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I hate whining, but this needs to be said...
yoadoad
Member Posts: 182 Bounty Hunter
I'll start off by saying that Neverwinter is a fun, free action paced game that anyone can enjoy, from casual guys playing with their friends and family to heavy competitive gamers. I still enjoy it!
However, the path that it's going on looks bad. It's not bad for those who get the money the users pay, it should actually peak at these times, but it's bad for the long term and the community.
What is this "Path"? What am I talking about? Well, in order to understand that, I'll talk about some points that in my mind are major issues.
These points are:
1. The ever-increasing gap between new and established players.
2. The "Me me me" attitude this game has.
3. What needs to change, so that in my eyes, this game could still work in a few years.
1. The ever-increasing gap between new and established players.
For those of us who have been here since around the beginning, we know what we had to do to improve in this game. The major mission is increasing our stats - Getting our desired Power, Critical, Defense, whatever. How did we do this? Gear was the main way: Do dungeons, get better armor and weapons. Get enchantments. Do the daily Rhix missions for extra AD. Get a costly stone for some major boosts. Then There was Sharander. Sharander, as we all know, rewarded us boons and access to special dungeons by doing repetitive daily missions. If you started it when it just came out, you were probably geared, used to all the activities - It wasn't too bad and it rewarded you. Not too bad, right?
Then you had similar content in Dread Ring. Same concept, repetitive tasks for stats and extra content. And when you advanced enough in either of these, you could go to Icewind Dale. Kind of different than the previous two, but still the same concept: Do the same thing enough times, and get rewarded for it. One thing was obvious though: You want to be a top player in this game and keep up with everyone else, you need to do these tasks. You need them for the extra stats, for the extra boons, for the extra content. Going to PvP without doing any of these puts you at a major disadvantage. It's like fighting someone with one hand behind your back. Of course, in the middle of all that, we also had to get other all-around items like Mounts and Artifacts.
Then this Dragon module came. We're thinking we've seen this already, right? Do repetitive tasks, get gear and boons and new dungeons. Same concept. But unlike the previous two, this one is a bit different: It has the most available daily tasks (which you probably have to complete), in many different areas, and in areas that require probably a lot more exploring (Just think about the time you spend when you're riding in Ebon...). Well still, for a player who had finished all the tasks until now, this probably isn't THAT much of an issue - We've seen this already, so it's just a bit longer, we'll do it anyway. So for the exisiting community, all of these modules - They aren't too bad, sure, these are extra missions, but it's not like you need to stack everything at once.
Now, the new community? Well, the game starts at level 60, and when you get there, it ain't easy. All the things I've written until now? Imagine doing them from 0, right now. We're talking about 3x daily campaigns. 2-3 hours. Daily Rhix missions - Say you do only PvP & Skirmish - 1-2 hours. Dungeon for T2 equips - Available only on specific times, and with your low gear score of 8k-10k, and remember that guys from all over the spectrum - 12k-16k+ do T2 dungeons, and you're gonna have low success - Still, lets assume it takes 1 hour. Of course you don't get all the equips you need in the first run, will take about a week of doing a dungeon delve per day. Right? And what's going to happen in future modules? More Boons? More special Artifacts available for these who grind a lot or these who pay?
So for a new player to actually be able to START playing - Like PvP, competitive dungeons, etc - He needs at the very least a month of doing dailies, 4-6 hours a day. 4-6 hours of just doing stuff you're doing over and over again! And this is even before you get a Lesser enchantment, And R7's, And Artifacts, And Companions, And mounts!!!
What's even worse is that when you hit 60 and you queue for something, well, the domination queue won't say - You know what, you have 10k Gear score and not even a lesser enchantment, so you won't face 17k GS guys with perfect enchantments and 3 artifacts. You know you have to compete with guys way out of your league for pretty much everything (the only thing you don't compete with them is - the Boon grinding!!). Well, pay up, or get efficient at these repetitive tasks.
But this gap exists in every MMO, right? I mean, of course new players won't be able to compete with established players right away - But what do other MMO have that this game does not have? A reason for the community to play together consistently. - This brings us to the next point...
2. The "Me me me" attitude
Even though Neverwinter rarely measures 1v1 performance in both PvP and PvE, it still has this really big "Get your own character better" aura. What do I mean?
