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Considerations for Module 5: What the players really want.
ayroux
Member Posts: 4,271 Arc User
Considerations for Module 5: What the players really want.
First off, thanks for producing an awesome free to play game. I have enjoyed MANY game days in this game and am hoping to continue to do so! I have been around (as many people know) since open Beta and have seen this game at its best and worst.
Opening:
I have talked to many players about what they have liked in previous modules and what they would look forward to with regards to another module and the answers are usually unanimous.
PVE Considerations:
One of the unanimously agreed features missing in PVE is a true “high end” dungeon experience. When this game first went live, and for many months after Castle Never was the staple when you thought of grueling, tough dungeon experience. Every single module we have had, has not expanded on this (I have not experienced the new dungeon with ToD yet, but I would imagine its along the lines of MC and VT.
There are TWO options typically agreed upon:
1) a 10 man “raid” style version of each of the T1 dungeons.
2) A NEW 5 man truly epic dungeon that is much like CN was on release.
Either way you want to go, its pretty clear players are wanting more in the PVE realm as far as options/dungeons that are not only HARD to farm but WORTH farming. The only way I see to address the latter, is by making not only BoE Equipment, but also other incentives like cosmetics, enchants, Refinement items, etc….
I personally think a 10 man version of each of the T1 dungeons would be fantastic! I would even suggest that the 10 man dungeon varies per day based on a quest you get from Lord Neverember (sp?) so everyone in game, has the same 10 man (that qualifies to do these) incentivizing cooperation and DOESN’T allow this to be “farmed” daily but “ran” like a daily (more on this later).
Its important to note, a “RAID” doesn’t mean a traditional “raid schedule” it JUST means a 10 man dungeon, of the old dungeons. So monsters would just hit harder, take more damage, and possibly (hopefully) add more monster mechanics – such as control immunity and aggressive “red” areas in tandem with increased mob count – get creative!
PVP Considerations:
This is really something I think Cryptic is TRYING to incorporate into this PVE centered game, and honestly is just not doing it too well.
So far there have been THREE significant “additions” to PVP in this games lifetime.
1) GuantlyGrm – a 20 vs 20 PVP grounds. This unfortunately is just a big “horse race”
2) Tenacity – a PVP “resilience stat”. This has mixed feelings and didn’t really ADD content, just changes the way we gear for PVP.
3) Icewind Dale – another attempt and new content that really missed the mark. Turned into a battle of pets. This also included leaderboards – which honestly just caused players with big egos to try and find ways to “take advantage” of the system to appear on top or appear like they never lose.
Most of this shows Cryptic DEVs DO care about pvp and want to make it work. What will make PVP work? A few simple things.
1) Remove Contesting nodes in domination.
This has caused SO much grief among the PVP community in that the “best” strategy is the “stalemate” strategy. This is just a lame mechanic that was first implemented WAY back after release when players realized the best way to win is take a tanky character and completely negate the enemies home node. If this is removed or diminished, that entire “meta” goes away and PVP returns back to its focus, players killing other players as a team and completing objectives (capturing nodes).
2) Adding more PVP game TYPES.
This has been brought up MANY times. One thing I one suggest as an easy starting point is an “Arena” type battle. Very simple smaller maps – this has been implemented very successfully in other games. One example I liked had each “team” spawn and contain 5 rounds of battle. It would be akin to removing the “far” nodes, and everyone rushes towards mid to battle to the death. Once you die, there is no respawn until the round is over. Best of 5 wins. Done.
Another would be something like “OddBall” where there is an item in the middle of the map, and one person can pick up that item. For every second its held, your team gets 1 point. All abilities (tab/shift/dailies/encounters/at wills etc) are locked while holding the “ball” and are replaced with a “bash/melee” ability. This creates a TON of fun and honestly could even be implemented into the existing domination maps (although id prefer new maps TBH).
Module 5 “dailies” and “campaign”
1) Boons
This is something that’s pretty unanimous. We do NOT want more Boons. Players have now FOUR sets of boons to farm. Sharandar, Dreadring ,icewind dale, and now ToD, and PVPers have a FIFTH set for pvp only.
What I would propose is a PVE-only Boon system. This would operate MUCH like the PVP boons do, in that it involves running dungeons and doing certain things in dungeons to qualify for boons. The boons would ONLY be “active” inside dungeons, just like pvp boons are only active in pvp.
2) Campaign
If you saw my previous PVE considerations, this is my proposition. I am in favor of the 10 man versions of T1 dungeons and in conjunction with the new PVE dungeon boons, these would marry quite well.
