Gearflation/Expansions and Player Population Decline

maroucat · May 2014

This problem exists in every game, and eventually murders every game that has come out so far.

So, a game comes out, it's pretty good, it has fun PvP/PvE.

1 year later, Gearflation and PvE expansions have made certain classes really overpowered, have nerfed other classes making them weak, and due to more level cap gear/ability progression; players must suffer bad or marginally available PvP/PvE for days or several weeks time before they can compete in endgame content.
2 years later. Gearflation is even worse and further PvE expansions and class additions have added to the balance woes. It's too late to play this game, better to play a new one. The suffer period for a new player at level cap to experience fun PvP/PvE is now measured in months. Players begin bleeding, they spike every expansion, but then dwindle back down to pre-expansion numbers.

A new player that joins becomes less and less likely to be retained over time. They power their way up to level cap and see a progression curve that looks something like this.

http://www.eve-pirate.com/uploads/LearningCurve.jpg

They can't find PvE groups to run dungeons to gear up, because they are so far behind the players that never left, nobody really does those dungeons any more, or requires inflated gear to run them for farming. As a result, only the players that try really hard and find good guilds will stay around, most will leave.

They can't do instanced PvP, because they will be wearing paper armor, while their opponents will be in the iron man suit. Many PvP players will just find another game at this point, it's too boring and frustrating to continue The retention rate gets lower and lower the more the progression curve increases between fresh level cap gear and what is needed to compete.

Now, there are several ways to skin this cat, including *welfare* epics that are no more than 25% worse than the upper crust of what's possible when a new xpac comes out. However, most companies just ignore the problem until their game is dead/dying, and never understand the root cause.

If you have been playing MMO's long enough to see this problem play out in many games, chime in with how you think it can be fixed. Because it's already becoming a problem here. The problem will just be compounded with the next module when fresh level 60's still have 9-10 thousand gearscore and capped out players have 2X thousand.

doriangreigh · May 2014

I can't say I disagree, i've only done two MMO and I have to say it does seem that way. The last one I came from before Neverwinter wasn't quite that bad yet but did seem to be getting there. They came out with new content that veterans where clearing but new players not so much. Honestly I left shortly after the new content as I spent so much time getting top end only to see my top end gear have a stat formula change that caused all my stats to drop pre cap quality and I had to farm out more all over again to get top end again. The new people that came into the game to run with were so bad it became almost impossible to find queue groups that would be successful to get the drops at the end. Its almost pathetic. If you were in a guild you had a better shot but even then most guild people only wanted to run stuff the was top of the line for rewards getting the now mid range end game stuff was hard to do cause everyone was bored with it.

As I see it the problem isn't so much gearflation as it is that the game relies on existing players to get people up to speed and frankly most existing players have "been there done that" and are not interested in doing it again and so new players are left googling to find out how to do things successfully or quitting .... It seems its systemic and without any real solution as nothing teaches people how to clear dungeons other than existing players that have ran them. Most people don't want to stop and listen in this game at all. In my previous MMO I will give the community credit if the group was 3 pugs and a veteran everyone would stop at each boss fight get a run down at what to do and give it a shot. Have you seen many do that in this game? Most people are all about following the sparkle trail and jump on mobs and bosses as soon as you see them, dungeons in this game are less time consuming than some in other games and people act like you just wasted their whole day if you make them run through every mob or don't keep up with their glitching/skipping areas.

A great idea would be having people that play this game getting discounts from PWE/crytpic for ingame items or something to teach people the proper way to run dungeons. How awesome would that be to have mentors in the game that can be put in a group to tell them what should be done so at least people would have an idea. They'd be required to show people proper ways not glitching/shortcut ways to run through a dungeon.

schweifer1982 · May 2014

maroucat wrote: »

This problem exists in every game, and eventually murders every game that has come out so far.

So, a game comes out, it's pretty good, it has fun PvP/PvE.