Neverwinter is one of those games that if you come with a constant party, you're likely to succeed. However, if you don't come with a constant party, your either solo your way through content or team up with randoms. When you think about having a more constant team up - You think about joining a guild - That's what you would do in other games.
But, one important thing to remember is, in Neverwinter, the new players (when they get to 60) and middle of the pack players (Say guys with T2, some boons, some artifacts), aren't exactly required to do their daily tasks, which take up most of their time to begin with. It means that non high-end players that have no more than 2-3 hours a day to play will find themselves doing nothing as a team because they're loaded with daily tasks that you do alone. How often have we heard one of our guild members say - "Sorry, I'm doing my dailies" when asked to do something together? How many of us came to this game with the thought of "Ok, I'll do my dailies and then log off"?
But that's the main point here, the daily tasks don't make those around you better in any way, they only make your character better. And in a game where Guilds are nothing more than a social team up, with no competition whatsoever between one guild and another, why should one even bother with other players? Do really established guild members have any reason to help the newer players who just joined their guild? Would it benefit them in some way?
In other games, guilds are more than just another social channel. Guilds compete one against another in PvP modes where winning or losing actually matters. Guilds send entire parties for challenging boss fights. In those games you have a reason, an incentive, to gear up your fellow members. In this game, there's none. This brings me back to the point of "taking care of your own". You either pay to make your character strong, or you do grinding, mostly alone unless you're lucky enough to find a real constant party. Do not expect help from others... They spent time or money and their items, and in their eyes, so should you.
3. What needs to change
Like I said, in the eyes of those making money out of this game, it couldn't be any better. Points 1&2 contribute perfectly and give people reason to spend their cash to unlock good items and make game progress. It means that when a new player joins, he has a higher probability to spend his $$$ on this game. Obviously, it also means that when a new player joins, the probability of him leaving the game is also increased. The problem is that the path this game is taking, where with each content released the gap gets bigger and bigger, just continues on in making the new players either big time payers or quitters. And this path isn't good, because even though the incomes increase, less new players will stay in this game.
So what are my suggestions?
1. Enough with all the extra solo content that gives you bound rewards and contributes nothing to the community. For example... Boons.
2. Make new content that is based on thought & tactic and requires team play, not on repetitive stuff (or money).
3. Add depth to the guilds here, add competition modes between them before it's too late. Start simple, even something like "Complete a Dungeon Delve with 4 members of your guild" for 6k RAD. Do not stop there. Add PvP events between guilds, maybe something like guilds competing one against another in capturing a castle or a fortress, then the winning guild keeps the castle for a week before it happens again. Get some difficult bosses that require more than 3-4 parties and can be more easily accessed with a guild. Just add something to this game so it won't scream out "I Have to do stuff to make my character alone better"...
This topic isn't some doomguide prophecy but rather suggestions for future mods. Let me hear what you think
However, the path that it's going on looks bad. It's not bad for those who get the money the users pay, it should actually peak at these times, but it's bad for the long term and the community.
What is this "Path"? What am I talking about? Well, in order to understand that, I'll talk about some points that in my mind are major issues.
These points are:
1. The ever-increasing gap between new and established players.
2. The "Me me me" attitude this game has.
3. What needs to change, so that in my eyes, this game could still work in a few years.
1. The ever-increasing gap between new and established players.
For those of us who have been here since around the beginning, we know what we had to do to improve in this game. The major mission is increasing our stats - Getting our desired Power, Critical, Defense, whatever. How did we do this? Gear was the main way: Do dungeons, get better armor and weapons. Get enchantments. Do the daily Rhix missions for extra AD. Get a costly stone for some major boosts. Then There was Sharander. Sharander, as we all know, rewarded us boons and access to special dungeons by doing repetitive daily missions. If you started it when it just came out, you were probably geared, used to all the activities - It wasn't too bad and it rewarded you. Not too bad, right?
Then you had similar content in Dread Ring. Same concept, repetitive tasks for stats and extra content. And when you advanced enough in either of these, you could go to Icewind Dale. Kind of different than the previous two, but still the same concept: Do the same thing enough times, and get rewarded for it. One thing was obvious though: You want to be a top player in this game and keep up with everyone else, you need to do these tasks. You need them for the extra stats, for the extra boons, for the extra content. Going to PvP without doing any of these puts you at a major disadvantage. It's like fighting someone with one hand behind your back. Of course, in the middle of all that, we also had to get other all-around items like Mounts and Artifacts.
