I wrote this in the feedback thread, but thought it equally applicable here. Plus, hoping that one of these ends up catching the eye of a DEV such as @panderus or @strumslinger who can pass it along:
You want to know my single biggest complaint? There is way too much emphasis on Item Level/Gear Score. It has been this way since I first started, which was before even Mod 2 came out, and I have not noticed a single time when IL/GS wasn't the deciding factor of who the better player is rather than skill.... I'm sorry if I'm coming off as rude. It's just that this game has so much potential that isn't accessible to players with not a ton of money like myself.
I will echo this. @Strumslinger, the #1 thing that you guys should invest into has been detailed a few times, but I think it would completely change this game in a REALLY big way.
You need a "PVP Tab" for your character. Before scrolling down, hear me out on this. This tab, would have another character page, in which you have all your armor and jewelry slots - like your normal page however... Instead of being the items you currently have equipped, it would be your "pvp version" of your character.
When you click on the helm dropdown, it would let you select from ANY helm you have in inventory or bank space. You would select a helm (i.e. Lionsmane) and it would equip it to your character for just that 'pvp page' without actually changing what you currently have equipped. You would have EVERY slot on this page, with the exception of artifacts. I think it should strip out 3 of the 4 and only leave you with ONE primary artifact to pick from.
Another thing this page should do, is remove ALL (100%) of mount stats, and ALL boons (yes 100% of boon stats).
THIS page, would be the character that loads into a PVP match, not your current equipped character. So what this allows you to do is roam around in your full PVE "setup" and when you Que for a PVP match and enter, it auto loads you with the gear/artifacts/items that are on the PVP character page - without boons, mount stats, etc.
This creates a "stripped down" version of PVP that is desperately needed. Let the campaign's and the boons and mount bonuses and 4x artifacts ALL be for PVE. But PVP DESPERATELY needs to be stripped down from all these stats that have created such a MASSIVE item level and power difference between players. You will still have PVP gear, artifact equipment, jewelry and 1 main artifact as relevant gear in PVP. You still allow everyone to use those other things for PVE purposes, but this will go a LONG way towards PVP balance.
Neverwinter doesnt have a huge class balance problem, it has an item balance problem/gear gap problem.
Once this is done, it opens MANY doors into creating balanced PVP play. You can do things like "lock the PVP tab from item swapping" once you enter a Que. This wouldnt work on the current system since you need to swap gear for PVE and whatnot, but having a separate PVP tab would allow you to lock that gear when you que up - which THEN enables you to do matchmaking based on item level on that tab - a much more relevant factor than "ELO".
This solution solves MANY issues plaguing NW currently. It allows you to wear PVE gear while qued for PVP since your "PVP Self" would be on a different tab. It removes tens of thousands of stats from boons, mounts, etc all from PVP which lowers the gear gap, which is the cause of the imbalance in PVP matches, combined with locking this pvp gear when qued allows you to have a more balanced PVP que system as well.
I have played since open beta and stopped a few months ago because I kept getting more and more frustrated with how good this game COULD be and isnt, and this single change would frankly cause me to come back to this game because it fixes so many things that are wrong with it and make it not fun. This solution also DRASTICALLY promotes alts considering it now requires LESS gear to feel "up to par" when going into PVP - which was something this game only really saw back up until ~module 2, I used to play TONS of alts but it became too cost prohibitive to play more than 1 after about mod 3.
I think the removal of ALL boons for domination (with the exception of the PVP boons) and when you que up for strongholds it would allow the use of strongholds boons + domination boons only - leaving all the module boons out of the picture.
Probably some of the most significant changes this would bring about are things like the removal of endless consumption from PVP... Over stacking things like ARP and Lifesteal from boons - which are much more limiting from items + 1 artifact. Which then reduces PVP self healing a TON which bring a lot of very positive performance changes to PVP where you have DPS classes who can self heal so well they dont need healers. etc etc. I could go on forever about how I believe this is exactly what NW needs, but I think I have said enough. I stay up to date with the game, reading the forums every week or other week, and WANT to come back and play the game and even support Cryptic too with $, but cant bring myself to do it with all these massive issues that plague the game and spill over into making a toxic community. This would completely overhaul and fix PVP so much so, that I guarantee old veterans (like myself) would come back to the game and it would also bring tons of NEW players in because people wouldnt associate this games' pvp with you needing to pay to compete...
please consider this and send me a PM if you have any questions.
The game has huge class balance issue , those arent related to boons/insignias etc. Its related to powers and feats of each class.
boons, insignias and gear creates the gap which isnt related to the issue we have with class balance right now
@metalldjt I guess when I look at my playtime. Sure there are always class balance issues in anygame, but the gear gap issues and itemization issues exponentially make that class balance even further out of wack...
