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Constant class changes + investment = meh
overdriver13
Member Posts: 1,521 Arc User
...from a pvp perspective.
Ok so Neverwinter has a amazingly confusing number of ways to make your character more powerful. Grinding for boons, opening artifact chests, grinding for black ice, crafting, and on and on and on. For an optimized character it takes making the game pretty much a full time job, or costs a couple hundred dollars + the equivalent of a part time job to grind out "powerups" that cannot be bought + scouring forums daily to squeeze out every little bit of available knowledge.
All that is well and good. Despite class imbalance, lack of fresh pvp content (3 maps, 2 forms of pvp, domination and "open world" in iwd), an entirely broken ladder system, and the fact that there is as much a powergap between an undergeared 60 and a bis 60 as there is between a undergeared 60 and any level 5 character. Outside of "fun combat gameplay", PvP is entirely broke in NW.
LEAVING ALL THAT ASIDE: what kills any incentive to invest all that time and money in a character is the fact that the classes are constantly changing SO MUCH that it isn't at all worth investing in a character that is only going to get nerfed either directly or via another class being made extremely OP. I have played games that were in a state of "constant open beta" where a lot of changes to the game were always made, but this really is beyond any of that.
The whales swim in the 60+, pvp, end of the pool. So it doesn't make sense to me why the game destroys their incentive to invest the money by constantly changing the classes. Like severe changes.
You could say "just respec" but that isn't even totally it. Take HR for example. I think many of the original dedicated HR players, loved the fluid, graceful, stance-shifting nature of the class. When the best HR play was hybrid build and playstyle, that class ROCKED. It was OP in pvp so it had to be toned down. Instead of making it less OP, they simply made it into a purely melee role, much less fun, and it is just as OP as ever. That is just one class, and I am not trying to point of class vs class imbalances.
All classes cycle through being OP and under powered depending on the month, and the really dedicated players of a class roll through the changes and adapt. But when you change the way classes are played fundamentally, it kills the desire to be dedicated to a class because the single best thing about Neverwinter is combat-gameplay. That is what keeps people around. It is fun. When you take away what makes a class special and fun to play you take away the primary incentive to play that class, and when you see that over time this happens to pretty much all classes, you take away incentive to play the game at all- to invest time and money in it. All that is really left is not wanting to waste more money so you roll a new class that looks fun, transfer what enchants you can to it, and play it here and there spending zilch, until they make it unfun.
They are killing their own product.
Ok so Neverwinter has a amazingly confusing number of ways to make your character more powerful. Grinding for boons, opening artifact chests, grinding for black ice, crafting, and on and on and on. For an optimized character it takes making the game pretty much a full time job, or costs a couple hundred dollars + the equivalent of a part time job to grind out "powerups" that cannot be bought + scouring forums daily to squeeze out every little bit of available knowledge.
All that is well and good. Despite class imbalance, lack of fresh pvp content (3 maps, 2 forms of pvp, domination and "open world" in iwd), an entirely broken ladder system, and the fact that there is as much a powergap between an undergeared 60 and a bis 60 as there is between a undergeared 60 and any level 5 character. Outside of "fun combat gameplay", PvP is entirely broke in NW.
LEAVING ALL THAT ASIDE: what kills any incentive to invest all that time and money in a character is the fact that the classes are constantly changing SO MUCH that it isn't at all worth investing in a character that is only going to get nerfed either directly or via another class being made extremely OP. I have played games that were in a state of "constant open beta" where a lot of changes to the game were always made, but this really is beyond any of that.
The whales swim in the 60+, pvp, end of the pool. So it doesn't make sense to me why the game destroys their incentive to invest the money by constantly changing the classes. Like severe changes.
You could say "just respec" but that isn't even totally it. Take HR for example. I think many of the original dedicated HR players, loved the fluid, graceful, stance-shifting nature of the class. When the best HR play was hybrid build and playstyle, that class ROCKED. It was OP in pvp so it had to be toned down. Instead of making it less OP, they simply made it into a purely melee role, much less fun, and it is just as OP as ever. That is just one class, and I am not trying to point of class vs class imbalances.