Then this Dragon module came. We're thinking we've seen this already, right? Do repetitive tasks, get gear and boons and new dungeons. Same concept. But unlike the previous two, this one is a bit different: It has the most available daily tasks (which you probably have to complete), in many different areas, and in areas that require probably a lot more exploring (Just think about the time you spend when you're riding in Ebon...). Well still, for a player who had finished all the tasks until now, this probably isn't THAT much of an issue - We've seen this already, so it's just a bit longer, we'll do it anyway. So for the exisiting community, all of these modules - They aren't too bad, sure, these are extra missions, but it's not like you need to stack everything at once.
Now, the new community? Well, the game starts at level 60, and when you get there, it ain't easy. All the things I've written until now? Imagine doing them from 0, right now. We're talking about 3x daily campaigns. 2-3 hours. Daily Rhix missions - Say you do only PvP & Skirmish - 1-2 hours. Dungeon for T2 equips - Available only on specific times, and with your low gear score of 8k-10k, and remember that guys from all over the spectrum - 12k-16k+ do T2 dungeons, and you're gonna have low success - Still, lets assume it takes 1 hour. Of course you don't get all the equips you need in the first run, will take about a week of doing a dungeon delve per day. Right? And what's going to happen in future modules? More Boons? More special Artifacts available for these who grind a lot or these who pay?
So for a new player to actually be able to START playing - Like PvP, competitive dungeons, etc - He needs at the very least a month of doing dailies, 4-6 hours a day. 4-6 hours of just doing stuff you're doing over and over again! And this is even before you get a Lesser enchantment, And R7's, And Artifacts, And Companions, And mounts!!!
What's even worse is that when you hit 60 and you queue for something, well, the domination queue won't say - You know what, you have 10k Gear score and not even a lesser enchantment, so you won't face 17k GS guys with perfect enchantments and 3 artifacts. You know you have to compete with guys way out of your league for pretty much everything (the only thing you don't compete with them is - the Boon grinding!!). Well, pay up, or get efficient at these repetitive tasks.
But this gap exists in every MMO, right? I mean, of course new players won't be able to compete with established players right away - But what do other MMO have that this game does not have? A reason for the community to play together consistently. - This brings us to the next point...
2. The "Me me me" attitude
Even though Neverwinter rarely measures 1v1 performance in both PvP and PvE, it still has this really big "Get your own character better" aura. What do I mean?
Neverwinter is one of those games that if you come with a constant party, you're likely to succeed. However, if you don't come with a constant party, your either solo your way through content or team up with randoms. When you think about having a more constant team up - You think about joining a guild - That's what you would do in other games.
But, one important thing to remember is, in Neverwinter, the new players (when they get to 60) and middle of the pack players (Say guys with T2, some boons, some artifacts), aren't exactly required to do their daily tasks, which take up most of their time to begin with. It means that non high-end players that have no more than 2-3 hours a day to play will find themselves doing nothing as a team because they're loaded with daily tasks that you do alone. How often have we heard one of our guild members say - "Sorry, I'm doing my dailies" when asked to do something together? How many of us came to this game with the thought of "Ok, I'll do my dailies and then log off"?
But that's the main point here, the daily tasks don't make those around you better in any way, they only make your character better. And in a game where Guilds are nothing more than a social team up, with no competition whatsoever between one guild and another, why should one even bother with other players? Do really established guild members have any reason to help the newer players who just joined their guild? Would it benefit them in some way?
In other games, guilds are more than just another social channel. Guilds compete one against another in PvP modes where winning or losing actually matters. Guilds send entire parties for challenging boss fights. In those games you have a reason, an incentive, to gear up your fellow members. In this game, there's none. This brings me back to the point of "taking care of your own". You either pay to make your character strong, or you do grinding, mostly alone unless you're lucky enough to find a real constant party. Do not expect help from others... They spent time or money and their items, and in their eyes, so should you.