1 year later, Gearflation and PvE expansions have made certain classes really overpowered, have nerfed other classes making them weak, and due to more level cap gear/ability progression; players must suffer bad or marginally available PvP/PvE for days or several weeks time before they can compete in endgame content.
2 years later. Gearflation is even worse and further PvE expansions and class additions have added to the balance woes. It's too late to play this game, better to play a new one. The suffer period for a new player at level cap to experience fun PvP/PvE is now measured in months. Players begin bleeding, they spike every expansion, but then dwindle back down to pre-expansion numbers.

A new player that joins becomes less and less likely to be retained over time. They power their way up to level cap and see a progression curve that looks something like this.

http://www.eve-pirate.com/uploads/LearningCurve.jpg

They can't find PvE groups to run dungeons to gear up, because they are so far behind the players that never left, nobody really does those dungeons any more, or requires inflated gear to run them for farming. As a result, only the players that try really hard and find good guilds will stay around, most will leave.

They can't do instanced PvP, because they will be wearing paper armor, while their opponents will be in the iron man suit. Many PvP players will just find another game at this point, it's too boring and frustrating to continue The retention rate gets lower and lower the more the progression curve increases between fresh level cap gear and what is needed to compete.

Now, there are several ways to skin this cat, including *welfare* epics that are no more than 25% worse than the upper crust of what's possible when a new xpac comes out. However, most companies just ignore the problem until their game is dead/dying, and never understand the root cause.

If you have been playing MMO's long enough to see this problem play out in many games, chime in with how you think it can be fixed. Because it's already becoming a problem here. The problem will just be compounded with the next module when fresh level 60's still have 9-10 thousand gearscore and capped out players have 2X thousand.

This is not true .

TR perma in pvp t1 armor can complite whit no problem any t1-t2 dungeon "only 1 is too hard for him TOS" . SELF TESTED
The problem is with CWard and buyed out zen cuz new players cannot buy zen from zen sellers more then 500 kk ad waiting for zen.
So new player srewed his char cannot buy retrain token . THIS IS THE BIGGES PROBLEM.

The way i see new ppl achive lvl 60 too fast they cant get enugh Raw ad to buy gear .
NEXT step they go pvp to get the daly 8 k raw (big mistake ).
After frustrated they go dungeons in blue stuff "but not t1" they want t2 cuz they see only the req GS what mybe they have.(another mistake)

Somone must make realy a newby guide from lvl 1 -lvl60 from lvl 60 - min achivment t2 gear.

But here a big hint somwhere in neverdeath graveyard is a quest give fresh new player 1 Blue asset pack y can sell it for 80k from 80 k y can buy t1 pvp armor set woala .

maroucat · May 2014

schweifer1982 wrote: »

This is not true .

TR perma in pvp t1 armor can complite whit no problem any t1-t2 dungeon "only 1 is too hard for him TOS" . SELF TESTED
The problem is with CWard and buyed out zen cuz new players cannot buy zen from zen sellers more then 500 kk ad waiting for zen.
So new player srewed his char cannot buy retrain token . THIS IS THE BIGGES PROBLEM.

You obviously haven't leveled any chars lately. PvP T1 with R5/6 enchants, about what a new player will have, will net you between 9.5 and 10.5k GS. The top end PvP gear isn't T1 and T2 dungeon, it's purified/corrupted black ice mixed with profound, fomorian/crafted weapons, R9-10 enchantments, and perfect weap/armor enchantments, combined with boons, will put you between 17.5 and 19k GS.

The next expansions, with it's extra boons, and new gear will put players considerably above that. Fresh characters will still have 9.5k to 10.5k GS. Add a few more xpacks. Then old players have 30k GS and 50k+ HP, fresh players still have 10k GS, etc.

Make no mistake, this is not just the PvP end, this happens just as much with PvE content. As that grind curve climbs higher and higher, less new players continue playing the game when they hit cap. Which means less dungeon and PvP groups. Eventually, there are few, the game goes into maintenance mode, and then eventually it ceases to be profitable and closes down.

schweifer1982 · May 2014

And what do y think? We all grinded the way up .From 6k GS .

reiwulf · May 2014

His point is that everytime it'll be harder to climb up, enchanting was cheaper/easier before for example.

maroucat · May 2014

And what do y think? We all grinded the way up .From 6k GS .