If you did as suggested above, my guess is it were drastically reduce the class imbalance that you see in PVP. AP gain would be slower, self healing via lifesteal would be nerfed a ton.... classes that can overstack ARP would not deal as much damage etc etc.... The "1 shot GF" that was just "fixed" might not have even been a thing if you would have removed boons/mount bonuses and 3 artifacts.... I mean just the mount and SH ARP boon alone is what, 12k ARP? Not to mention atleast another 1,200 if im not mistaken from more boons... so 13,200 ARP from boons alone..... Or lifesteal... endless consumption gone. The ToD 5% Lifesteal boon? Gone from PVP.... there are a few other lifesteal boons too, removed from PVP. Lifesteal would likely have to be slotted in defensive slots to work, otherwise the % would be too small and without endless consumption, HP might be king again with no lifesteal....
The amount of change this would bring to PVP would be immense and I suspect MUCH easier to balance around moving forward, since any new boons or power that interact poorly with boons (remember avalanche) wouldnt hurt PVP and only be PVE issues.... You wouldnt have to worry about releasing things as much for sake of breaking stuff.
Sure, you will always have class balance problems. I didnt say neverwinter has NO class balance problems, I merely was suggesting that NWs biggest problem is in its hyper relevance to items and power creep which has created such a massive power gap between even a 3k "casual" player and a BIS 4k+ player that its no contest for the 4k guy to win....
This entire thing would fix all that, and while that 4k guys item level wouldnt change, its very likely that the matchup would now require much more skillful play from the 4k guy to win, when you just removed thousands of stat advantage he had over the 3k guy.
@ayroux removing boons and insignias is a terrible idea.
The whole point of building a toon would be pointless if PvP is the focus.
What you're basically saying is because YOU are bad at PvP and don't want to personally put in the time and effort to get better that you want an easy way to even the field.
How is that fair? It took me and others who are PvP focused months to figure out the best way to build our toon.
If you want to get better at PvP there are many factors to consider.
1. Finding the correct spec based off trial and error. 2. Finding the right players to build a team with 3. Playing every day, and not just one match
You wouldn't ask for your boons to be stripped for PvE would you?
Then we need the matchmaking system to balance those that queue up. We have all been in countless matches where we could say, " if only the teams were arranged appropriately, we'd actually have a good match on our hands."
The problem was being grouped with a bunch of other middlings against a group of top ends that weren't even premade.
THIS THIS THIS
for solo que ---- just make a sure friends (friendlist) are not matched on one team only because they are friends. it will be just another fail version of "premades (guys from guild who know each other)" vs pugs
I am fine with the stuff that the game has right now.
Mounts , boons , enchants ... Sure i am not okay with having overperforming items , overpowered boons or broken enchants , but i am totally fine with what you can take in PvP with you atm , i dont consider removing a system such as the boons or insignias at this point in time , this only will make the game go back to ice age, all of these things just need small tweaking based of what is the meta of the module , even moba games such as dota or smite they do some changes to items after some time, the issue with class balance it is clearly not done from the bis level downside to lesser geared levels , the class balance should be done from the classes powers/feats, do not forget that module 6 brought new stat curves and alot of classes didn't got tweaked for those changes thats why we had GFs abusing itf and KC , it didnt had anything to do with power creeps, imo what u are askin in ur post above its not updated at all with the reality of the game , or is it just me that consider a better way to fix the game problems without removing entire systems , but more towards a constructive way and work around what we have to improve it.
See, the biggest problem I saw with the game when I left was the power gap and creep. You know as well as I do Lancer how many broken things happened because of boons... Like you said module 6 brought massive changes and even things like endless consumption wasnt changed along with that (and it should be changed).
Or like I mentioned above, remember when Avalanche multi-procced?
If the game had a much healthier/bigger population you could keep things like this in game, and do as you propose - adjust to the meta of each module. But the biggest issue with PVP is there seems to be zero real "even matchmaking". I mean even between two 4k Ilevel players you can see such a massive swing in power gap from things like the SH boons...
Points being, Neverwinter has FAR FAR too much power come from items. The difference between a new 70 and a BIS 70 is so crazy, I could probably come back right now from not playing since January, without knowing anything new about the game and take on an entire team of 5 2-3k ilevel players with my GWF... That "gap" is FAR too large and going back to even previous modules that was never the case. Back in mod 0, or 1 or 2 a BIS player couldnt reliably kill an entire team... Mod 3 was the "super GWF" that could probably do that, but thats due to the mechanics they over buffed, or an HR could but again, they over buffed. Ever since mod 3, the introduction of artifact equipment, more boons, mount bonuses, and SH boons, its created such a large item gap difference, its corrupted the entire game to the point that its my understanding PVP is nearly dead in NW... I still talk occasionally to people like Tyrion, Iyon, etc about the state of the game and read here. Tyrion told me once SH PVP hasnt popped in like a month.... Why is that?
