CONCUR with OP. A tuneup of your T2 dungeons is in order.
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texasgunmanMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited September 2013
I'd like to ask one question.
Does Neverwinter's design team care?
I'll explain:
I remember an episode of a show called Restaurant Impossible (Extreme Home Makeover for restaurants) 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.
So that begs the question, 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 keep exploits out of the live game. If that's not the case, the only other conclusion to be drawn is this: Cryptics design team doesn't care.
If they don't care about the game, should we be playing it?
Thanks,
Peter James
Host of Inside Neverwinter Podcast
Guild Leader of Knights at the Ceili
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seisem2Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited September 2013
Completely disagree with the OP. Just learn the fights and join a good guild that doesn't cheat. The first fight in Pirates is so easy, we burn the adds and the boss down in under 25 seconds.
5% of the playerbase telling people to join a guild, or L2P does not change anything said in the OP. Show us the vids of you 'pro's' completing cn and mc since last patch. Thought not.
Well said sir! Something has to be done about any part you say. To be honest, the whole BoP thing is crazy, make things bound, make then bound on use, but surely not BoP, especially not with gears which should be on the AH to sell or traded to a friend or alt!!
I did Tower of Celadain, I got the GWF weapon twice now, unfortunaly it's slightly worse than what I use right now, but I am quite sure I can make either other people happy with it in the guild or my alt!! :-)
"Every online game requires more to give than it offers or it's not worth actually playing. Even though we all know this we still decide to play anyway."
I really feel the game you guys play and the one i play are totally different games
I find the game so ridiculously easy that any kind of challenge is really refreshing and wellcome! but seems like its not that way...
I pug, i do guild runs, and i premade... and thing is people has forgotten how to play, the people who played in open beta were a lot more skilled, or maybe the exploits and speed runs have spoiled the player base... im pretty sure i can choose 4 players of my friends list(1 of each class) gear us on pvp gear or t1 gear, and do all the dungeons with ease, even draco (there are good CWs out there that can solo CC draco fight). then, you pug a dungeon delves event and see people who does not comunicate, people who does not know how to play their toons, people who quits, people who HAMSTER the other players... i understand it can be frustrating, but seriously, as long as you understand how to play your toons and get good comunication on groups... all the dungeons are doable on their base GS score (Mad Dragon/CN/MC are not doable BY PUGS on base score).
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dissengulp71Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 24Arc User
edited September 2013
I totally agree with the OP. I think delves have become an absolute time sink where the time vested far outweighs the rewards, especially when you get to the mode of farming. Interestingly I think PK is the easiest T2 and even the Surgeon is very doable with good CC and DPS. But when I compare PK to T1 Mad Dragon I wonder what is wrong with the game. Why is a T2 delve so easy and a T1 seem more difficult? And GS is not the ticket to your success in delves as it doesn't mean a player can play their class or run a dungeon using strategy and teamwork. Not to mention GF get more bang for the buck out of gear, in terms of GS; my geared GF is about to break 14k and my better geared DC is just under 12.3k. The exploiting speed runs have also brought down the player base skill level as so many don't know how to clear a dungeon because they "run". In other MMOs I have played, and they are numerous, a speed run meant taking a stoutly geared group, spec'ing for max DPS, buffing up to the max with pots / scrolls / food and going full blast through a dungeon sucking down heal / power pots and making sure the group stuck together and kept on trucking through. Speed runs in NW are about exploiting the campfires and glitching the mobs on the way or finding so-called "shortcuts". But when a legit run can take 60+ minutes and so many are driven by completing within the lame event timer so they can get one more run in under the timer this was bound to happen. Throw in the time sink issue of time versus reward and you see a failing end game and a player base losing interest. There needs to be a major overhaul of all the delves or the OP is right the core players are going to leave the game. I know NW is VERY new and most in my guild are willing to give this time yet but it has to happen and it needs to be a MAJOR overhaul of ALL the delves. Toning down the sheer ridiculous number of worthless mobs on the way to a boss, to improving the drops in some cases, to making the mechanics of a boss fight more interesting instead of having a plethora of adds show up, to finding a way to make some of the delves less time intensive.
I also started out playing UO (from the very start of it) then eventually moved on to a lot of other mmo's in the past 25-30 years of gaming that I've done.
I agree with the original poster that if things aren't done to the way dungeons are made up (i e loot and difficulty with end bosses) then you will loose your playerbase quite soon.
The leveling system of this game is great (although a bit too fast) and the storyline is well enough thought out.
Please do something so this game doesn't die.....
/Urd
(Urd Verdandi of Atlantic shard in UO with houses both in Felluca and later in Trammel)
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rojorMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 178Bounty Hunter
edited September 2013
+1 to the op's thoughts and sentiments.
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badpanda69Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 2Arc User
Completely disagree with the OP. Just learn the fights and join a good guild that doesn't cheat. The first fight in Pirates is so easy, we burn the adds and the boss down in under 25 seconds.
I think the piont that the OP is trying to get across is that the game should not be balanced for the elite players that are in a guild and constantly play with the same people every night and have high end gear. The agme should be balanced for PUGS and the average player that wants to feel like they at least have a chance of completing the Dugeons.