And that worked fine when the gap between fresh 60 and top end was where it was at launch, now that gap is bigger, and will just get bigger and bigger over time.

The characters I started when the game came out could jump straight into end-game and have fun when hitting level cap. New players, and alts can't do that, because the gap between a fresh 60 and a geared 60 is way more now.

Jump into a PvE or PvP queue with a freshly leveled alt, don't give him your uber enchantments, make him work for it. Come back and tell me it's fun. Because I'll step back and call you a liar.

The endgame experience deteriorates for new players every content expansion. Unless it is addressed in some way retention and player-base goes in the crapper.

spongebob56 · May 2014

Well lets look a NW and the progress with coals by modules (timings a bit off but close enough) in relation to what new characters face:

Module 1-

Coals, coals, everywhere. Drop rate is nuts. New players have perfect and high rank enchants in no time.

Module 2-

Coals from invoke now bound to players. Drop rate drastically lowered. New players face 200k+ AD coals. Upward climb to that perfect and higher rank enchants but still very doable.

Module 3-

Tradebar merchant coals locked. Unbound coals become scarce. New players now face 500k+ AD coals (when there are ones) or spending $10USD for each.

I'll be honest, I have no idea how they can keep retention now. New players will see the requirements for the new ceiling shortly after reaching 60 and just move on. The only way to fix this is Cryptic has to get out of the coal business and find other ways to monetize this game. Where? Player and/or guild houses and fashion wear. Also microtransactions are suppose to be micro. $10 is not micro. You want more bag sells? How about selling players a chest for their house instead.

Another option is to sell module access. As long as the price is reasonable people will pay for new content unlocks. I might have payed for Module 1 access for all my toons.

crazymikee · May 2014

look at runescape they didnt listen to people and their updates turned the game to ****, and it all started with the innocent *un*"balancing" that has been going on

rashylewizz · May 2014

reiwulf wrote: »

His point is that everytime it'll be harder to climb up, enchanting was cheaper/easier before for example.

Rank 5 enchantments used to cost 5k each........

maroucat · May 2014

Regardless of the ease or difficulty in getting good enchantments, it's just a symptom of the bigger problem, which is, every expansion in player power makes the fresh 60 experience worse and makes the grind longer and longer to get to the current *endgame* content.

So, PvP gets crappier, and new players get closer and closer to being one shotted by capped players.

PvE gets crappier because the tiers of gear someone needs to work through are played by less and less players, making it harder and harder to find groups to do the content.

Boons everywhere, the new player also has to do X minutes/hours of daily content a day across increasing numbers of zones. X weeks to get all boons for A expansion, X weeks for B Expansion, X weeks for C expansion, if you have three hours a day to play and you have 5 modules of dailies, plus regular dailies, get ready for a grind of months.

reiwulf · May 2014

WoW did it nicely, in PVE, by raising the level cap, all players, old and new had equal oportunity if getting the new gear (usually, the new regular lv80 equip dropped in quests or regular mobs was better than the epic lv 70 equipment, so just by leveling you were as prepared as old chars for the new content and new epic dungeons.

overddrive · May 2014

Yep, its being ignored. Levels 60+ with gear tied more to levels. If you are going to make rough gs equivalents it would be lvl60 10K every 1000 gs after that would be another level. So we would have roughly lvls 60-70. IMO levels is really how to keep progression uniform and that kind of uniformity keeps the problem at least stable. Neverwinter is just making the whole thing top-heavy by loading all that power on level 60 with no further level progression. So ya some new level 60s are in fact about as powerful as some other certain level 45's, while other older level 60's have the equivalent power power of what a level 70 would have. So you have "level 45's" battling "level 70's" in pvp and that just should never, never, even have a chance of happening.

A poorly thought out system that will burn its self out well before its time.

onecoolscatcat · May 2014

Player decline is a huge problem, but gear inflation isn't the root cause. Many of my top notch guildies left because Neverwinter simply stopped being fun. Neverwinter's problems are replayability and new player start up costs.