3. What needs to change
Like I said, in the eyes of those making money out of this game, it couldn't be any better. Points 1&2 contribute perfectly and give people reason to spend their cash to unlock good items and make game progress. It means that when a new player joins, he has a higher probability to spend his $$$ on this game. Obviously, it also means that when a new player joins, the probability of him leaving the game is also increased. The problem is that the path this game is taking, where with each content released the gap gets bigger and bigger, just continues on in making the new players either big time payers or quitters. And this path isn't good, because even though the incomes increase, less new players will stay in this game.
So what are my suggestions?
1. Enough with all the extra solo content that gives you bound rewards and contributes nothing to the community. For example... Boons.
2. Make new content that is based on thought & tactic and requires team play, not on repetitive stuff (or money).
3. Add depth to the guilds here, add competition modes between them before it's too late. Start simple, even something like "Complete a Dungeon Delve with 4 members of your guild" for 6k RAD. Do not stop there. Add PvP events between guilds, maybe something like guilds competing one against another in capturing a castle or a fortress, then the winning guild keeps the castle for a week before it happens again. Get some difficult bosses that require more than 3-4 parties and can be more easily accessed with a guild. Just add something to this game so it won't scream out "I Have to do stuff to make my character alone better"...
This topic isn't some doomguide prophecy but rather suggestions for future mods. Let me hear what you think
Post edited by yoadoad on
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Comments
The power gap. There is one, however I don't think it's as bad as you think it is. With the exception of power, all of your stats hit big diminishing returns. The T1 set isn't that far behind the T2 or the T2.5. There is some stuff that takes a while and gives a large amount of power difference, but I don't think this is a big issue.
The dailies. Yeah we have a lot of them. So did wow when I last played it years ago. The difference here is that people have gotten this idea that the world will end if they don't get their dailies done for that day and instead do something else like a dungeon if that's what they want to do and they're short for time. The world doesn't end if you skip sharandar for a day.
Guilds. I hate the idea of guilds being any more than they are. When you start adding more to guilds, guilds start being their own meta-game where you find the best guild to increase your personal power. It may not be a straight forward ooh this guild gives me more stats type deal but that does happen in an abstract way. A guild should be about people that you enjoy talking to and playing with. Adding more than that in starts making the game worse.
What is my motivation to help new players? I find it fun to help new players out. Then they will stick with the game and have a better understanding of how things work at level 60.
That being said, I have spent quite a bit of money on this game and I feel justified in doing so. I've bought an account wide mount, some extra bank space, a bag, and the dragonborn pack to name a couple. What I have earned legit through the game has been far greater though.
...
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Performing ritual pony sacrifices to Tiamat to earn favor with the RNG Gods since 2014.
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I agree on :
PVP & Queue --> I agree some queue filtering need to be done here
Proposed Solution: Make party's queue around total GS of party, weapon enchants and armor enchants so that PVP is not heart breaking for PUBS
if there is anything i feel it is disadvantaged that is the EU players with higher ping than USA players in PVP makes a whole difference .. as such i wish if they had a EU server but I doubt they would make that move unless the game is really generating high amount of money for the company to be able to host another server since it is really costly
Guilds--> I agree on that .. there is no benefit for guild .. I made thread before about Guild Domination
with rankings and prizes
I disagree on :
Campaigns ---> I disagree with what you said because the DEVS already gave you 2 options
1- Buy From Zen Store the whole campaign and finish it in 2 minutes
2- Do the campaign the long way and have little booster by trading 6 Celestial Coins for a Coffer that got campaign booster pack
- In my guild we do campaigns daily together for our new characters so it does not take time, if you are having trouble doing campaigns go find a guild man
Yes the gap between players is actually a side product of GS mania, that sadly many ppl have. But this isn't the Devs fault, it's stuck in some heads. For example, since the new Mod came out many players demand from a CW or DC to have above 18K, which is hardly possible, either costs a lot (in real cash) or can be done only by mixing stuff and while this mixing isn't so wrong for some classes, but for CW or DC especially is very hard, since best T2 armor set for a CW, High Vizier won't raise any CW to or over 18K- normally.
The "Me Me attitude" is sadly over everywhere, games only shad more light on it, but that's how most people are in the real world too -yet again sadly. The harder it is to get gear, the lower RNG drop rates are, the higher the chance, that people will become more and more selfish.