The Dungeons in there current state are not fun for people. I have tried to do several dungeons and nearly every one of them we have failed at the last boss. And its not because we where incompotent n00bs but rather crazy adds on the boss fights and after 3-4 wipes I genrally just give up log off. My Girlfriend has the same problem clears the dungeons gets to the final boss and wipes.
OP is right on alot, those who are disagreeing are focusing on things he got wrong in his post about a boss fight. I have multiple characters with over 11k GS that i saved AD for to get the gear so i can even attempt the dungeons. In the frozen heart, plaguefire caverns and temple of the spider after the first boss is killed adds spawn infinitely, thats impossible to get past in some of those due to doors needing to be opened, which you cant due to combat. Alot of dungeons you have to exploit the add reset mechanic to get by, bosses being impossible due to infinite adds is stupid. I play a CW alot as well as DC i can control quit well and some of these i cant even beat. I can dodge for days and it doesnt help because eventually my ccs will be on cooldown or AS will be and i will run out of stamina and pots will be on cooldown and the adds keep spawning so no matter how pro i am at my class in PVE i will die. Its frustrating that cheating the dungeon is the only way to ein,
Haven't progressed that far yes as I just started this game a few weeks ago, so I will offer up what we are doing.
I have perhaps 12 or 13 people I know that have started this area (including some of my kids) While we won't form a guild and perhaps will find and join one (mindflayer, just because I always used to like putting them into my old pen and paper D&D games.
However the overall goal is to be able to put together a 5 man group and do content using chat and such. Hopefully we can complete some. We do this mainly because a typical pug is go go go go and instead we prefer to enter and take out time learning the dungeon and doing all the content and side stuff etc.
To my way of thinking it is the journey, not the destination.
As for zen etc, once I see that they have solved a few bugs and that it is going to be a long term playable mmo I suspect we will be dropping a lot more than sub games like WOW.
After pandas, I lost interest in WOW, it was getting way to "wrong" from my perspective.
Typical things I would like to see fixed would be bags, (need a way to store enchants and such out of the main bags and would be happy (like the profession stuff etc).
A typical problem that needs fixed would be that "find honor" early on quest is so buggy you have to wait till attacked, to find the invisible boss , and the rooms fade in and out.
I know this is still a "new" game so i'm willing to wait , but I would sure like to be in the loop a bit on anticipated fixes. At least a sticky that says these are the things we know of and are working to fix.
Also for reasons I don't get the disconnects and slow frame rates and movement when in pvp etc are pretty much not good.
I am running a fast enough puter / internet connection to know it isn't me, and others (with top end gaming systems / internet are having similar problems.
Just a sticky noting that they are aware of problems and are addressing them would go a long way to making me feel better about spending money for zen in the game.
Bosses should be "killable" with a good pug IMHO.
I haven't yet tried it so no idea if this is true or not.
To be fair I will queue for some of the lower instances as pug and see what happens.
One suggestion would be to have the ability out of combat to select a set of things on the interface and just click one icon to switch to the 2nd interface that could be set up with different abilities so I don't have to stop the group and drag and drop each ability as we do instances, pugs seldom sit still for that, and it is why i prefer to run with people I know and can use voice comms to discuss what I'm doing and they are doing to solve a challenge in the instance.
Don't mind hard, do prefer a solution with avg' gear and acceptable rewards for the dungeon rating. I hate completing a quest and the item that drops / rewards is worse than some random drop I got off of some mob.
As a mostly Solo runner or just a person who runs with a good friend I would like to say, My friend and me have played NWO together faithfully sense Open Beta. We had our irritations that's for sure but we came on and played the game for what it was/is. if during the fight unforeseen things happened ok we let it go, but we didn't use it to our advantage the next time we went in a dungeon.
We were able to play the content with just the 2 of us and the level 15 healers up to Frozen Heart, the content after that we could get to the end but due to us only being 2 people and that we weren't uber geared there is no way we could finish the end Boss in these Dungeons. And in retrospect why should have we been able to, so in my eyes for 2 people who aren't uber players nor have high level healers to get that far in those dungeons ( Full Clears As Well I would Like To Add ) I myself felt that was an achievement.
We have a few other friends now that we group with but it is a challenge in of it self to get us on together as we all live in different time zones, but we still haven't done any epics so we will have to get someone for the extra spot if we ever plan on doing these epics but that will be in time to come.
Our grouped dungeons started at Spellplague onward and again we are a group that are still running with level 15 healers and not fully geared, but we are 1 person short all the time, so maybe that 1 extra person will make the difference for us, not sure, I know having an actual thinking Healer would be good, I can only hope that when I get enough A.D that I can upgrade my Hire their A.I. improves with it, as I never seen such crazy behavior from healers that are supposed to be helping you stay alive. I swear my Hire could be tucked away in a corner some where safe behind me and some how it will run right up to the mobs and stand there, holding that Icon up. I imagine them saying, " Look into my mirror " mean while I'm getting my *** kicked and in need of a heal.
