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The huge gap between the 60's that just keeps on increasing
yoadoad
Member Posts: 182 Bounty Hunter
I've been around this game for about a year now, and I'm starting to find the gap between players pretty disturbing. It is not the gap itself that is a huge problem, it is the fact that people of the low-end and high-end spectrum of gear end up doing the same activities, and when high-end and low-end compete one against another, well... Low-end has no chance.
First, let's talk about the gap itself. In order to have a high-end character, you need to properly gear yourself - Armor, Weapons, Artifacts, Enchantments, Special (Armor/Weapon) enchantments. You need all the boons. You need a high-end companion (Or a stone). You probably need a mount to be successful in things like 20vs20.
Keep in mind that new things that further increase the gap are being released every few months (The Boons and the artifacts).
How much time does it take for one to get all these things? Probably a few months if played hardcore, and knowing exactly what you have to do, and somewhere between half a year to a year as the case for most people. The fact that you have to work hard for gear is NOT the issue - keep reading.
Now, Stat gaps and Item gaps occur all the time in MMO's, and that's not really an issue. The issue is that if a low-end guy wants to improve his gear and become more "middle of the pack", he has to do dungeons or PvP, right? A dungeon would probably be a good place to start, or several domination matches. Guess who does these things at the same time? Yey, the high-end guy. Say you're a party leader of a dungeon, would you take the 10k guy or the 15k guy? Easy answer. (And before you start with the whole "It's not about gear, it's about who's the better player" - True, but when selected to a party nobody has a way to show he's a good player, though there is a way to show your gear...).
There shouldn't be such a big overlap between the activities of high-end players and low-end players. This only increases the P2W aura this game has.
Why is this so different than other games? Well, other games have mechanics that help close the gap between the low-end characters and the high-end characters. Neverwinter has a really big feeling of "I need to make myself the best" and not "I need to make myself, and these around me the best". I'm talking about guilds - guilds are a good example of high-ends that work to get the low-ends better, because stronger members make the guild stronger. But in this game, guilds do not compete one against the other, as they do not have the means to do so. There are no competitive Guild vs Guild activities in this game, something that other games do have. This renders most guilds not that important at best and useless at worst.
To sum it up, I think these two things need to happen:
1. Find a way to seperate the activites of a low-end guy and a high-end guy. Make it easier for the low-end guy to increase his gear than for the high-end guy to increase his gear.
2. Give players more reasons to share their treasures. Make things more competitive between groups of players and not just players.
Thanks for reading this post!
First, let's talk about the gap itself. In order to have a high-end character, you need to properly gear yourself - Armor, Weapons, Artifacts, Enchantments, Special (Armor/Weapon) enchantments. You need all the boons. You need a high-end companion (Or a stone). You probably need a mount to be successful in things like 20vs20.
Keep in mind that new things that further increase the gap are being released every few months (The Boons and the artifacts).
How much time does it take for one to get all these things? Probably a few months if played hardcore, and knowing exactly what you have to do, and somewhere between half a year to a year as the case for most people. The fact that you have to work hard for gear is NOT the issue - keep reading.
Now, Stat gaps and Item gaps occur all the time in MMO's, and that's not really an issue. The issue is that if a low-end guy wants to improve his gear and become more "middle of the pack", he has to do dungeons or PvP, right? A dungeon would probably be a good place to start, or several domination matches. Guess who does these things at the same time? Yey, the high-end guy. Say you're a party leader of a dungeon, would you take the 10k guy or the 15k guy? Easy answer. (And before you start with the whole "It's not about gear, it's about who's the better player" - True, but when selected to a party nobody has a way to show he's a good player, though there is a way to show your gear...).
There shouldn't be such a big overlap between the activities of high-end players and low-end players. This only increases the P2W aura this game has.
Why is this so different than other games? Well, other games have mechanics that help close the gap between the low-end characters and the high-end characters. Neverwinter has a really big feeling of "I need to make myself the best" and not "I need to make myself, and these around me the best". I'm talking about guilds - guilds are a good example of high-ends that work to get the low-ends better, because stronger members make the guild stronger. But in this game, guilds do not compete one against the other, as they do not have the means to do so. There are no competitive Guild vs Guild activities in this game, something that other games do have. This renders most guilds not that important at best and useless at worst.
To sum it up, I think these two things need to happen:
1. Find a way to seperate the activites of a low-end guy and a high-end guy. Make it easier for the low-end guy to increase his gear than for the high-end guy to increase his gear.
2. Give players more reasons to share their treasures. Make things more competitive between groups of players and not just players.
Thanks for reading this post!
Post edited by yoadoad on
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Comments
The other thing about the need of more inside comunity i do agree alot, i mean, the game is quite nice but it lacks, alot, of group quests, permanent group quests, like guild quests, guild pvp´s, even guild camps or some sort of it, i think that would improve even more the game experience.
I still not think that this is a P2W game beacuse it really have alot of features that allows everyone to enjoy it without the need to confront P2P players, or even if that happens F2P can allways take some profit on it, even in PVP queues i was several times, 1st or 2 placed in matches and my gear is 11,7k, just because i am ranged and i had the luck of getting a good geared close combat companions, so even with manny P2P players F2P can get advantage from it.....