Competition between guilds may work in some games, but here not. In my guild we had to build a second guild, just to satisfy peeps. There was even some dispute about being Luskan or Delzoun, so we made a second twin guild, so everyone could decide where to stay.
As you mentioned the selfishness of people, introducing competition between guilds, would only deepen this gap.
My suggestion would be too, to slow down on boons, so they don't make the gap larger and increase RNG rates in campaigns, like Icewind and add better stats to gears, that a casual player can grind through daily campaigns, so a new player and an older player won't have such a big gap.
Overall things are better, than they were a few months ago, prices are now in a more decent range, so this can make building a new char better.
About PVP issues, i for myself wrote many threads here asking the Devs for GS limit, but we have to bow before the Devs, they don't intend to do it- yet again sadly.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
Pretty sure there's a massive difference between 20k gs with rank 10s, legendary artifacts, artifact belts and weapons, perfect enchantments, and 15k gs (still reasonable) let alone the 8-10k gs just entering as l60 who get to have their face completely smashed in by everyone.
Rather than seeing a "good" thing in the amount of content you have (there was a time when the only thing you could do was farming a single dungeon, or a single set of dailies, nowadays you can ask yourself "ok, what do I want to do today?" and choose between like 4 sets of dailies).
"It means that non high-end players that have no more than 2-3 hours a day to play will find themselves doing nothing as a team because they're loaded with daily tasks that you do alone." - nope, that doesn't apply. Except the first 2 weeks of boons (up to 3rd tier), that actually add some stats that matter, last tiers are usually not that great, and don't justify a "serious" grind, if you have some spare time, you can work towards them, but after you've got your first 3 tiers of stats you'd better do some party stuff (dungeons etc.) for T2/T2.5 equipment and artifacts, because the return is potentially higher.
The point is, you don't start playing a MMO (any MMO) and think of competing with topmost veteran players. Not in a month, not in a year, maybe in 3-4 years when you become a "veteran" player yourself. That works with F2P, "Freemium", P2P, B2P, or any other model.
except u cant choose if u want to play against low gs people
u have to play against bis players like it or not
you can easily get some 11k gs with only blue gear and rank5's so there isnt really any reason to be below 10k gs at lvl 60
and you can murder ppl in pvp with it(depending on class ofc)
No. You're wrong.
For example I missed 2 years from WoW, they gave me almost max level char and good green gear. In 3 days I was max level and grinding normal dungeons. In 2 weeks I was running heroic dungeons and gearing up for raids. In 2.5 months I had BiS gear and was back in the top mage spot in my guild (best one in the server) that was running the latest heroic raid. I was also almost fully PvP BiS geared and had lots of fun with a warrior in 2vs2 2000+ bracket. I was so wealthy I could allow basically anything in the AH, just from playing the game.
This means that in less than 3 months, I had caught up with the very best there. It took lots of work - it is true. Lots of work that got me almost nowhere here.
How is that possible you might ask?
The game had special gap-closing mechanics in place.
So let's say they released a new big content patch, with a new raid. They would partly make the set gear from the previous raid available through tokens (just like seals here), so one could get 2/4 by just farming heroic dungeon. They also released heroic dungeons that contained gear just as good as the previous raid.
That meant I could skip all the content up to the last raid if I wanted by just running fast dungeons. And I did just that.
TL;DR: I never felt there's a huge gap I can never close between me and the very top. Took me less than 3 months to close it.
With no tenacity (and even with), no perfect enchantments, no maxed out stuff, I'm going to have to say that's rarely the case. I see 8k gs people fight against 16-20k gs and they let the team down no matter how hard they try. That sort of matchup should NEVER happen, but it does. The fact is even with 11k, it just isn't enough. Once you got a pvp set then with decent skill you can beat those with less skill, but it'll still be common to get your face absolutely smashed in. You're just at so much disadvantage and there's nothing you can do about it. Pvp is often more about gear than skill. Though some times you do need to step it up and try your hardest when your team slacks on capping.
I think you should take a step back and look at these activities you describe differently. I see them as playing the game. The game is doing these activities, for example the dailies, to make your character a little better each time you log into the game. If you have best in slot every item & have done everything in the game, you would have no reason to play it, which again is never going to be the case as you can always do other activities in the game, such as social activities (which is why you should play an MMO in the firstplace) or playing the AH as another example.
