to be unintended but it's not up to the player to decide what is and what is not. I'll will leave that to the DEVs to decide and patch the game as they see fit. I may not agree with all of the changes but I have the choice to play or not.
As for the *** hats that kick you from a group because you don't know how to do short-cuts. They also did not know about the short-cuts till someone showed them or they read/watched it on a forum/video. You are better off not running with these players anyways because they will fail the run.
Good players are willing to teach others short-cuts and how to fight the bosses/trash, etc... and complete the dungeons faster.
Example: With an experienced group from my guild I can do Epic T2 Pirate in 4 Pulls! About 16-18 min runs. Clearing 99% of trash and all 3 bosses. I literally pull all trash from entrance to door then 1st boss. Pull trash from 1st boss to 2nd boss and then from 2nd boss to 3rd boss. It's pretty intense on the pain train following your groups butt but it's a lot of fun.
I guess it all comes down to being civil, if you wanna play a certain way by all means do so!
That being said, these type of threads always degenerate into a "He said, she said!" type of thing... *shrugs*
With lesser rewards? What's the point? If you drop dungeons to 15 minutes, it's:
- not fun
- less rewarding, since the devs will drop rewards by x3.
Actually, there are 15 mins instances, and the rewards are blue gear. Skirmishes.
Nope. Same rewards, shorter dungeons. Fewer people taking shortcuts.
Yeah, why not a chest you can loot three times a day in protector's enclave? :rolleyes: If people get gear too quickly, they quit. I've stopped playing several games for this reason. No point playing it when you reach the cap.