Quick Ben's Master 'Fix-It' to-do List

torontodave · April 2015

This is my master list of things that I'd change. I know there are similar threads, but this one is my personal 'to do' list for Cryptic. I'll curate this list as best I can with your suggestions.

[*Top Priority*]

[*Foundry*]

The foundry is Neverwinter's holy grail. USE IT!

Read: The Foundry is perfect
Read: Request Catalog Redesign(+ 'unplayed' rewards)
Read: Eldarth's Preventing Foundry Exploitation

Unplayed eligible foundry quests should give a HUGE reward. RP or AD(5000-10,000) (10-20 peridots)
Tie it to the 'review' submission. You can only ever give one review, have a submitted review award the player with 10k AD!
Tips: Tips should be increased to 10k AD max to account for inflation. 500 is current max (HA!)

Paradigm Shift: Issue a new 3 artifact set (belt/necklace/artifact) called "Dungeon Master's Garb" or something, these 3 artifacts will ONLY drop in 'Eligible' Foundry chests. (0.0000000001% chance or something) .. Ideally I'd like to see them all priced on AH around 2mill each.

[*Outfitter*] Tabs on Character screen (Zen!)

'Loadout' tab (x2 x4? x8? Charge Zen!) - 2 tabs you can switch between to choose your currently equipped gear and encounter abilities. Must be out of combat. Charge me 1000 zen for a second slot.

'Style' tab (x2 x4? x8? Charge Zen!) - 2 tabs you can switch between to display your currently selected stylish appearance. Must be out of combat. Charge zen for additional slots.

Loadout is all about your numbers and stats. Style is all about your appearance. They should have nothing to do with each other.

(Choosing which items go in which slots would be done in conjunction w [*Wardrobe*] and [Livery] redesign)

[*Wardrobe*]/[Livery]/collection Redesign

Currently:
We have head/body/pants of clothing
We have shirt/pants of under-armor clothing
We have 'invisible' shirt/pants of under-armor clothing
We have Head/body/pants/arms of armor
We have transmutes
We have dyes

To get the desired 'look' for your character, you have a convoluted job ahead of you. Too many screens, too many unknowns, too much tinkering at a high transmute/resource cost.

We need a [Wardrobe] screen (integrated with collections) that will show us all of that classes equippable items, and HOW THEY WILL LOOK ON OUR CHARACTER (Unlocked in collection=you 'own' that appearance, greyed-out is unowned but still selectable so you can see what it looks like. You can't leave the wardrobe screen w that apperance unless you own it.) But at least you can try things on, and then go buy the appropriate item from AH.

The 'Style' tabs would be HOW WE WANT OUR CHARACTER TO LOOK (chosen from all the available owned looks (clothing page aND armor page aND dyes), no need for transmute anymore!)

Armor/Artifact/Clothing 'collections', locations found, and # of points could be shown in the [Wardrobe] interface. (No need to update the collections page with every release! Update the wardrobe dynamically straight from the database!)

The [Wardrobe] screen could be reskinned for companions (and companion collections) and called a [Livery], to allow for quick browsing, sorting, and choosing of active companions, as well as shopping for un-owned (greyed out) companions.

Livery: from the French livrée, meaning dispensed, handed over. Indicates that the wearer of the livery was a servant, dependent, follower or friend of the owner of the livery, or, in the case of objects, that the object belonged to them. This works for both human/nonhuman followers.

[*Bots*]

Ugh every time I see a goldspam bot I want to log out. Write a simple script, and get rid of them. NO MORE BOTS! If you can't write a simple script, then put a freaking CAPTCHA in Protectors Enclave. FIGURE IT OUT!

[*Gateway and SCA*]

Gateway is fixed! Thanks!

[*Difficulty*]

[Combat (Self)] Kallos Tam deals 155873 (195935) Physical Damage to you with Melee Attack.
Mod6 Mobs are pretty tough, eh? ;D Even with my new 70k hp, I'm not surviving that.

[Secondary Priority]

[PVP]

PVP - something must be done. I don't understand math, but hustin might.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?897771-Please-LET-US-HELP!