I would have to agree with the O.P. but if making these dungeons less difficult comes to fruition then something definitely will have to be done as to not let the dungeons be farmed to death it short periods of time, because lets face it, if groups are doing them now
( With exploits/shortcuts ) or getting multi runs in before DD timer runs out. Then making the fights easier for all. only will make them super easy for the ones that can do them now. And the only way I can see this as a non issue is that once you complete you DD, that's it....1 DD per customer per day. Or if you want to do it again with an active timer on then you have to pay A.D. to enter again. I don't know what a fair A.D. cost would be for this but if it tells me I need 300K to upgrade my Level 15 hire then use that as a baseline.
I honestly don't know what Devs could do, to ease the difficulty for the intermediate players, that wouldn't make it super easy for the uber types. I know one thing as of right now with some of the higher dungeon bosses I can't even imagine what they would be like for Epic runs even with good gear.
Cheers! All, Take care
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
" May The Wind be Always At Your Back "
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filcMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited September 2013
I don't agree.
NW has very easy dungeons once you know what to do. I did all of them with PUGS, ofc died here and there, but that's what learning is about.
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itskinkajouMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 3Arc User
edited September 2013
10k GS Trickster Rogue here. I totally agree with everything the OP says: I've played since the beta, and I've continued playing until about a month ago. I tried playing through Mad Dragon last night, as I have done many times before, and I knew something had changed for the worst when three imps took my HP down to nothing. I may be squishy, but that is not something that normally happens to me.
Something has changed, and it's not for the better. Making dungeons difficult is fine, but just jacking up the stats on adds until the adds are almost like bosses themselves does not make the game challenging, it makes it a pain in the butt and quite frankly very unfun to play. The difficulty is something that needs to be addressed: You don't need to make it a casual game, but the dungeons need to be beatable by a wider variety of skill levels than they are now.
To galahad's response: i noted you asked how they could ease difficulty. How about they stop nerfing us just to appease PvP players? Seriously, theres already a start to this. One of the new enchantments has a different affect on players, showing they considered both pve and pvp when desining it. Perhaps the next big class redesign could include giving powers a pvp effect and a pve effect, with pve being focused on making each class better at their jobs and pvp being focused on balancing all classes against one another.
Another thing i would like to add to my previous statement is that its getting hard for me to convince my guild to run dungeons. Some of the people who have posted in this thread are in my guild. Their stories about impossible dungeons and having to abuse the system to get past these dungeons are true. Another thing, a party consisting of people in t2 gear with a random DC who is geared as you would expect for someone needing to run lair of the mad dragon should be able to get past the first boss. But when our fully decked out TR gets one shotted, our GWF with ancient Greatsword, and CW in t2 gear cant even stand up to the add swarms, its ridiculous. We are an experienced group and even with mitigation and healing not as optimal as we are used to, we should still be able to take the first boss. But nope, imps spawn, destroy our TR and DC, then our CW when his stamina is down, and then even with every possible AOE and buff they could gove themself our GWF falls, leaving me as the GF to just wipe regardless cuz the adds get behind me while i face tank the boss. Seriously, why is it we have to cheat to win? Highlander parties should be capable of running anything they are geared to queue for.
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shunterinoMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited September 2013
While i agree with most of the opinions here about the stupid level of adds and general difficulty and poor mechanics of dungeons, it should be noted that Cryptic has not only acknowledged most of these concerns but has also claimed to have addressed most of them.
They have previously said they have reduced adds, lowered difficulty in various dungeons and fixed broken boss mechanics.
The problem has been that even though they have claimed this, they haven't actually done it even though they've said they had.
I don't know how they've managed to convince themselves of this or how their QA team haven't noticed none of the fixes have taken, but that's the position we're in. We can try to draw their attention to these glaring problems, but for some unknown reason they can't see what we're talking about.
In the end what will kill this game won't be Cryptic's unwillingness to make changes, it will be their belief they've made all the changes we've asked for.
And all it would really take is for a dev to say "We're aware of it, we're working on it," but we can't even get that much out of them. Very bizarre and frustrating.
I appreciate that the OP was at least articulate. Unlike many, many posters. I also agree with the themes of his post, if not all of the details. I offer an anecdote and suggestion, roughly in line with the OP.
I have the good luck of being in a very nice guild. I'm not the most consistent player and have not experienced every T2 dungeon but I did an epic Karrundax run with my guild recently. The first two bosses seemed very poorly tuned at first: tons of adds, tons of red things to dodge on the ground, etc. I found myself constantly stamina starved, hovering over my shift key ready to mash out of the biggest red circle as soon as I had just enough to dodge. And yet, as the more experienced players walked me through the fights and explored other strategies (e.g., tank in X location and have GF kite vs. tank in Y location and have DC kite, etc.), the encounters did make more sense and we eventually came through them. I was able to see at least when I messed up (the camera system does encourage tunnel vision--you can't easily see what everyone else is up to at any given point);e.g., "oh, I shouldn't have dodged that--I should have walked out and saved my stamina for the next big attack," or "oops, I guess I need to manage my stamina better." I suspect the other dungeons would be similar if approached methodically and critically.
