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We ever going to get real customization?
ysil6969
Member Posts: 42 Arc User
Is there any plans to make this closer to actual Dnd customization? I've been waiting for a forgotten realms game to come along for so long, but you've really taken it all away. We have pre-built classes that you haven't even expanded on. I figured at first "oh well, at least we'll get a few different builds for each class" but we haven't at all. We don't even get to pick our own weapons! I can't be an axe wielding cleric, a spear wielding GWF, or a sword wielding mage. We don't get to roll or arrange our stats how we like, or take feats to allow our mages to wear leather or our GWF to wear plate. Even our skills are lacking in all the options we should have. Why aren't all the skills from the PHB part of our choices? Why isn't my ranger picking between archer, dual weapon, or beast master?
Best thing about dnd is the choices, and honestly this game is BORING because you've taken that and forced us into cookie cutter builds. Other dnd games I'll play over and over again just creating new characters. This one I'm lucky if I jump back on for a few hours every couple months.
Best thing about dnd is the choices, and honestly this game is BORING because you've taken that and forced us into cookie cutter builds. Other dnd games I'll play over and over again just creating new characters. This one I'm lucky if I jump back on for a few hours every couple months.
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Truth be told, I believe the devs went with the former implementation so as to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. IMO, if they were to add, for instance, the ability for a wizard to wear heavier armor or wield a sword, it'd likely come in the form of some sort of epic character ability or in the form of an entirely new class.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
this is also a f2p game where the player base is expected to fluctuate. i don't think they're too worried about that. they know they're dedicated to pumping out the content and changes and i'm sure there is a core player base that is willing to stick through this.
they have mentioned customization but it is going to take time. if you look at cryptic's other games, they have better customization but they've also been around for a while. neverwinter's initial focus was on other things that were more important and customizations were not on that list. plus it's hard to say how long what is going to happen when based on the 3-4 month content roll-outs we've seen thus far. we already have an idea of what new classes are coming, but nothing officially official. and content/changes/additions take time to develop and plan in conjunction with everything else they're already committed to.
if something like customization could be turned out within weeks, i'm sure they would be. it's just not possible to do no matter how many times people suggest they can be. and assigning more people would mean they'd have to hire more people which means the game would have to be turning enough profit. this is just information that no one here is privy to. and it's easier said than done.
yes, more customization would be nice. but apparently our expectations are not anywhere in the same ballpark.
Regardless, I'm looking forward to the new stuff coming down the pipe, and hey, maybe some of the customization stuff is just over the horizon...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
PWI's first 3 races had an extensive amount of customization options but after that the next 2 races were pretty limited in comparison. But to this day I still think that the customization options for PWIs first 3 races were the best I've ever seen and really wish more games would put that kind of effort into their options.
I hope at some point in the future we will get more robust character and companion customization, being able to gear up your companions as well would give the game a bit more depth I think.
Yeah, OP.... if you're looking for "true D&D customization" in an MMO, D&D Online is right there waiting for you. With it's freedom to make a character that's revealed to be utterly useless by lv10-11 (out of 20). And the corresponding need to plan out your entire build (down to the exact time you spend points on each skill) before you even hit Create New Character, if you want to have any chance of being competitive at max level.
Wasn't really a fan of that part of the game, honestly. But, then, I'm not a rabid min-maxer.
Yeah it's a min-maxer's dream. But in terms of game balance it's pretty horrible. There are four difficulty levels in that game from casual to elite. A poor built toon will have a hard time or get smashed by normals where some builds can sleep walk thru elite. I played it heavily for about 3 years, and all in all it's freedom was it's blessing and it's curse all at the same time.
I honestly feel Cryptic felt so frustrated from the experience. That they will never touch a free form system again
Anyway the only way to make a more free system work is to standarize all skills to different tiers, but equal among the tiers. Like all skills in tier 1 make the same damage, same for tier 2 and 3, etc... So when creating your char you have to choose a set number of skills from each tier.
But that means a complete rework of the whole system so I highly doubt it.
I do think that all classes should be able to wear all weapons and armors, I don't think it would change much. But to prevent everyone using plate armor, giving more stuff to cloth armor or leather, like cloth armor giving more magic stats and defense, and making plate veyr weak against magic, or stuff like that.
I think the difficulty is a classless system is fine in P&P (which is what the original CoH design tried to copy - the Champions P&P design, just like Champions Online did, to some extent) because in P&P there are other factors that compensate for a gimp build (mainly, in that the focus is in creating a story together). But when you have an MMO, where you just know everything's going to settle to the lowest common denominator (i.e. "damage is king" min-maxed to buggery), it's hopeless.