Hindsight: New gear should've been new seals. Letting the pvp pros jump ahead of everyone because they had leftover Seals of Triumph only widened the pvp divide. New gear should always require new currency, old currency should always have rewards (even if paltry)

Domination Battlemaster (Seal of Triumph Daily) should be accessible via the (L)anding screen, or pass this task to Rhix.
- Players have to travel to the Trade of Blades twice. Once to accept the mission, and once to turn it in.

[Enchants]

Useful Defensive enchants: Soulforged, Negation
Useless defensive enchants: Everything else.
Useful Offensive enchants: Terror, PF, Lightning, Vorpal(? Mod6 viable?)
Useless offensive enchants: everything else.

Reports of higher level enchants (pure/transcendant) have issues with vorpal/feytouched/maybe more.

Start by standardizing the damages/effectiveness across the board. Then add visual FX. As long as they all do the same dmg(or effectiveness), and only the visual effect changes, the offensive enchant market will flourish. (Remember: TF2 Hats)

Alternative: Synergize dmg enchants with mainhand At-Will skills(?): MoF CW = fire enchants for bonus dmg, Arcane/MagicMissile CW = Lightning enchants bonus, Chilling cloud CW = Ice enchants for bonus dmg. (Input needed.)

[Tooltips]

Tooltips, boons, and feats should be LIVE + ACTIVELY REFRESHED showing ACCURATE numbers.

"Dealing damage to targets has a chance to activate" .. A chance? Why not a %?

or "A chance to heal" Why not a %?

[Skills]

Skills: All skills need a level 4 pass-through. All tooltips need to be updated

[Invokation Bonuses]

Prayer invoke timer intervals should only countdown when the player is logged in. Currently bot armies just log in multiple times a day, hammering the login server. If you get disconnected, you start at the last interval (e.g. 3rd prayer, wait another hour till 4th) so you don't lose too much progress.

Prayer invoke bonuses (based on logged-in time) should be BoundToCharacter:
peridot(i), aquamarine(ii), sapphire(iii), opal(iv). Yes, an opal for every 4 hours I'm logged in. RP farmers will get an opal for farming every 4 hours, why shouldn't I for playing PVP/gaunt/levelling/helping noobs in PE? Goldspammers and leadership scripted autobots log out quick, no rp for them!

[Refinement Points]

Ideally all RP should work for all refinement items.

All of this bag trash is ridiculous! Resonance, Thaumaturgic, Bound, Unbound, Enchant, Refinement, Minor, Lesser, etc, etc.
Combine ALL refinement points. Marks of Stability/Union/Power is enough variation of nonsense useless items in my pack. Enchants and runestones should work in artifact equipment too.
[3 Lesser resonance stones! Regular, BtC, and BtA]

Dungeons that should give RP:
-Biggrins, Need for Mead
-All TIL 1600 and TIL 2000 dungeons.

Dungeons that should give Elemental Aggregate or a chance at Unified Elements:
- Seeds for Everyone!
- Gathering Seeds! For Goodness!

[Dungeon Delves and Keys]

Ugh the current key system is infuriating.

[Not pictured: Lockbox key, Dark Fey Key, Campaign DragonQueen Key, Adamantium Glove]

On top of the existing 'choose which reward' and 'choose an optional(key) chest to open', now we have a dungeon guidebook + seal caches to go along with it.

Can't this all be streamlined? just give me a fANTASTIC reward choice the first time I beat a dungeon that day, give me a mediocre reward if its the second or tenth or fiftieth time. .. Do that automatically so I dont have to carry around keys or dungeon guides?

=X

Ditto give me a fantastic reward if its the first time I've played THAT specific foundry quest. Give me a mediocre one if I'm just farming it.

This 'first time bonus' will give unplayed foundry gems a chance. Reviewers will eventually standardize their votes to their own criteria. With the influx of new foundry players (due to increased rewards), overall star reviews will balance themselves after that.