I think players need to let go of the completionist view of trying to get to the "end" of the game, as the game is the journey, and all these dailies etc.. are part of that. Don't look at them as something to be rushed over as when your doing them, you are playing the game.
Put the time in & you will "catch up" to the players who are at the current games hight of power. Putting that time in, is playing the game.
That's my view.
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Dailies are the biggest part of our playtime due to artificial inflation and dungeons being unrewarding especially with the bop fad. It's an MMO not lets play the same dailies by ourself over and over.
there should be 11k gs req for lvl 60 pvp, going to pvp with 8k is just rude and disrespectful to all the other players in that match.
You can help team but u need change how you play, and ive played 2x blue/purple trash geared characters in pvp recently(lock and melee hr) ofc you wont carry your team, but you can be useful. 1 way to do it is get nice dmg(arp,power, crit) and wait til they engage and then burst them down, you wont have defensive stats, but your offensive ones will be on par with some t2 pvp + r7
ofc you cant 1v1 good ppl like that but you can pwn much better geared nabs(as long as they arent faceroll wizards) or gang the good ppl while they are fighting somebody else
My counter argument is the same argument used by most people when you bring up the point you have, Frishter, and that is simply: No one is forcing you to do these dailies. Yes, you might feel you have to have done them in order to improve your characters power or in some cases to move onto gated content that you do desire to do, but that does not take away from the point that you don't have to do them if you don't want to do them. It's a choice made by the free will of each and every individual player of the game.
There are also many alternatives to doing dailies in the game, the foundry for example is an endless source of content, or you know, just socializing with others in your guild or friends list.
I think "the biggest part of our playtime" is the in-game activity you decide to do when you log in.
The foundry is still unrewarding and could use with extra customisation options. You can't make bosses or epic fights and it doesn't entice me. I have done enough to get my community achievements ready for a book imp if I decide to make foundries. I am forced to do dailies if I want to be competitive or unlock the dungeon/skirmish. If I don't I have little else to do. I've done it all many times over.
Pre mod 1 I had the choice of what to do and could farm CN for AD. Now I got boring dailies and a clear cut off point. Dungeons don't have near the life they used to have. I used to socialise in dungeons with the guild. It's just not the same anymore and that's all because of their change in design decisions. The game feels more isolating now.
The difference there has more to do with the legendary artifact active skill, the weapon enchant, and health since HP doesn't have diminishing returns. They've also been able to start stacking power more. Yeah there's a difference but it's not from where the OP thinks it is. Getting more crit on gear doesn't really hurt anything as you're already so far into diminishing returns as it doesn't really make a difference that someone can notice. That said, pvp is an unbalanced joke, every single patch it seems like it gets worse. Pvp should be thrown out of these discussions as it's reached the point of no return for imbalance, it can't be fixed anymore. I enjoyed mod2 and the tail end of mod3 pvp though mod3 was worse. Mod 4, I haven't even hit to queue after the first couple days.
I'd say the legendary stats add up a lot more than the active. Either way the gap is real. Personally I hated mod 1, mod 2 was more cope-able since the dailies weren't as boring, mod 3 was fun on preview with HEs but was disappointed at cash grabs and unfixed problems at launch, though the pvp campaign was cool. Also mod 4 seems ok so far in a way to keep me busy and being able to swap instances, though drakes insta dying is obviously flawed as well as currencies being overfilled. The lack of actual compelling content lets it down though. It's mostly just content for the sake of content instead of me having goals to continue playing.
And my counter to you is that no one is forcing you to PVP in a game designed for PVE with PVP added near the end as an afterthought. Let me say it again...the game was set up from the beginning as PVE. But no one forces anyone to do anything in game.
The dungeons only require the minimum GS. And only that. Sometimes the min GS is even overkill. But of course you need to have a good build, you need to figure out red actually hurts, and you may have to find out some old videos of people doing a good old frozen heart the kiting way from a year ago.
Now i'm all for the end of all the solo <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. I'm tired of logging in to do dailies instead of the group content I enjoy. I'm sick of campaigns. That's so much time wasted not doing what you like just to access what you want (in my case, group content). But you don't need to do dailies to get a more powerful character. The more time passes the easier the game is because npcs got nerfed several times already, and every piece of new content is tailored for the casual crowd who likes standing in red and smashing buttons in a random order until the room is cleared. It's just behind a pointless grind wall and an unjustified GS wall because such a GS is always overkill for that new content (13K for that really? could be done in blue gear).
