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Neverwinter Dev Challenges
superdank808
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
I challenge the Developers of Neverwinter Online to complete Castle Never and/or Malabog Castle within the estimated playtime shown in the dungeon queue window and record it then post it to youtube or stream it live.
I think the dungeon estimate timers are wrong, and I don't believe the Developers themselves can even beat the content like CN and MC that they've created, for various reasons. I feel like this would go a long way towards addressing concerns of players as far as dungeon difficulty, which would improve the game.
Note: Please refrain from posting in this thread with comments aimed at other players(personal attacks). Some ideas for more challenges would be great. Be constructive and have fun.
I think the dungeon estimate timers are wrong, and I don't believe the Developers themselves can even beat the content like CN and MC that they've created, for various reasons. I feel like this would go a long way towards addressing concerns of players as far as dungeon difficulty, which would improve the game.
Note: Please refrain from posting in this thread with comments aimed at other players(personal attacks). Some ideas for more challenges would be great. Be constructive and have fun.
Broden Ironfist's Gauntlet: NW-DL56XXWIV
Post edited by superdank808 on
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I think it's a brilliant design philosophy because it's simply plain true - top designers and programmers tend not to be top gamers. A few may be, but those few that do have the skill generally won't have the time or desire to put in as much grind as is necessary to get a character ready to that point (Given they spend most of their day working on the game, one can understand someones reluctance to want to spend so much more time actually playing it).
You can find the interview pretty easy to hear it for yourself, it's on TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brits channel on youtube.
So yea they aren't gonna take that challenge. They most likely can't beat either period, given unlimited time.
And yea the 1.5hr estimate on CN is plain impossible to do for 99% of players legitly, it's a poor estimate. 2.5 hours would be a more fair average. I've managed a 100% legit sub 1.5 hour run - but that was in our ultimate hayday of my best-of-the-best guild members after we had run it some 50+ times so were extremely refined and efficient.
Malabogs quite doable in 45 min without much practice or refinement, though requires top notch gear and dps builds. So yea the "average" would be more like 1.25 hours on it.
Also they already have plenty of streams up of them playing the game for you to see just how skilled they are.. A couple of them are decent, but yea - not exactly top notch elite players. I wouldn't expect them to be.
-Epic Dread Vault Crushed.
Characters (Dragon): Axer (60 Guardian, Leader of Crush It!), Controller (60 Wizard), Warlocker (60 Warlock)
That seems like a terribly flawed design approach.
How? Because they don't have hours each day to just sit down and play their own game? Or worse, they don't spend the 30+ hours a day it usually takes with any game to become an elite player?
That developer just spent 8 hours, AT LEAST, each day programming that game, dealing with reports and quota's and graphic elements and bugs and whatnot. Most actually spend 10-12, if you believe industry reports, and that's not counting lunch (salary sucks, yo).
It's like asking a cook to work 12 hours, go home, then come back later to the exact same restaurant and enjoy a three hour meal.
I don't know about you, but when I leave work (I'm a butcher), I don't go back till the next day.
Now, they could get some game time in while they work, but then your wasting developer resources and time that their higher ups probably feel is better spent banging their head against a keyboard.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
Because its guesswork. Or, its like owning a restaurant, making a menu, and never tasting the food.
No, this doesn't mean they've never tasted it. This just means they don't eat the meal every night.
And they didn't say the devs didn't play it. They said they built the dungeons to be harder than they themselves could accomplish in the recommended time, because they don't play for hours like we do.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
I, however, think that making it harder than they can beat is one thing, making it so that very few can beat it is another thing. It's not strategy that holds people back. It's getting lucky and hoping the boss doesn't glitch. I mean, realistically the games not going to be 100% this soon after release; however, I'd like it to at least be beatable by people that are experienced, without having to bug it or knock mobs over an invisible wall. That's just my two cents. Like others have said, if it's not enjoyable (I don't mean easy, I mean ENJOYABLE) then why on earth would anyone take the time to play them. I have run these dungeons, pre-patches they were beatable, full clear, no glitch. I'd like to know if they've played the dungeons. Both parties in this thread seem to work under the presuppositions that they have or haven't played it, I'd like to know which is true. It's one thing to play it and not beat it, it's another for the people that spend a lot of time and expend a lot of effort playing not being able to beat it without glitching it. Yes, they've fixed a lot of the dungeons so they aren't completely glitch-able which I like, but it's another if you can't beat it at all. Oh well, my wall of text is ending. I'd still like a challenge, and I don't mind wiping once or twice, but wiping ten times then having party members leave out of frustration is another. lobo0084 is wrong (unless he can back his theories up with proof) and so are others (like I said, unless there is proof), but the devs still need to make sure their game is enjoyable.