Notwithstanding the efforts of patient, experienced players and continuing "active" play on every group member's part, I still believe that NW suffers from tuning problems. When you queue for a dungeon, there's a little time estimation: 45 minutes for most T2s. That simply isn't accurate. I think that's a great time to aim for; it's actually one of the big draws for me--after raiding for years in WoW I appreciate something I can finish in less than an hour. But between the trash and boss fights that aren't very obvious, I don't think the 45 minute prediction stands up. Even if boss fights are "beatable"--and they very clearly are--they're messy as sin. By this I mean that although strategies do develop (so and so kite all the adds, position the boss there, etc.) and do become the status quo way of thinking for NW players, they aren't readily apparent to people who are coming at them fresh; you see the big red circles and think "dodge telegraphs, hit boss"--not "manage adds, manage adds, manage adds." I guess you could say it's counterintuitive? You can totally beat these encounters, but not the way you're used to in other games. I think that a little tuning, a little more direction could make this more obvious for new players so that they're generally more succesful. Alternatively, the developers could write more encounters that don't involve millions of adds--and it seems like MC is a step in that direction.
TLDR: It's not quite as simple as the OP indicates, but NW could use a lot of tuning.
To all the people that say that end game dungeons like CN and MC are easy.
If you cant post a current video showing you and your group completing them after the last patch all with 10k or under gear scores your posts don't mean jack.
To all the people that say that end game dungeons like CN and MC are easy.
If you cant post a current video showing you and your group completing them after the last patch all with 10k or under gear scores your posts don't mean jack.
Not only beating the dungeon with the minimum gear score, but also doing it in PUGS and without exploits... thats what i would like to see...
because i know for FACT that some posters in this topic saying that the game is easy and bla bla bla, are clearing/were cleraing the dungeons using all the exploits known to us...
To galahad's response: i noted you asked how they could ease difficulty. How about they stop nerfing us just to appease PvP players?
I can agree with that, and being someone who is not too interested ( At least ATM ) in PvP I never understood why something for that group of player base would effect me as a whole, I suppose it is just one of those global coding issues. it would be nice to have something to click when you need it. Eg. When I need to ride my mount it will light up when I'm in the area(s) that allow it. Well if I am a PvP'er put a button on my hot bar that Lights up so as to allow me to click it and it would re-apply my stats and skills for that time.
Looks good and sounds easy enough when I type it and read it, but from a coding point of view it is probably a huge head-ache.
As to people wanting to see other people do these dungeons I have to agree, I would like to see them to, but I'll go few steps further and ask, can you do them Via the min G.S. that is required from the wikki and without all the cool companions/helpers, also without exploits or the so called short cuts. Now if you can normally bypass a mob ok, but I'm not talking running up a wall and using an invisible ledge, or firepit running or any of that HAMSTER. I would like to see people do a normal path run that aren't 13-15 G.S. and got all the nice bonus stuff with rank 7 and 10 enchants that type of stuff. It would be interesting to see that's for sure.
have you tried them after the patch, i want to see a video of MC and CN after the partch with a GS average of 11k , no exploiting no killing adds using cliffs or anything a true fight i will gladly see the video and share it around the world.
i have run every dungeon in the game and i have finished every instance in pugs with friends and in guild, however afte rthe last patch not sure if my skills decreased a lot but cannot finish CN and MC. btw i am a GF with 16.5K GS and i am not using ancient set for weapons(i have them but not use them) probably i could reach 17k GS with that, my point is that is pretty difficult to finish them off currently, MC last figth we reach the 3rd part of the figth and the dang dragon kill some due to bugged red lines , will continue trying but sometimes seems imposible.
I have to concur with the the MC last boss 3rd phase in which 2 of our members died at the same time due to bugged red lines. I myself died when I was clearly not in the red. Might be a new bug introduced with the recent patch.
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sturuckusprimeMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited September 2013
I think this is one of the best threads on here right now. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this game needs strategy not luck, in order to be beatable. I have high hopes that it'll be better in the future. It can just get really frustrating.
There are very few posts that I actually agree with so much, that I repost in guild forums. This is one such case. I absolutely agree with the OP on many of their points. When exploits or questionable strategies are the only methods to beat certain boss mechanics, there is an issue. I agree with the above poster that MC is definitely a step in the right direction. I also agree with many posters that say they need to re-evaluate boss mechanics. Utilize abilities not base a mobs difficulty on the number of adds or spawns. I thought the fly over ability in MC was awesome. The dragon has abilities not adds!
The add swarms need to stop, that is a lazy mechanic. I've seen people get frustrated with Ethraniev in epic Wolf Den, but that fight is awesome in my opinion. Not so many adds, and boss has a nasty attack that will get you and your party killed if you are careless. Challenging and makes you think.
Bugs need to be fixed. It was really demoralizing to see a quick response to the Midsummer garb transmutation issue and GWFs have been suffering with the Determination bug since Open Beta. Priorities, devs. It's not what hurts YOU, it's about what hurts US.
Because, who is more important? Your manager or a player?
The add swarms need to stop, that is a lazy mechanic. I've seen people get frustrated with Ethraniev in epic Wolf Den, but that fight is awesome in my opinion. Not so many adds, and boss has a nasty attack that will get you and your party killed if you are careless. Challenging and makes you think.