Note: I should add that what I meant by "more computing power" above was something like this: for a true classless system to work in an MMO context, the abilities would have to auto-balance against each other (i.e. they'd have to be "aware" of what they were facing), which would mean that your "build" wouldn't have fixed numbers - it would have to be a set of ranges vs. other abilities and levels. This would be more difficult to design and more difficult to implement in the current state of computing play.
But this would make the concept of "character progression" difficult - how do you measure an increase in ability, growing power level, in that context? You could be gaining x% in a given ability, but that wouldn't automatically translate as x% effectiveness against everything, it would all be contextual.
I could see it working a bit like this: your personal choice would be in a kind of weighting of your types of abilities vs. other types of abilities (e.g. fire vs. crowd control), which would turn your choice into more of a rock/paper/scissors type of choice (adjustable on the fly, presumably after a reasonable cooldown) rather than a character progression choice.
Both CO and STO _launched_ with significant flexibility that NW lacks.
Furthermore, there's a host of ways they could have added flexibility from the beginning without serious challenging balance.
For example:
Secondary skill. Give every character one skill based on class and a second of the player's choosing. What effect does this have? Very little -- ok, so you have slightly fewer gp spent on kits (assuming people don't rely on plentiful drops). Big woopdedoo. But at least your 'cleric with Divine + Arcane' has some notional difference to 'cleric with Divine + Nature.'
Invocation visuals. When you invoke, maybe have the effects differ based on god (if only a symbol floating or something).
Cleric holy symbols vary by god.
Make reskinning a little less onerous so people feel happy and free to make a distinctive look, rather than nickeled and dimed to death over it.
Alternate animations/fx for abilities, perhaps grouped by theme. So perhaps some CWs have green fire and ice attacks, some have little demons caper about, whatever.
That's just off the top of my head. There are plenty of other little frills they could have chosen without even touching on direct balance/build issues.
It boggles me, given how much of D&D in the past has been tinkering with characters and making them OURS to tell stories with and a property (Neverwinter Nights) known for mods and alteration, that Cryptic decided of the three properties NW deserved customization the least.
What the Hades, dudes.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
My point is that they aren't even willing to put in the effort to put on the chrome, let alone anything really challenging. So. yeah
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
the stuff you listed just isn't important enough to me as a player to matter. of course, this is my opinion. others may feel differently.
an example... i totally hated the movie "Queen of the Damned" because they literally tried to squash two of Anne Rice's books into a two hour movie, not to mention they took way too much creative license with it. but, hey... that's hollywood for you. it sure is entertaining but in the end you have all these vampires that just show up in support of Lestat and there's no character building or explanation of who they are. not to mention they never explained the red-haired twins and how they relate to the queen. on that particular subject, those things mean a lot to me. it makes the whole film not enjoyable. someone who doesn't have that viewpoint may just enjoy the aesthetics value of Stuart Townsend as Lestat. even though he doesn't fit the physical description of the actual character.
but i digress.
you're also assuming they aren't willing. i'm sure there are many decisions made concerning what we eventually see in a patch that we will never get a detailed explanation about. sometimes, we do. the un-binding of companions was an issue because it seemed there was once a way to do it but it never worked in beta or in the live version. later, it was stated that it was tested in development and they decided against it. so it was never intended to work, there were just remnants of the process left in the code. these decisions may not be popular with some players, but to flat out assume that they aren't willing or they don't care is really an unfair statement to make.
At the very least though they could give us access to the rest of our abilities skill wise, if not the feats. And AT LEAST let us choose our weapons. Why there isn't maces, war hammers, axes, scimitars, falchions, etc is beyond me. weapons would be the easiest thing to add that would create loads of customization.
Just feels like they were scared to give any customization so they took it all away. And honestly, the games not that well balanced anyways.
Edit: I mean honestly, I can't even pick my stats. They have like 5 preset dice rolls you get to choose from... The game min-maxes for you.
Inform first, before complaining, that might make the rest of your points more valid.
There are 18 different stat rolls: http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Ability_Score_Rolling
Nope, this is not a D&D simulation game like Neverwinter Nights (mostly) was. It's an action game with D&D lore and some 4e mechanics largely adapted to offer a streamlined experience.
Whole classes are tailored on a single build with different "flavor" (paths) and power choices, but that's as far as it goes. I can't really see mages in platemail or crossbow-wielding clerics in the future of this game, since that would mean reworking everything from the base mechanics.