Endgame content boils down to either paying through the nose for Zen or making vast amounts of AD and mindlessly grinding for gear. Players leave because neither of these pursuits is fun. I believe Cryptic is maneuvering PvP as their answer to veteran player decline and challenging endgame, but D&D is intrinsically PvE. If I want to kill other players I'll play a game specializing in PvP, not a clumsily jury-rigged add on. That said, don't improve or expand PvP. Kill it off and focus on Neverwinter's core strength. PVE

The other problem is attracting new players. New players have an amazingly difficult time. There's too large a power gap between people around since beta and those signing on for the first time today. Cumulative changes mean new players simply have no chance in hell of making enough AD to start making AD. Their only recourse is "pay to win", only replace "win" with "be marginally competitive in the short term."

I can't in good conscience suggest Neverwinter as a game to any of my friends. They'd need to buy several hundred dollars worth of zen to have a chance.

oicidraz · May 2014

Despite I don't like PWE/Cryptic (or whatever) lastest moves at all, I wouldn't say that you need to spend "several hundred dollars" to have a chance, lol.

quitegonejin · May 2014

unwillingness to balance classes in pvp (you are GWF, HR, or PERMA TR or you will not compete) and pve (CW's only class that should even bother).

unwillingness to make new paths uselful, eg Whisperknife

GWF outshines every class by a large margin in pvp and has for a very long time, the last balance to them made them even stronger, meanwhile TR's got nerfed again, unnecessarily.

GF is useless in pvp and pve

TR's have had a large portion of their encounters nerfed to uselessness which leaves them with one option only for competitive play

the average cost to make an end game character is obscene and impossible for those who arent extremly wealthy from past exploits or willing to spend hundreds on zen/3rd party sites, eg;
12 x r10 enchants (2.5-3mil) 2 x perfects 7-9mil, and 4-5mil refining on 3x artifacts = 62mil AD (ish) or 2604 days of dailys. (or more offensive, about 500$ on a third party site [not recommended] or 4x that from the official site.) and with continuous changes that make AD harder and harder to get without opening up your wallets, the feeling that the game is going the way of a money grab is more evident daily.

Much of the new content just doesnt work (black ice domination)

Much of the OLD content doesn't work; pve queue system.

The foundry is a completely untapped resource (no rewards), no pvp in it, no real story telling (ie, imagine if you could control your npc's while someone plays a foundry of yours etc etc)

With great potential, a fun combat system and a refreshing limited action bar there is much to love, but its clearly going nowhere fast, and cryptic is, in typical fashion, choosing not to comment on many of the balancing issues the game has. Some people would like just a comment, so they know these issues aren't being ignored.

I would say these contribute to the player decline, add to that the FTP market has finally opened up developers to be less afraid to create quality mmo's and a slew of new games coming out.... and NW will suffer. It needs
attention; to bugs, oversights, etc
communication;to the players and forum community about its future visions, and
class balancing which has been ignored to the point that some classes might as well be deleted, and the player base is losing faith that balance will ever see the light of day.

Just my 2Zen.

onecoolscatcat · May 2014

I'm not kidding.

I do financially support Cryptic. I'm a hero of the North, Knight of the Feywild, and a Guardian of Neverwinter. If they ever release future packs I'll buy them also.

Solid gear? Pff. If any of my friends ever play I'll DD with them and get them their BiS T2 sets. We do that for our guildies. Heck, I'll give my buds all the free rank 8s they can equip. Thing is, it takes a LOT of AD to play. There simply isn't any way they could possibly make enough to close the power gap between themselves and myself or other experienced players. If Neverwinter were solely a PvE game it wouldn't be so bad, but in PvP you NEED the gear before you can start learning. Getting slaughtered only teaches you so much. Look at the price of a perfect Vorpal. Convert that into Zen. Convert That into dollars. Repeat....

pantamime · May 2014

The amount of cash/zen/AD new players will need to catch up in any amount of reasonable time is just way too much. I have been playing MMO's since UO and the original EQ.

This is most definitely a problem that all games face. EQ is still around, do you think people start new on that game? ther are like over 25 expansions and hundreds of AA abilities and other alternative level methods. No, they don't, only the people that have been around forever are still involved. Although EQ had very few PVP options so it wasnt noticeable, you can still PVE solo or find people, and they have mercenaries(like companions) now, but only added it after the population was beyond dwarfed.