Bugs need to be fixed. It was really demoralizing to see a quick response to the Midsummer garb transmutation issue and GWFs have been suffering with the Determination bug since Open Beta. Priorities, devs. It's not what hurts YOU, it's about what hurts US.
Because, who is more important? Your manager or a player?
Mate, just look at the foruns.... its obvious that the players are not their priority
. I thought the fly over ability in MC was awesome. The dragon has abilities not adds!
So first time I ran MC we wiped on Final boss when he flew over. but then nailed him on second try, it was fun. Last time I ran MC Valindra was fixed and her add spawn nailed us all six times we tried. then the quiting began...
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itskinkajouMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 3Arc User
The add swarms need to stop, that is a lazy mechanic. I've seen people get frustrated with Ethraniev in epic Wolf Den, but that fight is awesome in my opinion. Not so many adds, and boss has a nasty attack that will get you and your party killed if you are careless. Challenging and makes you think.
Ethraniev's fight has to be the best boss fight here. Her adds are dangerous and need to be managed, but it is not an impossible fight and takes strategy and skill. Idris is also a great fight--there are a ton of adds, but with strategy, you can eliminate them and have Idris all to yourself.
The problem dungeons I've seen are:
Lair of the Mad Dragon
Lair of the Pirate King (The HP on some of the adds is ridiculous. I don't think I should be able to burn through them on my TR, but it shouldn't take me more than 90 seconds to take one down)
Frozen Heart (infinite troll spawns)
Spellplague (bugged 2nd boss, bugged add spawns after 1st boss)
Temple of the Spider (Completed this once in a 'legitimate' manner, most PUGs I've gotten into choose to exploit it)
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focusmanMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited September 2013
I dont agree with OP, what I noticed in Neverwinter:
- Make people read the forums more on how to play there class and which builds are good to use.
- Play as a team and not as 5 individuals.
- Don't get crazy if your not on a number 1 position in scores (dmg etc...). It's a team effort.
- Join a GOOD guild
- Practice dungeons with the same people, don't use the queue system (= instant waste of time)
- Use your **** voicechat if it isn't going well (pressing V is really hard.....if not using another program).
- Dungeons are easy, even at 10k GS. It's just a lack of skill combined with the selfishness of people bashing there keyboard and blaming others. If you have 2 people like this in your party, waste of time again.
- Draco + Fulmi farting lightning is an annoying bug indd.
- I stopped playing because I am just BORED at this game, I will keep an eye on the forums IF the devs start listening to the community
- Don't introduce a pig hording festival. Inroduce a festival with a BAD *** dungeon with an epic drop for every party member IF you can beat the boss (NO ADDS, some real mechanics like fulmi + vallindra, even though that can be done better since adds can still be spawned through the portal....)
I dont agree with OP, what I noticed in Neverwinter:
- Make people read the forums more on how to play there class and which builds are good to use.
- Play as a team and not as 5 individuals.
- Join a GOOD guild
- Practice dungeons with the same people, don't use the queue system (= instant waste of time)
- Use your **** voicechat if it isn't going well (pressing V is really hard.....if not using another program).
- Dungeons are easy, even at 10k GS. It's just a lack of skill combined with the selfishness of people bashing there keyboard and blaming others. If you have 2 people like this in your party, waste of time again.
- Draco + Fulmi farting lightning is an annoying bug indd.
- I stopped playing because I am just BORED at this game, I will keep an eye on the forums IF the devs start listening to the community
- Don't introduce a pig hording festival. Inroduce a festival with a BAD *** dungeon with an epic drop for every party member IF you can beat the boss (NO ADDS, some real mechanics like fulmi + vallindra, even though that can be done better..)
I don't agree with this at all.
I do agree with OP to a point. I have done most of the dungeons to completion, with pugs, but it does keep getting more difficult and just flat out more grindy. You up the stats of the trash so we have to pull fewer mobs at a time or get nailed. This makes the dungeons just take longer, which is not the same as adding content btw, and the final bosses more difficult to run before the adds overrun you. The t2's that i have finished I can usually still finish though. Yes you should learn to play as a team member, but you shouldn't have to join any guild. In an MMO the idea was originally that the was always someone to play with, the game was always on. You aren't supposed to have to wait till the same people are around and can play.I do 100% agree about the pig festival though.
Comments
Does Neverwinter's design team care?
I'll explain:
I remember an episode of a show called Restaurant Impossible (Extreme Home Makeover for restaurants) 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.
So that begs the question, 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 keep exploits out of the live game. If that's not the case, the only other conclusion to be drawn is this: Cryptics design team doesn't care.
If they don't care about the game, should we be playing it?
Peter James
Host of Inside Neverwinter Podcast
Guild Leader of Knights at the Ceili
Catalina Erantzo - GWF 13.9K GS
<Future> Guild on Dragon - Legit Non Exploit Guild (We are always recruiting great players)
Future Guild Recruitment Thread: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?475381-lt-Future-gt-Legit-Non-Exploit-Guild-Recruiting
I did Tower of Celadain, I got the GWF weapon twice now, unfortunaly it's slightly worse than what I use right now, but I am quite sure I can make either other people happy with it in the guild or my alt!! :-)
:cool:
I find the game so ridiculously easy that any kind of challenge is really refreshing and wellcome! but seems like its not that way...