All classes cycle through being OP and under powered depending on the month, and the really dedicated players of a class roll through the changes and adapt. But when you change the way classes are played fundamentally, it kills the desire to be dedicated to a class because the single best thing about Neverwinter is combat-gameplay. That is what keeps people around. It is fun. When you take away what makes a class special and fun to play you take away the primary incentive to play that class, and when you see that over time this happens to pretty much all classes, you take away incentive to play the game at all- to invest time and money in it. All that is really left is not wanting to waste more money so you roll a new class that looks fun, transfer what enchants you can to it, and play it here and there spending zilch, until they make it unfun.
They are killing their own product.
Post edited by overdriver13 on
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I don't disagree with that and as I indicated, all classes get the nerf bat. The problem is when the changes are so severe that the way you play a class has to fundamentally change. There doesn't need to be "balance" so much as parity. I do think parity has overall been maintained among the classes in pvp (rock paper scissors as you say) with the exception that there is always one severely broken class that totally disrupts even parity. The only valid argument I see currently concerning class balance are those vs TR. Just like HR, the class was OP in one respect. Only that respect really needed toned down. Instead, just like HR, they actually increased that one truly OP ability (stealth for TR wild medicine for HR) while also increasing other powers of the same class, making it way more broken than it ever was. The difference between the classes now is that stealth is wayyyy better than wild medicine in pvp, and that the way you play tr hasn't changed so much while for hr it has changed entirely. So be it. I would love to spend all kinds of time and money on my TR, but to be honest, I know that the class is going to fundamentally change in how it is played and what it is, so I see no point in making the investment on my current experience when I know that experience will only be severely degraded by the devs and not upgraded by the investment.
Considering that the purchases from the pvp players are probably the majority of gross revenue from this game and so therefore fund pve development wayy more than purchases from pve players, if it was made a separate game, pve would go away entirely or simply become an after thought. Wait, that is not such a bad idea! Thanks!
Except that the Devs have already said hardly anyone PvPs on the Dragon shard. They also said that keys are the biggest revenue generator from the Zen store. Neither of these come together to suggest that PvP players are somehow generating a majority of the gross revenue.
You act like the devs aren't agreeing with the community, then proceeding to nerf the wrong things. They also have the problem of tending to go overboard with either nerfing or buffing.
The thing that annoys me about changes the most is that they're almost ALL slated for PVP, which negatively effects PVE. They'll nerf down a power that happens to be strong in PVP while decent in PVE, making it sub-par in PVP and useless in PVE.
With all of these new unbalances, mod5 five was suppose to fix this, but it didn't, it created monsters. Tr's doing immense amount of damage from stealth. Stealth is arguable the strongest defensive mechanic in the game. Their defenses got buffed and their dmg got buffed. It was also be hard to fight tr's because of stealth but with these new unbalances, i fear they will nerf then down to no stealth, or purely stealth with no damage. Dc's healing nearly everyone on the team without even knowing what the **** is going on. They make every class a proc class and take out a lot of the skills involved in playing the class. SW suck in pvp.
The new Artifact bonus for the lathandra has no heal depression on it. It shows the incompetence of the devs.
p.s since open beta they havn't address th fact that terrifying impact goes through cc immunity
You for real?
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this happens in virtually most MMO's to date. Even the big WoW. Has this happen.
If this is the conclusion you reached about my opinion, you did not read what I said. Not at all. FOTM is only FOTM because they make it sucks after the moment is over. Classes should change, it keeps the game interesting, what shouldent change are the game-play mechanics that make a class enjoyable in the first place. I LOVE playing my SW in pvp because I greatly enjoy the game-play mechanics of the class, despite the fact that SWs suck horribly in pvp compared to the other classes. If they made SW wayyyy OP but changed that fundamental game-play mechanic that I enjoy, I would have to stop playing it.
This is great news, it implies that as an avid pvp player, I can realistically play on the server in which most players (or at least more than on dragon) play pvp. Which server is this?
There is a difference between the gameplay of a class evolving over time and it simply changing over night.
I'd say Cryptic makes most of it's cash from companions..which aren't used in PvP . Most PvPers use black ice gear to start in PvP until they can get profound so who's gonna pay for that ? Unless your talking about mounts that makes no sense at all . I don't think either should be taken out completely but there should be serarate rules when you enter the PvP arena so the people who come for game content and PvE don't get their class nerfed into the dirt because of a bunch of whiners in PvP . I've seen this from the beginning , first it was tenebrous enchants , then it was CW's , then it was permastealth . As soon as someone gets their #$% handed to them in the arena they come to the forums and cry about it .