[Currencies]

Tarmalune: Update me!
Seals of Triumph: Make available in the Zen store or the Tarmalune store!
Scrimshaw: More rewards please!
Silvery Dragon: I'll spend
The rest of them: Don't really have a use. (Give me something to spend them on. A wandering priest NPC comes to PE, who only sells BtA Scrolls of Life, but he accepts all types of currency. ;D)

[Collections]

The whole CRTL_J screen is a waste of Cryptic labour, updating images and tables with every new item that gets released. Why not just incorporate it into a [Wardrobe] tab. Show the available + unobtained pieces en masse, and then allow us to SEE what they look like on our characters before we bother hunting for the piece! As it gets added to the database, it dynamically gets added to the [Wardrobe], and thus our 'collections' screen. ([Livery] for companions.)

What are 'collection points' used for? Give us a store to spend them in, or titles based on achievement plateaus please!
1000 pts = Collector
2000 pts = Master Collector

(Not that I want you to bother with updating the Collections screen, but the new mod6 one is missing all the 'greater' belts (sash, twined, etc) I think? and some of the 3set pieces?)

[Journal Achievement Unlocks]

3 Scrying orbs in 10 areas - New title
3 Scrying orbs in 20 areas - Better title
+ and more!

[Progression Changes]

Include an NPC in PE that shows players a chart on how to progress from 0-70 now. Knox and his various campaign NPC's have no idea anymore.
level 1-10 - blackdagger
level 10-20 - etc
level 30? - ToD?
level 60 - drowned shore
level 67 - spinward rise
level 70 - Shar, IWD, WoD, Foundry

[Logging]

Diagnostic Logging: Someone should be looking through PVP logs, through PVE logs, see which skills are doing too much dmg and balance accordingly! you shouldn't need the playerbase to tell you when things are broken, you should already have data showing it! If lostmauth dies in less than 15 seconds, send an alert! ;D If a TR goes 30-0 in Gauntlgrym PVP, see WHY it's happening and fix it! ;D

[Redeem Code in ARC launcher]

I don't use the ARC launcher, so I can't even redeem codes.

After the giant mess of mod6, you offered an email code to bring people back, which then quickly got disabled due to ineptness. (The same code, for unbound items. Really? =/ Why didn't you just put it at the claims agent?)

Everyone that you tried to retain with that code just got reminded of how inept things were (and likely why they left in the first place)

Beta test! Think "How can this be exploited?" before you publish anything!

Further Reading: (Poll) What do you think of Mod6? (Player Feedback)

Anyways. If you agree with anything I've said, quote the headers of the applicable sections and add your feedback. I'll update accordingly. Let's hope they heed our advice this time. =D

Hopefully the next roadmap includes some of this stuff, and I appreciate your +1's. This is what constructive criticism looks like, nonconstructive replies will rightly get deleted by the mods.

caewin · April 2015

[Enchants]

1) If Tymora's Lucky Enchantment is going to be around, could what it drops scale with level? Because those lucky pouches are more like garbage pouches, really, and I think I may use mine for RP on an artifact.
2) Rank 3 enchantments in level 60+ zones. Why?

[Invocation Bonuses]

Let's talk about the things formerly known as Wondrous Coffers of Augmentation. I took to calling them "Actually not all that great coffers of augmentation". I've had a chance to open two of the new varieties. Nope. Still not that great. In the almost two years I've played, I've seen one coalescent ward. One.

[Refinement Points]

+1 on being able to use enchants and such on artifact gear. The more casual of NW's players would like to get our few pieces of artifact equipment at least to epic someday.

(Unrelated: Hey, if that's bag trash to you, I will take it!:D)

[Journal Achievement Unlocks]

This is really stupid, but I was disappointed when I got enough lore to reach Sage and didn't get the title "Sage". I'd rather be a Sage than a Short Order Cook, just sayin'.

[Redeem Code in ARC launcher]

1) Everyone knows how well that went.
2) It's always seemed odd that it was anyone's guess where one's promo item would come from.
3) I had the Arc Client for two weeks. I had DirectX issues for two weeks. An IT friend removed the ARC Client last night. I don't have DirectX issues anymore. That client isn't coming back. I'm still a loyal player.

damnacious · April 2015

That's a pretty well thought out and summed up list that i agree with. Nicely done!

malemon · April 2015

You sir, should be a game designer. A huge thumbs up to all that

suicidalgodot · April 2015

torontodave wrote: »

[...]