I pug, i do guild runs, and i premade... and thing is people has forgotten how to play, the people who played in open beta were a lot more skilled, or maybe the exploits and speed runs have spoiled the player base... im pretty sure i can choose 4 players of my friends list(1 of each class) gear us on pvp gear or t1 gear, and do all the dungeons with ease, even draco (there are good CWs out there that can solo CC draco fight). then, you pug a dungeon delves event and see people who does not comunicate, people who does not know how to play their toons, people who quits, people who HAMSTER the other players... i understand it can be frustrating, but seriously, as long as you understand how to play your toons and get good comunication on groups... all the dungeons are doable on their base GS score (Mad Dragon/CN/MC are not doable BY PUGS on base score).
I agree with the original poster that if things aren't done to the way dungeons are made up (i e loot and difficulty with end bosses) then you will loose your playerbase quite soon.
The leveling system of this game is great (although a bit too fast) and the storyline is well enough thought out.
Please do something so this game doesn't die.....
/Urd
(Urd Verdandi of Atlantic shard in UO with houses both in Felluca and later in Trammel)
I think the piont that the OP is trying to get across is that the game should not be balanced for the elite players that are in a guild and constantly play with the same people every night and have high end gear. The agme should be balanced for PUGS and the average player that wants to feel like they at least have a chance of completing the Dugeons.
The Dungeons in there current state are not fun for people. I have tried to do several dungeons and nearly every one of them we have failed at the last boss. And its not because we where incompotent n00bs but rather crazy adds on the boss fights and after 3-4 wipes I genrally just give up log off. My Girlfriend has the same problem clears the dungeons gets to the final boss and wipes.
The dungeons need looking at asap.
I have perhaps 12 or 13 people I know that have started this area (including some of my kids) While we won't form a guild and perhaps will find and join one (mindflayer, just because I always used to like putting them into my old pen and paper D&D games.
However the overall goal is to be able to put together a 5 man group and do content using chat and such. Hopefully we can complete some. We do this mainly because a typical pug is go go go go and instead we prefer to enter and take out time learning the dungeon and doing all the content and side stuff etc.
To my way of thinking it is the journey, not the destination.
As for zen etc, once I see that they have solved a few bugs and that it is going to be a long term playable mmo I suspect we will be dropping a lot more than sub games like WOW.
After pandas, I lost interest in WOW, it was getting way to "wrong" from my perspective.
Typical things I would like to see fixed would be bags, (need a way to store enchants and such out of the main bags and would be happy (like the profession stuff etc).
A typical problem that needs fixed would be that "find honor" early on quest is so buggy you have to wait till attacked, to find the invisible boss , and the rooms fade in and out.
I know this is still a "new" game so i'm willing to wait , but I would sure like to be in the loop a bit on anticipated fixes. At least a sticky that says these are the things we know of and are working to fix.
Also for reasons I don't get the disconnects and slow frame rates and movement when in pvp etc are pretty much not good.
I am running a fast enough puter / internet connection to know it isn't me, and others (with top end gaming systems / internet are having similar problems.
Just a sticky noting that they are aware of problems and are addressing them would go a long way to making me feel better about spending money for zen in the game.
Bosses should be "killable" with a good pug IMHO.
I haven't yet tried it so no idea if this is true or not.
To be fair I will queue for some of the lower instances as pug and see what happens.
One suggestion would be to have the ability out of combat to select a set of things on the interface and just click one icon to switch to the 2nd interface that could be set up with different abilities so I don't have to stop the group and drag and drop each ability as we do instances, pugs seldom sit still for that, and it is why i prefer to run with people I know and can use voice comms to discuss what I'm doing and they are doing to solve a challenge in the instance.
Don't mind hard, do prefer a solution with avg' gear and acceptable rewards for the dungeon rating. I hate completing a quest and the item that drops / rewards is worse than some random drop I got off of some mob.
JMTC ,, YMMV
Thad
As a mostly Solo runner or just a person who runs with a good friend I would like to say, My friend and me have played NWO together faithfully sense Open Beta. We had our irritations that's for sure but we came on and played the game for what it was/is. if during the fight unforeseen things happened ok we let it go, but we didn't use it to our advantage the next time we went in a dungeon.
We were able to play the content with just the 2 of us and the level 15 healers up to Frozen Heart, the content after that we could get to the end but due to us only being 2 people and that we weren't uber geared there is no way we could finish the end Boss in these Dungeons. And in retrospect why should have we been able to, so in my eyes for 2 people who aren't uber players nor have high level healers to get that far in those dungeons ( Full Clears As Well I would Like To Add ) I myself felt that was an achievement.
We have a few other friends now that we group with but it is a challenge in of it self to get us on together as we all live in different time zones, but we still haven't done any epics so we will have to get someone for the extra spot if we ever plan on doing these epics but that will be in time to come.