The “daily” would be to run a PVE dungeon as a 10 man group with increased difficulty. Your reward would be not only loot from the run (New T3/T4 items) but also a new campaign currency. You can get creative here, but this entire module would be PVE centered with dungeon farming as the key.
Each new day there is a new 10 man to run. You could ALSO figure out how to award a “point system” to dungeon runs OR even just include in PVE runs a “counter”. Once a 10 man dungeon is completed your “time” is posted to a PVE “leaderboard” that shows the top 10 fastest runs for that 10 man dungeon. You would be BLOWN AWAY with the incentive this would create for the die hard PVE-ers.
Class Rebalance Considerations:
This is always a sensitive topic that easy opens into flame, so I will just leave it with – revamp the DC and revamp the TR.
The TR needs to be a viable striker.
DC needs some re-work to make more appealing.
Let’s leave it at that.
Conclusion:
1) Players want more difficult “top end” PVE content with reasons to farm PVE.
2) PVP players want more gametypes and GG/IWD are not “competitive” play. Thus the only competitive PVP is currently domination (same two since OB)
3) Players do NOT want more boon farming with a new campaign, you can easily recycle existing content but update with new flavor (aka 10 man dungeons with a “timer leaderboard”).
4) DC/TR need love too.
Lets please keep this constructive and not turn this into flame. Thanks!
First off, thanks for producing an awesome free to play game. I have enjoyed MANY game days in this game and am hoping to continue to do so! I have been around (as many people know) since open Beta and have seen this game at its best and worst.
Opening:
I have talked to many players about what they have liked in previous modules and what they would look forward to with regards to another module and the answers are usually unanimous.
PVE Considerations:
One of the unanimously agreed features missing in PVE is a true “high end” dungeon experience. When this game first went live, and for many months after Castle Never was the staple when you thought of grueling, tough dungeon experience. Every single module we have had, has not expanded on this (I have not experienced the new dungeon with ToD yet, but I would imagine its along the lines of MC and VT.
There are TWO options typically agreed upon:
1) a 10 man “raid” style version of each of the T1 dungeons.
2) A NEW 5 man truly epic dungeon that is much like CN was on release.
Either way you want to go, its pretty clear players are wanting more in the PVE realm as far as options/dungeons that are not only HARD to farm but WORTH farming. The only way I see to address the latter, is by making not only BoE Equipment, but also other incentives like cosmetics, enchants, Refinement items, etc….
I personally think a 10 man version of each of the T1 dungeons would be fantastic! I would even suggest that the 10 man dungeon varies per day based on a quest you get from Lord Neverember (sp?) so everyone in game, has the same 10 man (that qualifies to do these) incentivizing cooperation and DOESN’T allow this to be “farmed” daily but “ran” like a daily (more on this later).
Its important to note, a “RAID” doesn’t mean a traditional “raid schedule” it JUST means a 10 man dungeon, of the old dungeons. So monsters would just hit harder, take more damage, and possibly (hopefully) add more monster mechanics – such as control immunity and aggressive “red” areas in tandem with increased mob count – get creative!
PVP Considerations:
This is really something I think Cryptic is TRYING to incorporate into this PVE centered game, and honestly is just not doing it too well.
So far there have been THREE significant “additions” to PVP in this games lifetime.
1) GuantlyGrm – a 20 vs 20 PVP grounds. This unfortunately is just a big “horse race”
2) Tenacity – a PVP “resilience stat”. This has mixed feelings and didn’t really ADD content, just changes the way we gear for PVP.
3) Icewind Dale – another attempt and new content that really missed the mark. Turned into a battle of pets. This also included leaderboards – which honestly just caused players with big egos to try and find ways to “take advantage” of the system to appear on top or appear like they never lose.
Most of this shows Cryptic DEVs DO care about pvp and want to make it work. What will make PVP work? A few simple things.
1) Remove Contesting nodes in domination.
This has caused SO much grief among the PVP community in that the “best” strategy is the “stalemate” strategy. This is just a lame mechanic that was first implemented WAY back after release when players realized the best way to win is take a tanky character and completely negate the enemies home node. If this is removed or diminished, that entire “meta” goes away and PVP returns back to its focus, players killing other players as a team and completing objectives (capturing nodes).
2) Adding more PVP game TYPES.
This has been brought up MANY times. One thing I one suggest as an easy starting point is an “Arena” type battle. Very simple smaller maps – this has been implemented very successfully in other games. One example I liked had each “team” spawn and contain 5 rounds of battle. It would be akin to removing the “far” nodes, and everyone rushes towards mid to battle to the death. Once you die, there is no respawn until the round is over. Best of 5 wins. Done.