All of this bag trash is ridiculous! Resonance, Thaumaturgic, Bound, Unbound, Enchant, Refinement, Minor, Lesser, etc, etc.
Combine ALL refinement points. Marks of Stability/Union/Power is enough variation of nonsense useless items in my pack. Enchants and runestones should work in artifact equipment too.
[3 Lesser resonance stones! Regular, BtC, and BtA]
[...]

That's "active marketing" for you: Building up need for the new 36-slot bags...

/sarcasm

Great job, torontodave. Hope it gets a) noticed, and b) passed up the ladder to where it matters...

torontodave · April 2015

This post needs a lot more +1's if we want any changes. ;D

suicidalgodot · April 2015

torontodave wrote: »

This post needs a lot more +1's if we want any changes. ;D

Then, not deprecating your work, you should have made it shorter. But the average internet users' average attention span seems to be measured in milliseconds - unless there's HAMSTER, ofc.

suddenlyslow · April 2015

caewin wrote: »

[Refinement Points]

+1 on being able to use enchants and such on artifact gear. The more casual of NW's players would like to get our few pieces of artifact equipment at least to epic someday.

Wait you mean you can use enchants to upgrade your artifact gear? I thought that was a text bug as mine refuses them (mine will only accept rank 105+ gear or resonance stones).

wlinaz · April 2015

[Invocation Bonuses]

Prayer invoke timer intervals should only countdown when the player is logged in. Currently bot armies just log in multiple times a day, hammering the login server. If you get disconnected, you start at the last interval (e.g. 3rd prayer, wait another hour till 4th) so you don't lose too much progress.

With the stability of the servers I can see how this could become a perpetual invoke, never being able to finish. I see where you're going but I can see where they could hose this up as well. ...Maybe they could give us an invoke key...

Otherwise, a great list. Kudos!

torontodave · May 2015

torontodave wrote: »

[*Difficulty*]

Open PVP -
"Capture Rune Scrolls from Enemy Adventurers 0/4" - Daily IWD PVP Task is impossible.
Enemy Adventurers are level 73 and HAMSTER. Cannot be completed solo.

Added to original post. (updated)

gramps5scorpion · May 2015

torontodave wrote: »

This post needs a lot more +1's if we want any changes. ;D

+1 +1 +1

I agree with pretty much everything you have said in your take on improvements. The drive to push everyone to spend more has overruled the development of a fun environment to the point of almost no return. I couldn't believe it when I took the task in the Fiery Pit to gather Mithral and found that you need 3 bag slots for that quest as it requires you to gather 25 bars but only stacks a max of 10 in your bag.. That is just ridiculous and blatant push to make us spend more. IMHO all same items should be stack-able with NO limits.

torontodave · May 2015

torontodave wrote: »

Domination Battlemaster (Seal of Triumph Daily) should be accessible via the (L)anding screen, or pass this task to Rhix.
- Players have to travel to the Trade of Blades twice. Once to accept the mission, and once to turn it in.

Updated the original post with ^

myowmyow · May 2015

This is very excellent overall. I think the AD rewards need to be toned down just a bit, as this could really flood the economy with a bit too much AD. Really, other than that, this is perfect!

I may actually play foundries again if they made such changes.

kateshii · May 2015

All these are valid points and great ideas. The problem is that they dont jive with PWE's business model. All of this game's annoyances aside from horrid bugs are there to encourage you to spend money. We, as players, see them as problems. PWE sees them as opportunities to motivate you to spend. Noble and valiant effort on your part, but a waste of breath as long as this game is being ran on micro transaction business model. Sadly it will never change and in fact just gets worse. Annoyances will grow as the developers try to encourage real money transactions. They dont make this game to satisfy the non-spenders.

methecsgod · May 2015

This is a role-playing game (think girls playing with dolls), and versatility is what makes it entertaining. Yes, you could have only one currency and one key for every dungeon and no rp gradation... And you wouldn't want to play such a game, it would be too boring.

kaiserschmarrn · May 2015

Thanks for the effort OP. Also would be nice if we could get this stickied in the bugs section.

cjh1983 · May 2015

This reads like a rant from the unabomber, if you want to affect any changes you should put more thought into smaller changes.