Our grouped dungeons started at Spellplague onward and again we are a group that are still running with level 15 healers and not fully geared, but we are 1 person short all the time, so maybe that 1 extra person will make the difference for us, not sure, I know having an actual thinking Healer would be good, I can only hope that when I get enough A.D that I can upgrade my Hire their A.I. improves with it, as I never seen such crazy behavior from healers that are supposed to be helping you stay alive. I swear my Hire could be tucked away in a corner some where safe behind me and some how it will run right up to the mobs and stand there, holding that Icon up. I imagine them saying, " Look into my mirror " mean while I'm getting my *** kicked and in need of a heal.
I would have to agree with the O.P. but if making these dungeons less difficult comes to fruition then something definitely will have to be done as to not let the dungeons be farmed to death it short periods of time, because lets face it, if groups are doing them now
( With exploits/shortcuts ) or getting multi runs in before DD timer runs out. Then making the fights easier for all. only will make them super easy for the ones that can do them now. And the only way I can see this as a non issue is that once you complete you DD, that's it....1 DD per customer per day. Or if you want to do it again with an active timer on then you have to pay A.D. to enter again. I don't know what a fair A.D. cost would be for this but if it tells me I need 300K to upgrade my Level 15 hire then use that as a baseline.
I honestly don't know what Devs could do, to ease the difficulty for the intermediate players, that wouldn't make it super easy for the uber types. I know one thing as of right now with some of the higher dungeon bosses I can't even imagine what they would be like for Epic runs even with good gear.
Cheers! All, Take care
" May The Wind be Always At Your Back "
NW has very easy dungeons once you know what to do. I did all of them with PUGS, ofc died here and there, but that's what learning is about.
Something has changed, and it's not for the better. Making dungeons difficult is fine, but just jacking up the stats on adds until the adds are almost like bosses themselves does not make the game challenging, it makes it a pain in the butt and quite frankly very unfun to play. The difficulty is something that needs to be addressed: You don't need to make it a casual game, but the dungeons need to be beatable by a wider variety of skill levels than they are now.
Another thing i would like to add to my previous statement is that its getting hard for me to convince my guild to run dungeons. Some of the people who have posted in this thread are in my guild. Their stories about impossible dungeons and having to abuse the system to get past these dungeons are true. Another thing, a party consisting of people in t2 gear with a random DC who is geared as you would expect for someone needing to run lair of the mad dragon should be able to get past the first boss. But when our fully decked out TR gets one shotted, our GWF with ancient Greatsword, and CW in t2 gear cant even stand up to the add swarms, its ridiculous. We are an experienced group and even with mitigation and healing not as optimal as we are used to, we should still be able to take the first boss. But nope, imps spawn, destroy our TR and DC, then our CW when his stamina is down, and then even with every possible AOE and buff they could gove themself our GWF falls, leaving me as the GF to just wipe regardless cuz the adds get behind me while i face tank the boss. Seriously, why is it we have to cheat to win? Highlander parties should be capable of running anything they are geared to queue for.
They have previously said they have reduced adds, lowered difficulty in various dungeons and fixed broken boss mechanics.
The problem has been that even though they have claimed this, they haven't actually done it even though they've said they had.
I don't know how they've managed to convince themselves of this or how their QA team haven't noticed none of the fixes have taken, but that's the position we're in. We can try to draw their attention to these glaring problems, but for some unknown reason they can't see what we're talking about.
In the end what will kill this game won't be Cryptic's unwillingness to make changes, it will be their belief they've made all the changes we've asked for.
And all it would really take is for a dev to say "We're aware of it, we're working on it," but we can't even get that much out of them. Very bizarre and frustrating.
I have the good luck of being in a very nice guild. I'm not the most consistent player and have not experienced every T2 dungeon but I did an epic Karrundax run with my guild recently. The first two bosses seemed very poorly tuned at first: tons of adds, tons of red things to dodge on the ground, etc. I found myself constantly stamina starved, hovering over my shift key ready to mash out of the biggest red circle as soon as I had just enough to dodge. And yet, as the more experienced players walked me through the fights and explored other strategies (e.g., tank in X location and have GF kite vs. tank in Y location and have DC kite, etc.), the encounters did make more sense and we eventually came through them. I was able to see at least when I messed up (the camera system does encourage tunnel vision--you can't easily see what everyone else is up to at any given point);e.g., "oh, I shouldn't have dodged that--I should have walked out and saved my stamina for the next big attack," or "oops, I guess I need to manage my stamina better." I suspect the other dungeons would be similar if approached methodically and critically.
Notwithstanding the efforts of patient, experienced players and continuing "active" play on every group member's part, I still believe that NW suffers from tuning problems. When you queue for a dungeon, there's a little time estimation: 45 minutes for most T2s. That simply isn't accurate. I think that's a great time to aim for; it's actually one of the big draws for me--after raiding for years in WoW I appreciate something I can finish in less than an hour. But between the trash and boss fights that aren't very obvious, I don't think the 45 minute prediction stands up. Even if boss fights are "beatable"--and they very clearly are--they're messy as sin. By this I mean that although strategies do develop (so and so kite all the adds, position the boss there, etc.) and do become the status quo way of thinking for NW players, they aren't readily apparent to people who are coming at them fresh; you see the big red circles and think "dodge telegraphs, hit boss"--not "manage adds, manage adds, manage adds." I guess you could say it's counterintuitive? You can totally beat these encounters, but not the way you're used to in other games. I think that a little tuning, a little more direction could make this more obvious for new players so that they're generally more succesful. Alternatively, the developers could write more encounters that don't involve millions of adds--and it seems like MC is a step in that direction.