Drider - Russian Server, "Neverwinter - NeverwinterRU" in the launcher.
Dragon - International Server, "Neverwinter - Neverwinter" in the launcher.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
...I'm not even saying this is necessarily bad for the game overall. I'm just concurring with the opening sentiment.
You want to know the real reason class balance is out of whack?
IT IS because certain players cannot adapt and find ways to win vs certain classes, so they cry.
Also we have tons of people that would rather be silent about bugs so they can abuse them.
The players make the game and the players break the game.
MANY people that complain here never even tested on preview shard....
Imagine that.....
This game started evelopment over 2 years ago. The code is layers over layers of spagetti, making it very very hard to make those "small balance" fixes. Its far more better approach to rework a class and give it a fresh start, eliminating all the old issues in the proccess. This takes time, thats why you can only do a class or two for each module. There will always be bugs and some bugs will never get fixed. There are simply not enough resources to fix them all and the devs have to prioritize what they handle first. Also there is a moderate chance for new bugs to be born with every patch, so keep that in mind.
Players aren't victims, they are part of the game breaking cycle. They demand things with little to no understanding how things work and then get surprised for getting what they asked for. Sounds like a beaten up wife who goes back to her husband each time.
This still occurs in most MMO's. I can go into great detail in how the fundamental's of WoW's warriors changed. Hunters as well got virtually similar changes the DC's had here.
Or Runes of Magic completely remodeled R/M's changes just like they did for HR's in Mod4.
I can go on about these very same things thats happened in many more games. These things happen to virtually most MMO's to date.
Evolving doesnt always mean they get better. And I dont know what you mean overnight. A module is basically an expansion, in which many of the classes get such changes, and this is the same for most MMO's as well.
Ya it is just craziness, and honestly as a pvp player I do not see much reason to make that constant investment; the pvp game just doesn't get new content or is not made any more interesting to justify it. It is paying to get maxed and then paying to maintain that same experience.
I thought you might say the Russian server. I imagine you need to speak Russian to play on it.
Geez I'd like to think there was a corporate management structure that governed the development of the game. Trust me, it is NEVER like: "Oh hey if we do things this way we will make more money but lets change everything because some people are complaining about a certain class". If class balance was conducive to profit maximization you can bet they would be as close to balanced as possible.
You take a class average, take a average tenacity picture and a average weapon level snapshot every 60 days.
Then take the 20% above and below each the class and put them into separate queues.
Queue A, then would belong to the newest or most casual 60's , they could either continue to improve and move up or stay where they are.
Queue B would then belong to the class averages, no chasing fairy rainbows, thrones and every legendary artifact known to man, you can stay at the average level or
Queue C , the BiS crowed , the top percantage, multiple 9,10 ranked enchants, a few legendaries at least , all the boons and every potion known to man.
WITH The ABOVE set up EVERYONE wins, you are much closer to your own grouping then you ever were before. IS it perfect? No, of course not, BUT its much more perfect then it is now.
I once pvped hundreds of matches a week, had profound gear on 5 different classes, got a vanguard on all of them, had a blast between end of Mod 1 and middle of mod 3ish give or take. Start of Mod 4 I gave up, I cant chase the power creeping any longer. It just ridiculous now, you get into matches with poeple 5-6 k gear score above you, even if you have 15-18k on your classes, you get steamrolled in seconds.
If you separate the queues and put actual groups of people together, It would encourage growth, right now you just cant get into pvp , due to the extreme nature of the power creeping any longer. A new 60 is just a ant ready to be crushed over and over.
3 queues, 3 leaderboards. Casual , Expert and Pro. Everyone wins!
Maybe my break from this game and mmos in general for several months has clouded my mind with way too much reality in how the rest of the world works lol. In just about every other phase of life the more money and time and research you invest in something, the better the experience becomes, especially where entertainment is concerned. Imagine investing in an awesome home entertainment system and after several months you have this awesome system and the tv manufacturer comes and replaces your 70 inch high def tv with a 30 inch console and tells you that you've received an upgrade because they have balanced the various components of your system. Ya hell with that. I'll be casual and free until it gets boring again lol.
Pvp makes money... making maps doesn't cost alot, you can even just get the community involved making them, so you're not taking much time from the devs...