Another would be something like “OddBall” where there is an item in the middle of the map, and one person can pick up that item. For every second its held, your team gets 1 point. All abilities (tab/shift/dailies/encounters/at wills etc) are locked while holding the “ball” and are replaced with a “bash/melee” ability. This creates a TON of fun and honestly could even be implemented into the existing domination maps (although id prefer new maps TBH).
Module 5 “dailies” and “campaign”
1) Boons
This is something that’s pretty unanimous. We do NOT want more Boons. Players have now FOUR sets of boons to farm. Sharandar, Dreadring ,icewind dale, and now ToD, and PVPers have a FIFTH set for pvp only.
What I would propose is a PVE-only Boon system. This would operate MUCH like the PVP boons do, in that it involves running dungeons and doing certain things in dungeons to qualify for boons. The boons would ONLY be “active” inside dungeons, just like pvp boons are only active in pvp.
2) Campaign
If you saw my previous PVE considerations, this is my proposition. I am in favor of the 10 man versions of T1 dungeons and in conjunction with the new PVE dungeon boons, these would marry quite well.
The “daily” would be to run a PVE dungeon as a 10 man group with increased difficulty. Your reward would be not only loot from the run (New T3/T4 items) but also a new campaign currency. You can get creative here, but this entire module would be PVE centered with dungeon farming as the key.
Each new day there is a new 10 man to run. You could ALSO figure out how to award a “point system” to dungeon runs OR even just include in PVE runs a “counter”. Once a 10 man dungeon is completed your “time” is posted to a PVE “leaderboard” that shows the top 10 fastest runs for that 10 man dungeon. You would be BLOWN AWAY with the incentive this would create for the die hard PVE-ers.
Class Rebalance Considerations:
This is always a sensitive topic that easy opens into flame, so I will just leave it with – revamp the DC and revamp the TR.
The TR needs to be a viable striker.
DC needs some re-work to make more appealing.
Let’s leave it at that.
Conclusion:
1) Players want more difficult “top end” PVE content with reasons to farm PVE.
2) PVP players want more gametypes and GG/IWD are not “competitive” play. Thus the only competitive PVP is currently domination (same two since OB)
3) Players do NOT want more boon farming with a new campaign, you can easily recycle existing content but update with new flavor (aka 10 man dungeons with a “timer leaderboard”).
4) DC/TR need love too.
Lets please keep this constructive and not turn this into flame. Thanks!
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
This is the main thing that I would like to see. Although I agree with everything else. C'mon Cryptic, 2 maps for 1 mode is basically what PVP boils down to in this game.
While I know that would never happen because of profitability, they should at least make it so Boons don't effect PvP. That would help alleviate some of the imbalance within PvP.
EDIT: Also hell yea more game modes. Domination is fine but omg can we get something else. GG was a big old flop because it came run around the rosey and cap over and over with little to no actual action happening if you wanted to win.
Team Death matches, Capture the Flag, Protect the King (one player on each team is king, when he dies it is round over) there are a lot of different game types they could implement that would really help PvP. One of the biggest reasons things seem imbalanced in PvP is solely because of the type of game mode it is. Node holding and Contesting are more valuable than anything when it boils down to it. Some classes are great at this and others are not.
PVPer rocking it Solo queue style since the dawn of Neverwinter
LOL, if they put that in the cash shop I am uninstalling immediately. Don't even joke about such a horrible thing!
PVPer rocking it Solo queue style since the dawn of Neverwinter
Boons are the only things that make PVE actually worth while. Honestly, I play Neverwinter for the PVP, and without boons, there is really no reason for a PVPer to take part in the PVE aspects of the game, aside for maybe resources for enchantments. As for bringing PVP down to Meat and Potatoes, I disagree with this as well. I believe the more complex the system, the more application for diversity in builds and opportunities to come up with creative new ideas for ways to play the game. I believe the use of Pets in Icewind Dale was a good thing, it adds a new layer to the arsenal of what PVPers can use. I don't believe the problem with PVP is it's complexity, but the lack of effort on balance on the Dev's end. Games like League of Legends and World of Warcraft actually hire people to work strictly on PVP balance, because that's how big of a task it is. I believe this part of the game development is lacking however for Neverwinter, and all we can really do is wait and hope the Devs find this development necessary enough to fund it. In the mean time, we as players can take the time to master our classes and theory craft and how we might find balance in the game, rather than complain about over-powered mechanics currently displayed in PVP.
As for game-types, my Favorite form of PVP has always been the most traditional. Capture the flag. The objective is simple and it relies heavily on tactics and coordination of a team to win.
10 person raids: YES!
new dungeon with harder content: YES!