Though I acknowledge that analogies rarely completely and sufficiently sum up an argument well, the idea behind that analogy is accurate. What I mean by that is there was an episode of Restaurant Impossible where the restaurant of the week was a gumbo shack whose cook had lost his tastebuds while serving in the Marines. He was the owner and head chef responsible for the quality of the recipes and he could not taste them. Basically, he had no way of knowing if the spices and method of cooking was effective or not and as a result, customers had stopped coming to his restaurant. And the ones that were eating there had nothing good to say about the food. Nothing.
This is highly relative in this discussion. Here we are with a game whose designers say they do not bother to complete the content they create, due to some perceived shortcoming of being the designer. But here's the problem, THEY'RE THE ONLY ONES IN CONTROL OF THE CONTENTS DIFFICULTY.
It isn't hard to make a case against an argument like Axer128's because he's ignoring something very important. If the developers of Neverwinter don't know how to beat the fights, even though they designed them, how can they prove they know it is beatable in the first place?
As a result of that flawed design theory, we have a system where players thought the best way to complete content was to cheat it. And Cryptic let them do it. Why? If it was a case of the designers aren't good gamers, they'd better be good designers and they'd better know how to stop the exploits. If that's not the case, the only other conclusion to be drawn is this: Cryptics design team doesn't care.
/micdrop
Peter James
Host of Inside Neverwinter Podcast
Guild Leader of Knights at the Ceili
Maybe the devs themselfs wasnt able to do it but maybe their testers were (pro-gammers).
I would like to see this as we'll. You know, the fact that the devs are designing for some theoretical uber player explains a lot. At least Blizzard play tests their own games.
As an aside, I don't personally think the dungeons are really so difficult. But the rewards for doing the more difficult runs are mostly lame and don't give near enough incentive to grunt it out. Loot is meager, the gear sets are few and lack options, and there isn't near enough direct content other than 'kill adds, fight boss that spawns more adds'.
Cryptic doesn't give us enjoyable, dynamic gameplay, nor in-game rewards for completing the dungeon. I think a few zen for completing a T2, or maybe some refined AD as a drop off the mini-bosses. Who knows.
So while the dungeons, to me, don't feel terribly hard ... they also don't feel terribly worth it.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
Well, that would explain all the bugs coming through. But if it's true, it's a real bad idea. There's just not enough content to make half of it only suited for the uber-crowd.
Also if it's true, it's false advertisement. If an average group takes 1.5 hours, the 'average time' of the dungeons should state 1.5 hours.
But I agree fully with the OP. I'd like the devs to tweak themselves the equivalent of a founder's pack, gear up and do some dungeons. It would only take 45 minutes, right? I'm sure the can spare that much.
Because if you can't beat it legit, you can't test it.
As a foundry editor, I'd never publish without testing and doing runs of my foundry beforehand. I feel like you should take some pride in the work you create and ensure it's a fun experience for those who will partake in it. I'm definitely not going to make a foundry that I cannot beat myself using different combinations of levels and classes, I'd get bad reviews!
Good idea, it would show how much people cheat in many dungeons and would force the devs to find solutions.
Now for all you people that say oh its easy unless your a newb etc, I dare you to do this without the glitched High Vizer mage set. Its not only impossible to do in 45 min, but the rewards now do not reflect the time other than to get the achievement for doing it mor than once. I have played since beta, and have more alts than one would ever need. I feel that if you cannot complete it as a designer, it should never be published for the public. Designers know the phases and how the strategy is to beat it, they should never produce something that is not able to complete for the average player. Dungeons are dungeons, Raids however are different, make them insanely difficult.
I would also as a dev start logging people that do dungeons it record speeds and start perma-banning. Getting rid of this playerbase will not only relieve the community of dishonest players, but it also makes it so that players have a fighting chance in dungeons as they don't have to have 10,000 adds in it. Malabog Castle is great improvement in dev boss mechanics, but if they cannot beat it then its too hard for majority of the community. I don't want them easy either, I want some challenge, but just making tons of adds is frustrating and expensive in a dwindling economy of currency. A perfect example is a guild mate that spent $250 on keys and opened nightmare lockboxes and got nothing but enchants and profession packs, meaning they took tenebrous and anything worthwhile out of the loot tables.
If you want to question that this is an opinion, I program in 14 languages, speak 7, and have a degree in Game Systems Development. I have been in the IT world for 14 years. I have no creditable game published to support that i am by any means an expert in programming, but through my experiences editing loot tables and programming fixes is not near as hard as anyone would think. In beta the devs said they had 10 classes and number 7 was their favorite. So we know they have more than they are releasing for balance or whatever reason, maybe its to even milk the game. Whatever the reason I happen to know that fixing these issues are not hard.
So are we asking them to shut down their working day, or the servers. We are asking them to take some consideration in the mobs in place and either adjusting the times to realistically reflect the average time it takes to fully complete the dungeons, or adjust the trash to make them closer to the displayed times. We are not all elite gamers with tons of disposable income to gear to max and some of us refuse to exploit. Either way, I know that only the player base will read this as I doubt the devs care to read it, as they are laughing to the bank cashing their paycheck.