I got some friends into Never Winter recently as I had just come back to it recently *just as IWD was comin out* I almost feel bad for getting them in to it. It was great fun and they were loving it from 1-60. But now as they are 60 and see that PVP is horribad balanced, they can't get in to dungeons (HR/TR and GWF) even though their GS is more than needed they still get kicked because it isn't an overkill amount of GS above what is needed.

They need to come up with a way to retain new players. I know they would never refuse access to areas but, maybe if people are way above a GS requirement of say T1 or T2s then they can't run it anymore - solely for the purpose of letting these newer players make groups and not be invited and kicked by all of these elite people that won't allow them to even try the dungeon.

Remember when the game was new and everyone had <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> gear but we still all played together because it was FUN!?!?!?

I remember running Lair of the Mad Dragon the first time, and even though we didn't beat it - it is still to this day one of the most fun experiences I have EVER had in an MMO. And I recall doing T1s and some T2s that we couldn't beat but the players were all fun nand nice because we were all new and excited to play the game.

Now people are only caring about how fast they can do runs, get drops, make AD, win pvp, make glory, get leaderboard status, fully upgrade all enchants. And that is it.

Somehow along the way, the purpose of having FUN was thrown out the window for the purpose of grinding through stuff as fast as we possibly can, and in the easiest fashion(Look at PvE group comps - another huge problem)

Allowing only these newer players to group up and run their appropriate content will bring it back to how it was when we were all still new and Gearflation(love this term btw) wasn't here yet(well not as much)

overddrive · May 2014

onecoolscatcat wrote: »

Player decline is a huge problem, but gear inflation isn't the root cause. Many of my top notch guildies left because Neverwinter simply stopped being fun. Neverwinter's problems are replayability and new player start up costs.

Endgame content boils down to either paying through the nose for Zen or making vast amounts of AD and mindlessly grinding for gear. Players leave because neither of these pursuits is fun. I believe Cryptic is maneuvering PvP as their answer to veteran player decline and challenging endgame, but D&D is intrinsically PvE. If I want to kill other players I'll play a game specializing in PvP, not a clumsily jury-rigged add on. That said, don't improve or expand PvP. Kill it off and focus on Neverwinter's core strength. PVE

The other problem is attracting new players. New players have an amazingly difficult time. There's too large a power gap between people around since beta and those signing on for the first time today. Cumulative changes mean new players simply have no chance in hell of making enough AD to start making AD. Their only recourse is "pay to win", only replace "win" with "be marginally competitive in the short term."

I can't in good conscience suggest Neverwinter as a game to any of my friends. They'd need to buy several hundred dollars worth of zen to have a chance.

If Cryptic is maneuvering PvP as their answer to veteran player decline and challenging endgame, it is an epic failure. PVP is the worst it has ever been, especially for veteran players. There is absolutely nothing new other than gang-killing people in IWD. A leaderboard that actually means something and match scoring that reflects actual winning actions. Some form of league or ladder. It is a laughable joke now and I think many of the ones who actually are quitting this game are the vets.

spongebob56 · May 2014

morenthar wrote: »

For $50, you can outfit a character in really solid gear and all rank 7 enchantments. That's generally the price of a video game.

Do you know what the difference is between my perfect vorpal and some newbies normal vorpal (the best they are gonna get for just $50)? I will crush them every time in PvP and always be better in PvE. There is also a huge difference from lousy R7s and my R10s too. Want to compete? Fork over a couple hundred more dollars. Then they might stand a chance. Maybe. And I didn't have to spend the money to be so awesome as I started playing the game before everything required so much money to proceed. Instead I spent money on my purple mount, stone, and other cool stuff for my toons.

Sound elitist? Sure. And that is what new players are going to face now: pay to compete or go away. I think most will quickly follow the later. I don't blame them.

vrist · May 2014

For a game this young there shouldn't be this kind of gap already.

onecoolscatcat · May 2014

vrist wrote: »

For a game this young there shouldn't be this kind of gap already.

and that is the point.

maroucat · May 2014

vrist wrote: »

For a game this young there shouldn't be this kind of gap already.