TR and DC revamp: YES!
I'm not against dailies or boons though, they're a good way to gate content so people don't finish the whole new module in 1 day like it happens with WoW sometimes XD
I only PvP as well and was grinding boons but got bored of it and stopped. It is ridiculously tedious and boring.
I do agree that it allows for pretty interesting and useful builds.
I wish they had a complete team for just PvP balance issues. But this team of Devs should play a LOT of Neverwinter PvP firsthand. On every class. (different devs play different classes) but on the live server against us actual people, with out mentioning it or us knowing that they are a balance dev.
They need to experience what it is like in PvP, to the same degree that us players do. Obviously there is no way they could log the same hours we all have, but it would definitely help them to see what really needs changing and what doesn't. Relying on us, the community, for balance issue - really hasn't been as useful as it should be.
PVPer rocking it Solo queue style since the dawn of Neverwinter
From the Warhammer Wiki:
"Murderball is close in style to a death-match with elements of Capture the Flag. When the match begins, a "Murderball", or an artifact of some value, is placed somewhere on the map. Both realms must race to capture the artifact and hold it for as long as possible. Holding the Murderball will earn points for your realm over time, as well as increase the amount of victory points you receive when killing an opposing player. If you are killed while holding the Murderball, the opposing realm will gain twice the normal amount of victory points. The player who was killed while holding the Murderball will drop the artifact, and it will then be free for anyone to grab. The murder ball will constantly damage the player holding it."
xDD. They wouldn't stoop that low
Funny, that would be the first thing I buy.
1) More involved PvE content: More actual quests with actual storylines. Quests where we get to figure out what's going on; where we encounter NPCs with personality, and have puzzles to solve. I am tired of "kill 5/10/50 of this," and "bring me 3/5/10 of that" quests. They are lazy and boring, and not very "D&D."
2) A real foundry update: Let's face it; most people don't care about the foundry these days because they don't think it's worth their time, but it's actually the only thing Neverwinter has to set it apart from every other MMO out there. So give it some attention and make it better; give it better rewards; give foundry authors more options to improve the gaming experience; give us actual bosses; allow authors the ability to give players choices that actually affect the ending! That would be awesome! Please, please, please actually put some time and energy into this feature that was for me the only reason (that's not even an exaggeration) why I downloaded this game in the first place.
Yes, I think CTF would be harder to implement than this murderball idea... Like I said you could even use the existing maps to do it with.
I wouldnt have it damage the holder, just lock all abilities - if it was damage it would create a level of unfairness in whose the best ball holder.
Youd see MUCH different build "metas" than in current pvp - which is honestly what this game needs. Because of the "Stalemate" meta that is best, players make and create weird builds that wouldnt be as beneficial in a slayer or "oddball" scenario.
You say you talked with a lot of players, so I'm assuming this came up a lot, but I have never once heard anyone complain about this. And I PvP a lot. And talk PvP a lot. For me, I would be bothered if this mechanic was taken away. The reality of most PvP matches is not that one tanky player stands on a node and negates the enemy home. The "tanky" characters are at 2 trying to put that on lock down. If you have two players from the opposing team that are split and sitting on 1 and 3, all that means is that it's 5 on 3 at the center. Or 3 on 3 with a 2 on 1 and one of the points. Either way, I like those odds.
What usually happens is someone, generally a TR if they are available, goes to the enemy base, caps it, and comes back to the action at 2. If they see it being capped again, then run back and contest it. If they win, then either they cap it and head back to 2 (or their base depending), or an enemy player respawns and the fight begins again. An enemy might peel off of 2 to come help kill the nasty TR, but that just means the advantage at 2 switches to your side (hopefully).
Maybe I'm missing how the old system worked, but being able to contest a node and keep it locked for a short period of time until you die or cap, can make or break the game for a team that might not be as well geared and experienced as the other side. I'd hate to see this removed.
I absolutely agree with this, please the foundry needs some more love!
You're missing on a spectacular tool in this game.
Oh man, Insant respect levels for you. I had alot of fun in Warhammer Online and I miss that style of PvP. (Brightwizard for life). Every scenario was different and fun. And the Open World was killer.
Now I am nostalgic
19.9k PvP Control Wizard
<Complaints Department>
Bright Wizards were a lot of fun and super strong. I liked White Lions a lot, and Archmage was pretty awesome. But the Warrior Priest was a beast!
Rift has a game mode similar to this. I would love to see this game type come to Neverwinter. Would give a great play style sence you would need heals and a tanker to hold and so on.
I would love to see a Foundry update that allowed players to create PVP maps. Let the community vote between the maps and then make them official and add them to the regular domination queue. Then we can rotate these player made maps every "season" just like StartCraft.