Similarly, once you get at least 3 boons under your belt, you can go to Icewind Dale and do your class artifact quest. Once that's taken care of, you have yet another source of additional stat points for all your current and future characters. IWD is also a fairly reliable source of R5 Black Ice enchantments, which offer a good spread of stats or to refine other enchants/artifacts with.
Yes, there is a gap between the haves and the have-nots, but this really only comes into play if and when those people decide to discriminate from their end, and even then, there are alternatives...
"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
Yeah it is much easier to gear up now.
I created a brand-new CW back in the middle of June of this year. It was not twinked at all. It earned everything that it has. Right now it is at 15.9k GS with full HV and Dread Legion weapons. On my prior CW, it took *months* to gear it up with full HV because the T2 dungeons were so much harder at the time.
The addition of the dungeon delve keys also makes it possible to run epic dungeons when you want/can, instead of being at the mercy of the DD event.
"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
And during that 3 months, how much did you pay? Lemme help, you bought the game, then some expansions, then you paid for 3 months sub fees.... Of course blizzard shower you with loot lol.
And how much do you pay for Neverwinter during 3 months.....
Ok now that out of the way, get cracking, those boons won't grind themselves...
Easier to get gear, harder to compete. Lessers could be gotten for free, if not, coals were 100k. Perfects were about the same as they were last month, they've gone down recently, not sure why, more than I'd expect. Rank 10s I believe are pretty similar in cost. Artifacts now play a role, with a wallet you can just max it out which isn't exactly balanced. But there's those that buy their enchants to level them too (as do I). Those players managed to play when dungeons were actually rewarding, new players can hardly afford legendary artifacts if they played the same amount of time as an old timer that did.
In short:
* Lower rewards
* Higher entry requirements
* Harder to catch up
About 35 Euros, and I bought Vanilla and TBC expansions. I got WotlK and Cata for free as a returning customer.
So less than 100 Euros (at most) for MONTHS of gameplay, where I got BiS PvE and PvP gear.
Do you get here BiS gear for 100 Euros in 3 months? All rank 10s, 3 legendary artifacts, Legendary Weapon and Belt?
No. You are not even coming close.
Power gap? I hate to sound callous, yes it exists, but so what? We had to go through all that content in a time measured fashion, why not the new guys? Why should they get " a break" because they came late to the party?
Also, the next point that I completely disagree with is your "there needs to be more group content". I couldn't disagree in stronger terms on this one. I play this game BECAUSE you can solo your way through 90% of it. I LIKE that. I DON'T like having to depend on other people. I like that fact that when I log in, the only thing I have to worry about is "me" and what "I" want to do. And, if this plays into your "me-me-me" syndrome, then so be it. It's MY time and MY money (If any) I choose to put into the game, so why shouldn't MY play time be about ME?
So yeah, you might say "Then why are you playing an MMO?" My answer to that is simply: Look around. Have you seen the PC gaming market in the last 10 years? Non-MMO stand alone titles are getting fewer and fewer by the year; and if you ask me of less and less quality as well. So why do I play MMOs? If you want to game on a serious long term (as in year(s)) basis on the PC, what choice do you really have?
But, anyway, like several others have said: Guilds do not need to be any more than they already are in the game. There is already TOO much group REQUIRED content in the game if you ask me. There should be a way that we can turn all of this campaign currency stacking up in our "riches" tab into ANY end game gear we want, imho. But, that is just a pipe dream and will never happen.
So, no, after re-reading your post, there really aren't any of your ideas I can support. Sorry.
Peace out.
P.S. And HANDS OFF my boons!! Boons are one of the BEST things about end-game content in Neverwinter!! You leave them alone! They haven't done anything to you!!
So your solution is to make mmo's into single player titles and destroy mmo's? Too much single player content destroys the feeling of it being a multiplayer game. Also I completely disagree about what you say about the industry. Look at all the games here in 2014 alone http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/07/09/2014-video-game-release-schedule.aspx I'm disabled and I don't even have time to play everything I'd like to play.