You might be proposing years of work, from one persons laundry list, very little of which provides any new content.

xxmantaraxx · May 2015

This is a great list!!!!
Thank you for taking the time to put it together

I back your ideas 100%

reiwulf · May 2015

I couldn't agree more with Torontodave.
Sadly I think the devs KNOW all of this, but they don't WANT to do it for other reasons, more connected with Cryptic/PWE being a company that NW being a videogame.

arsonall82 · May 2015

here's one:

sigils should be able to be used as refinement for sigils only - the RP is what's of value - since we know Cryptic is keen on having different refinement values (artifact gear different than artifacts, should be/could be different for sigils) so that after a certain point, perhaps you could use as refinement for a sigil for the value of RP you've put into it (discard the value of the sigil if you are concerned with "repeatable redemption" - no one cares about the sigil value, it's the RP that is 100% lost if you choose to use one.)

translucentwolf · May 2015

It's *precious* that you think your comments here are worth more than the cold wind blowing over an icewind dale dev's rear.

The only thing that gets attention here is: Will it generate more Zen sales.

Nothing you wrote will generate enough additional zen sales to be worth it to Cryptic to take their few remaining devs off of coding up Zen Rewards tiers.

torontodave · May 2015

translucentwolf wrote: »

The only thing that gets attention here is: Will it generate more Zen sales.

If you read it, I've proposed a situation where *every players main* will spend 2000 zen. On an additional gear/loadout tab, and an additional style tab. The whales can spend up to 14,000zen per main, for the full 8 gear/loadout, and full 8 style tabs. (1+7, 1+7)

torontodave · May 2015

cjh1983 wrote: »

This reads like a rant from the unabomber, if you want to affect any changes you should put more thought into smaller changes.

You might be proposing years of work, from one persons laundry list, very little of which provides any new content.

Haha.. Umm.. Thanks?

Kaczynski was accepted into Harvard University at the age of 16, where he earned an undergraduate degree. He subsequently earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 at age 25.

Also, the right coder could easily do a mock-up proposal in a weekend. A team could have it implemented in less than a month. A year? Pfft.

reiwulf · May 2015

it's not up to the players to figure out the code for the game, we can only give ideas on how to make the game better.

feanor70118 · May 2015

I have different ideas than you on some points, but overall this is a very good list and I hope they do/wish they would listen to you.

bioshrike · May 2015

Y'know what would make Tymora's gems more useful - have any items that come from the pouches be already-identified. This would make them more useful for refining, as you wouldn't have to factor in the cost to identify those green items.

torontodave · May 2015

Dungeons that should give Elemental Aggregate or a chance at Unified Elements:
- Seeds for Everyone!
- Gathering Seeds! For Goodness!
(Who named these quests? An intern?)

^added, other stuff updated/removed.

Is there some pop culture reference I don't get with these quest names? .. They look like placeholder names that made it through QA. =X

edit: err, rather, the 'Sealed Trove of Elemental Earth' or fire or whatever those bags you get fROM the dungeon, they should have EA and UE as reward chance. Rank5 is nothing.

bioshrike · May 2015

torontodave wrote: »

^added, other stuff updated/removed.

Is there some pop culture reference I don't get with these quest names? .. They look like placeholder names that made it through QA. =X

edit: err, rather, the 'Sealed Trove of Elemental Earth' or fire or whatever those bags you get fROM the dungeon, they should have EA and UE as reward chance. Rank5 is nothing.

They are supposed to reflect Minsc's overzealous and rather simple-minded nature.

torontodave · May 2015

bioshrike wrote: »

They are supposed to reflect Minsc's overzealous and rather simple-minded nature.

Ah. How mod6 ... ... appropriate. ;D

alisi1 · May 2015

+1 This is how criticism should be done. I know the mods appreciate it.

grogthemagnif · May 2015

No, it's a proposal to change the rules.

suddenlyslow wrote: »

Wait you mean you can use enchants to upgrade your artifact gear? I thought that was a text bug as mine refuses them (mine will only accept rank 105+ gear or resonance stones).

Quick Ben's Master 'Fix-It' to-do List

Comments