That's exactly the point, and I'm glad most people can see it. Just wish PW/Cryptic could see it.

vrist · May 2014

Thing is they need to develop content, or progression where people with end game gear will sit happy with what they have for awhile, and really need to dumb down old content since playability of it will diminish, and new players wont be able to achieve fantasy coattail groups as easy.

zomd · May 2014

I don't really think wards* change or even zax being kinda wonky right now are the big problems. Those are problems for existing players who have plenty of ad to turn into zen or wards.

I think it's that farm groups dominate the lfg channel that's really uninviting to players who make it to 60 (and even me as a longer term player). Player imposed GS requirements for T2 dungeons and the cw/gwf dominance in groups are significant problems. Mitigating the class balance issues and fixing the queue system would be a great start, imo.

*Edit: Though, with the wards change, it would be good if it were easier to make/get lesser weapon/armor enchants for new players. If they don't want to do that, maybe they could create some new newbie weapon/armor enchants that you get some quests to do that can fill those slots so players aren't left with nothing if they can't get two wards right away. And then once they do get a proper enchants, they can feed the newbie enchants to the proper ones for bonus refining points.

znudenej · May 2014

Just imagine that mod 4 will be here in few months and probably new campaign. New player will have to grind 4 sets of repetitive boring quests every day for more then month to get his boons. Its not a game, its test of patience.

hmdq · May 2014

Cryptic has everything in hand to stay for long in the market, simply do not only marketing, but also invest in staff, increasing staff, qualify, invest in equipment, etc. not only seek profit, profit, profit. but that soon there will be more where extracting profit because there will be no one who will help! Think ... think Cryptic.

norsemanx · May 2014

As a pretty casual player I find myself falling further and further behind the curve as it is. It'd be even worse starting out as a new player.

quitegonejin · May 2014

pantamime wrote: »

The amount of cash/zen/AD new players will need to catch up in any amount of reasonable time is just way too much. I have been playing MMO's since UO and the original EQ.

This is most definitely a problem that all games face. EQ is still around, do you think people start new on that game? ther are like over 25 expansions and hundreds of AA abilities and other alternative level methods. No, they don't, only the people that have been around forever are still involved. Although EQ had very few PVP options so it wasnt noticeable, you can still PVE solo or find people, and they have mercenaries(like companions) now, but only added it after the population was beyond dwarfed.

I got some friends into Never Winter recently as I had just come back to it recently *just as IWD was comin out* I almost feel bad for getting them in to it. It was great fun and they were loving it from 1-60. But now as they are 60 and see that PVP is horribad balanced, they can't get in to dungeons (HR/TR and GWF) even though their GS is more than needed they still get kicked because it isn't an overkill amount of GS above what is needed.

They need to come up with a way to retain new players. I know they would never refuse access to areas but, maybe if people are way above a GS requirement of say T1 or T2s then they can't run it anymore - solely for the purpose of letting these newer players make groups and not be invited and kicked by all of these elite people that won't allow them to even try the dungeon.

Remember when the game was new and everyone had <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> gear but we still all played together because it was FUN!?!?!?

I remember running Lair of the Mad Dragon the first time, and even though we didn't beat it - it is still to this day one of the most fun experiences I have EVER had in an MMO. And I recall doing T1s and some T2s that we couldn't beat but the players were all fun nand nice because we were all new and excited to play the game.

Now people are only caring about how fast they can do runs, get drops, make AD, win pvp, make glory, get leaderboard status, fully upgrade all enchants. And that is it.

Somehow along the way, the purpose of having FUN was thrown out the window for the purpose of grinding through stuff as fast as we possibly can, and in the easiest fashion(Look at PvE group comps - another huge problem)

Allowing only these newer players to group up and run their appropriate content will bring it back to how it was when we were all still new and Gearflation(love this term btw) wasn't here yet(well not as much)

500-2000$ is the cost to play at end game capacity! Lets just take a moment to re read that. To compete in pvp, at the very end game, unless you know some very rare ways in game to become rich, that os what you will be spending to play this ftp game with 1 working pvp map with no real balance in its queueing system.

Gearflation/Expansions and Player Population Decline

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