If you pug often trying to gear up new toons, you'll notice a lot of high GS DCs and GFs queueing for dungeons, BUT they will decline new queue pops so you'll often get returned to queue, and only accept mid dungeon queue pops.
What they do is start vote kicking at loot rolls, giving the newbies no chance to roll for their class loots to gear up even if they manage to complete the dungeon.
The vote kick system is what has turned the queue system into an exploit system.
It's a turn off for newbies and hard for them to bridge the gap without looking at the alternatives if they decide to stick around.
Pretty much this. I pug only on legit, and spend most of my time pugging there. With some exceptions I take the first 4 to have an interest and I don't want to know your class or gs or anything else first. My rules are be considerate and greed run. Makes the runs more interesting that way anyways.
Although I am sure that happens, it has never happened to me personally. In regards to the OP, every MMO is hard on new players, and there is always the power players that have the leet gear. Honestly this game was easier to get T2 gear then other MMOs I have played, and I have been playing since EQ.
Heroic encounters are open to anyone and with the scoring system--let alone it be opaque--is a problem. Well at least at the beginning of new content. Maybe it gets better over time, but that's just my opinion.
The agree part...pvp... especially the matchmaking system. A real matchmaking system would place people in groups of around the same skill level and against the same level of skill as opponents. In IWD this is impossible, but in dom and GG it is not. Matchmaking isn't based on gear, but rather on skill... the not to be mentioned mmo, when starting their arena pvp did this by using the win loss column. This game has a leaderboard and pvp campaign, plus does keep track of kills and etc. otherwise...and all of this should be use dto matchmake equally. yes, this would mean some waiting as it matches people up, but would be fairer. In dom, with a real matchmaking system, you should NEVER have a bunch of new 60's who hardly pvp'd when levelling pitted against a group made up of all members of a top pvp guild. This kills any fun for those players... though it seems makes the top pvp'ers feel even better for themselves padding their stats against noncompetition..and that is what pvp should be about. Matchmaking should make it competitive, not a one sided affair ever.
The HE problems are more from the massive amounts of people rather than gs differences. You can't hit the threshold if the dragon dies in under one rotation.
Come on people. You need an incentive to pay for the game... and being smashed by someone thats wearing a thousand dollars worth of stuff is incentive for you to pay for the game. isn't it?
Or being kicked out of groups by people who got 19k gear score.
You gotta pay to be better. Pay with time or pay with money. its your choice.
But incentives are towards buying it. And that keeps the server running, your pretty lill graphics, and your production departments gears running. without incentives the entire system dies.
This is a bussiness and Bracketing off the whales from the rest of the population would just <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> them off and cut funding.
So please think of the whales.
Most legit runs will understand and be ok with it if you ask if you can need a boss drop. the main thing we don't want to see happen is people needing unidentified greens/blues and enchants. Everyone "needs" those. so just greed. That's the way I look at it.
But yes, when I first started playing this game and got to 60 for the first time, I had already found the legit channel and formed all my groups from there. I have had only positive experiences from this, even if we were sometimes unable to finish a dungeon. I'd say I've had around a 95% full completion success rate from legit.
This game is not P2W. You can do everything in game without spending a dime and still eventually become one of the elite if you work hard enough. I am slowly getting my way there (though I do admit to spending money on the game and I will continue to spend money because I feel its worth my money to do so) as time progresses.
Come play with us in /legit and you'll have a far far better end game experience, I promise you that. No GS elitism allowed here.
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Tired of running dungeons with exploiters and cheaters? Join the legit channel by visiting http://goo.gl/1zfnTS to apply!
Performing ritual pony sacrifices to Tiamat to earn favor with the RNG Gods since 2014.
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You can get tier 2 gear eventually from running dungeons but you won't have any good enchants to put in them.
There's absolutely no reason for it either except they want you to buy zen to sell for AD.
The shards are not the hard/expensive part. And I'm not just talking about weapon/armor enchants, I'm talking about the regular ones too.
If guilds are to become a more solid entity in this game there needs to be some kind of guild perk system initiated to give rewards to guilds who do things together instead of people just using guilds as a way to have mass storage for a decent price.
The point is that this game needs a long term strategy.
It doesnt make sense to put more and more modules which only increase the gap between long-term players and newbies doing the same content (with the exception of IWD maybe). To do the original content, you basically have no requirements on boons, but as the OP pointed out, since both player types are doing this content, it is very hard for a newcomer to take a useful part in it.
I dont even want to talk about PvP, I am one of the persons who always wanted to have a gearscore matchmaking.