TLDR: It's not quite as simple as the OP indicates, but NW could use a lot of tuning.
If you cant post a current video showing you and your group completing them after the last patch all with 10k or under gear scores your posts don't mean jack.
Not only beating the dungeon with the minimum gear score, but also doing it in PUGS and without exploits... thats what i would like to see...
because i know for FACT that some posters in this topic saying that the game is easy and bla bla bla, are clearing/were cleraing the dungeons using all the exploits known to us...
I can agree with that, and being someone who is not too interested ( At least ATM ) in PvP I never understood why something for that group of player base would effect me as a whole, I suppose it is just one of those global coding issues. it would be nice to have something to click when you need it. Eg. When I need to ride my mount it will light up when I'm in the area(s) that allow it. Well if I am a PvP'er put a button on my hot bar that Lights up so as to allow me to click it and it would re-apply my stats and skills for that time.
Looks good and sounds easy enough when I type it and read it, but from a coding point of view it is probably a huge head-ache.
As to people wanting to see other people do these dungeons I have to agree, I would like to see them to, but I'll go few steps further and ask, can you do them Via the min G.S. that is required from the wikki and without all the cool companions/helpers, also without exploits or the so called short cuts. Now if you can normally bypass a mob ok, but I'm not talking running up a wall and using an invisible ledge, or firepit running or any of that HAMSTER. I would like to see people do a normal path run that aren't 13-15 G.S. and got all the nice bonus stuff with rank 7 and 10 enchants that type of stuff. It would be interesting to see that's for sure.
Cheers! All
" May The Wind be Always At Your Back "
I have to concur with the the MC last boss 3rd phase in which 2 of our members died at the same time due to bugged red lines. I myself died when I was clearly not in the red. Might be a new bug introduced with the recent patch.
Bugs need to be fixed. It was really demoralizing to see a quick response to the Midsummer garb transmutation issue and GWFs have been suffering with the Determination bug since Open Beta. Priorities, devs. It's not what hurts YOU, it's about what hurts US.
Because, who is more important? Your manager or a player?
Mate, just look at the foruns.... its obvious that the players are not their priority
So first time I ran MC we wiped on Final boss when he flew over. but then nailed him on second try, it was fun. Last time I ran MC Valindra was fixed and her add spawn nailed us all six times we tried. then the quiting began...
Ethraniev's fight has to be the best boss fight here. Her adds are dangerous and need to be managed, but it is not an impossible fight and takes strategy and skill. Idris is also a great fight--there are a ton of adds, but with strategy, you can eliminate them and have Idris all to yourself.
The problem dungeons I've seen are:
Lair of the Mad Dragon
Lair of the Pirate King (The HP on some of the adds is ridiculous. I don't think I should be able to burn through them on my TR, but it shouldn't take me more than 90 seconds to take one down)
Frozen Heart (infinite troll spawns)
Spellplague (bugged 2nd boss, bugged add spawns after 1st boss)
Temple of the Spider (Completed this once in a 'legitimate' manner, most PUGs I've gotten into choose to exploit it)
- Make people read the forums more on how to play there class and which builds are good to use.
- Play as a team and not as 5 individuals.
- Don't get crazy if your not on a number 1 position in scores (dmg etc...). It's a team effort.
- Join a GOOD guild
- Practice dungeons with the same people, don't use the queue system (= instant waste of time)
- Use your **** voicechat if it isn't going well (pressing V is really hard.....if not using another program).
- Dungeons are easy, even at 10k GS. It's just a lack of skill combined with the selfishness of people bashing there keyboard and blaming others. If you have 2 people like this in your party, waste of time again.
- Draco + Fulmi farting lightning is an annoying bug indd.
- I stopped playing because I am just BORED at this game, I will keep an eye on the forums IF the devs start listening to the community
- Don't introduce a pig hording festival. Inroduce a festival with a BAD *** dungeon with an epic drop for every party member IF you can beat the boss (NO ADDS, some real mechanics like fulmi + vallindra, even though that can be done better since adds can still be spawned through the portal....)
Black Lotus
http://nl.twitch.tv/wixardofoz
I don't agree with this at all.
I do agree with OP to a point. I have done most of the dungeons to completion, with pugs, but it does keep getting more difficult and just flat out more grindy. You up the stats of the trash so we have to pull fewer mobs at a time or get nailed. This makes the dungeons just take longer, which is not the same as adding content btw, and the final bosses more difficult to run before the adds overrun you. The t2's that i have finished I can usually still finish though. Yes you should learn to play as a team member, but you shouldn't have to join any guild. In an MMO the idea was originally that the was always someone to play with, the game was always on. You aren't supposed to have to wait till the same people are around and can play.I do 100% agree about the pig festival though.