That would make me so happy, I think we would get some really great maps even with just the Domination mode still.
PVPer rocking it Solo queue style since the dawn of Neverwinter
I agree with almost all of the OP, But i would like more reworks to items and revamp the newer dungeon loot tables.
I would also rather see no boons, dailies, areas but rather have all that effort going into clever, interesting dungeon designs (not just go from A to
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Soooooo much this ^^^^
We've had FOUR Modules of PvE/PvP/Cross-Platform-Marketing -- In the name of Selûne PLEEEEEEEASE let us have one bloody module focused on fixing the loooooooong list of foundry bugs dating back to beta and also expanding on the assets and functionality available to the foundry. I see several projects in beta that are already about to blow the doors off the foundry and if there aren't major improvements I doubt it will last another year.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Umm, no. Please note, PVE is not just dungeons. It's also campaigns, foundries, solo leveling, etc.
Yeah, the incentive this would create would result in the same pathological behavior in PVE that we now see in PVP. I.e., if a dungeon run is going "too slow" then the low-GS players get kicked, or the BiS speed-runners just DC leaving everyone else in a lurch. This is an absolutely horrid idea.
If you really want to institute a reward system for *how* a dungeon run is completed, then it ought to be based on (a) full dungeon completion (i.e. no mob skipping, killing and looting everything legit) and (b) cooperative play (i.e. rewarding rainbow parties, does not reward 1 player doing 90% of the DPS but instead rewards substantive contributions from all members of the party).
I wish this happened more often on the teams I end up on. When I play my TR, I go to the enemy node to cap it in the hopes that it'll draw away some of the other team to make it easier for my team to take mid and will run to mid to help with that after capping the other team's node.
What usually happens though is that I'll go to the other team's node to cap it my TR and my team sees me taking that at which point some, if not all, of them abandon mid to run over and get those 300 points for capping a node. This results in the other team easily killing the one or two people that stayed to take mid and then they run off to grab our node and kill the people that stayed to defend mid when they respawn since they're obviously gonna try to stop the other team from grabbing our node. At this point, the match turns into a reenactment of the ending credits of the Benny Hill show where everyone is running in circles from one node to another and I start banging my head on my desk until I lose consciousness.
Hooray for solo queue pugging.
what i want is more pvp games and a better leaderboard/ranking system. separate the ad farmers who only do the dailies for pvp from the ones who prefer to pvp more than that
Only-combat contents can be fun for a bit, but that fun doesn't last long.
Fun contents are exciting, adventurous, mysterious, dangerous, unknown, exploration-provoking, and sometimes require brains or special abilities in order to get something solved or figured out.
More PVP maps would be nice.
An area free for all could also be interesting. 10 spawn points and each man/woman for himself/herself. Most kills within the time limit wins.
But as I see it, your comment applies to ALL official PVE content. 90% of all quest are seriously just killing things and/or taking their stuff (or taking BACK something an NPC lost). And after a while (LONG PAST, and my highest level character is lvl 46) my other character is Lvl 37. I have hardly touched Vellosk yet, but I can tell that's already more of the same (at least it isn't zombies, though), as is Pirates' Skyhold. And so will be Icespire, and Mt. Hotenow, & Gauntlegrym, & The Chasm & Whispering Caverns and every lvl 60 campaign. And this new one too. The same thing over and over. I played the new campaign for a ground total of 3 days, and I am already bored of it, and don't really know if I will ever continue, because it's just not FUN.
This is why I keep asking for Foundry updates; because the Foundry is the only place in this game where you can find any creativity. That's seriously where all the fun is for me. I don't really care about PVP, and the PVE content has grown stale. I am very glad for the new encounters added for the Foundry in this update, and mean to make use of quite a few of them (if not all), but we need much more than these stop-gaps. We need a REAL update. Bug fixes and more function.
I feel your pain. The scourge of the points chasers. Last night I left mid, which we were in the process of capping, to return to our home node to stop an enemy player capping it. I say in party ''Hold mid I clear home''. I kill the TR trying to cap my home node, turn around and there you go, the rest of the team has arrived to get some points, at the same time the enemy has begun retaking mid. And that is how the whole match went and we lost. 4 of us occupied the top-5 spots in points earned but we lost as Team Derp could not hold a single node. I repeatedly told them I can kill all of the enemy players in a 1v1, so stop following me to home or their home and just hold what we have, but nobody listened. It got to the point that I started to stop fighting whomever was on 1 or 3, leave the node and let the other 2 - 4 of my teammates kill them iand cap the node.