What this game needs is
1) A large foundry overwork. Playing foundries must finally be rewarding. We want challenging storys, complex storys with proper rewards in the end. These rewards can be
i) Of pure cosmetic type, self-made by the author of the corresponding foundry.
ii) Plain astral diamonds, but this must be coupled with the complexity of the adventure, i.e. with the average playtime. Currently it doesnt matter if you play a complex foundry of 1h our a small foundry of 5min and receive the same rewards. This can not be!
iii) Give the players the ability to create daily foundry quests whose rewards can be the tokens of a corresponding campaign. They start in that campaign zone, can be accepted by the player as soon as he fulfills the requirements and are alternative methods to obtain these tokens to proceed in the campaigns.
Also the foundry should be able to build PvP maps. The foundry can be the big joker of this game (in a positive sense). With a proper foundry overwork, people would be able to create very challenging storys in the Dungeons and Dragons setting exactly for those high-end characters.
An entire new module should be focused and designated only on this foundry overwork. It can provide exactly this: New content for the high-end players with a proper reward and refreshing alternatives to the monotoneous daily grind in the old campaigns.
2) A gearscore matchmaking in PvP for the domination matches and alternative PvP modes. Also the gauntlgrym imbalance must be adressed, the best would be to overwork gauntlgrym and change the story in such a way that you always join the side randomly - as in domination matches.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
While I support you guys getting a little more for the foundry as it really needs it. If they did a whole mod for the foundry I would leave for at least that mod. There is nothing in your ideas that could entice me to play for that mod and of course the danger is that when someone leaves for that long will they come back. Just trying to give you honest feedback about that part. Now what you think is the problem is accurate in most ways, just your solution is just another problem imo.
You would not play foundries even if they would reward you properly with unique stuff? thats odd.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
For example, let's say there's a weekly or monthly PvP event which takes place in an open map, and in that event different guilds fight each other in order to capture a castle, a fortress, a maze or anything like that. Reward the guild that managed to capture it, and have them defend it on the next event. Find a way to reward them for managing the capture (For example, bonus stats during the weekly or monthly period, or shards, or whatever). Make several of these maps. Guilds will have reason to make their members stronger for that cause- and a 18k guild leader will think twice about how he spends his AD in turning himself into a 18.3k player or turning his 12k guildies into 14k guildies!
But it doesn't have to be a big fancy PvP system like written above. It could also be daily quests that individual guild members do alone or together.
Look, I'm trying to come up with solutions here but that's not the main point of this post. The main poin of this post is that in my opinion guilds need to have a reason to be other than guilds. It shouldn't be just one big party of a chat channel that does things together once in a while because of friendly reasons. High-ends should benefit from getting the lower ones in their guild stronger so they could do more for the guild.
Cosmetics and rad? No. I wouldn't. Foundries have a few things against them. Most of them are bad fan fiction. They have no reward atm and your rewards aren't good imo, and there is no way to create a challenge in them. The closest for a challenge was eldarth arenea of calimport ran solo while set for five players. This all makes the game play of the foundry poor. I do engage in the foundry when the odd mood takes me but having it be the focus would make me leave the game until actual content was released.
See my problem with this is then new guilds never get off the ground, "Bad" which in this case can mean smaller or casual guilds get abandoned and everyone just wants to join "good" guilds. This kind of stuff causes nothing but problems, hatred and resentment in the community. There are improvements that can be made to the game. This is not one of them, I think it hurts the game.
Well, thats why the foundry needs to get an overwork: So that these adventures can be made challenging enough and also a better way of filtering out the good adventures from the bad ones. I am quite sure that it is possible to attract more players to the foundries than what we have now, even if it is not particularly you.
- Dualspec
- Better rewarding foundry and foundry pvp maps
- Custom PvP leagues with leaderboards instead of the current 'matchmaking'.
- Armory
- make jumping cost stamina (to reduce hopping in pvp)
You can have a model which is 0 power for money you know? Though that's not possible with an exchange, but that has its plus sides as well as the negatives.
Personally I think if you need/want something you should just need it. I did unknowingly a legit run a couple of times and needing enchants was just so much of a habit that I didn't think about what to roll, I just automatically rolled need. Rolling need protects against any mishaps and makes sure noone is conned. Though on stuff like blues I think they should be greeded just because some of them are class specific and so having separate rolls on them seems silly and an incorrect need isn't the end of the world (providing you're level 60). Of course you can't argue with a groups rules, I just think its personally inefficient and like to remove the room for error.
For new players I'd say they're unlikely to ever be elite though, at least for pvp.
Nor do you need coal wards for rank 9-10 unless you like wasting AD/zen. You should just need 100zen to make a rank 10 in wards from rank 9. Realistically it could go up to 200-300 zen, a lot less than the 1000zen for a coal... Also the coal ward price is way too high to actually pay money for it.
Very true, out guild has been a very strong one but there hasn't been too much incentive with old content. Hopefully the new dungeon will add more incentive unlike the rubbish vt/mc ones. Lately activity drops at the end of a module and some come back to see the next.
I think the foundry could do with more customisation too. You can't change the colours of preset characters clothes or pick most of their clothing. You can't change the health or attacks of mobs. That means that boss fights are quite tame. You can't even add facial hair to guys without picking a preset.
These items should be somewhat better than the current Tier 1,2,3 items and would as such allow something of a 'reset' of the playing field.