What NW needs is a "reset" back to a more "pure" PVP that removes a lot of the item power difference between newer players and existing players. That gets rid of the insane power creep and stats that have come through the modules. I mean even adjusting class powers wont just help... Look at lifesteal, you can get a CRAZY amount of lifesteal as a GWF that can make you invincible coupled with insignias, water weapons, water wheel etc.... Self healing is WAY out of control and the primary culprit of this are boons.
I think a return to normalcy is what this game needs. The campaign system, the boons, all that stuff should be treated like companions are in domination. Domination should be a stripped down version of your character that is what will make the most "skill based" system possible. Sure items will always come into play and a 4k will still dominate a 2k-3k player hands down. But the amount at which they can dominate will be reduced and instead of having a "god character" you will just be "very strong" compared to others.
The solo Q vs Premade Q I see as more of a bandaid than the actual Fix for PVP. People play this game to get on with friends, do quests, level characters, etc. They dont want to be forced to either que by themselves OR get a full group of players to Que with, only to get smashed by BIS premade after waiting 1 hr in the que unable to do anything else....
PVP needs to be addressed at the source of the issue - the item gap/power gap that is caused by items. Even look at Destiny which is "arguably" the most popular RPG type PVP... The power difference between a BIS player with BIS weapons is BIG, but still the most rookie player can come in and have a chance to kill them. The item gap is still within a "reasonable" level where the veteran has an advantage... however in this game, you can literally face smash the keyboard and win through sheer item power. You could do nothing but hold left click and at will and win through sheer item power. Until that is fixed, Neverwinter will never rise back to its former glory days with its population and involvement in PVP. Ever since they released artifact equipment, that was the beginning of the end of this game making a massive item power gap that could not be overcome through skill...
I actually think a BETTER system than a solo vs premade que system would be a:
1) Ranked 2) Non ranked
Que system. Where you bring back the leaderboards but only do leaderboards based on your class. So all the "DCs" will have their own class leaderboard and not have it be cross-classes.
Overwatch has a system like this. "Quick Play" is just anyone who is available... versus their pvp seasons are "ranked games" based on your "ELO". However this still goes back to the primary problem in NW. "Skill level" means NOTHING comapared to item powers... The most skilled 2k player could never beat a horrible BIS player.
Which means the "match making" would need to be based on item power, but Ilevel doesnt include things like boons into it... So now you need to change that. You also run into issue with gear swapping so you que with 2k armor, then swap to 4k armor.... So you would have to lock armor on que, which means you cant go do PVE sitting in Que with your PVP gear on... etc etc... It ends up creating problem after problem.
So a better way to solve ALL of this.... Strip out boons/mount bonuses from PVP. Create a "PVP tab" that has your characters PVP stats on it, when you que for PVP, it locks THIS tab - enabling you to still wear PVE gear on your character and do quests or w.e. Then you can do "ranked" matchmaking based on PVP tab item level that gets locked on que... and it will load THAT version of you into PVP where gear gap is diminished. You win/lose and it increases/decreases your rank on the leaderboards but ONLY compares you to others of your same class.
If you dont want to do ranked ques, you can do quick play /unranked ques with friends and it wont count towards your kills/deaths/wins/losses on the leaderboards but it ALSO wont do any real "matchmaking". So the quick play is que at your own risk as who knows who you will get matched with.
But this provides avenues for all the player base. The die hard PVPer now has ranked PVP with real matchmaking, leaderboards, and competitive games. The casual person can do non ranked or ranked with buddies and if he does ranked he is evenly matched and he can que up with 2 of his/her friends and do PVE or whatever and not feel they are about to get smashed by a BIS premade.... Also the item gap difference has been significantly lowered....
The only alternative to all of this is to create a new item level system in which TOTAL stats count towards item level and would make a current "BIS" player closer to a 10k ilevel versus 4k, (just an example) and then you could do some sort of "high water mark" on itemlevel in which the PVP que remembers the highest item level achieved. But this hurts BIS PVE players as they go for high item level and sometimes suck for PVP.... That is the only OTHER solution but frankly.... only a small % of population would be at that 10k ilevel spot and que times would be insanely long for PVP that would lead to BIS premades not waiting for 2 hours in "ranked ques" and instead hop to quick play and it leads back to where we are today: noone ques for pvp because they get smashed.
I guess you could have a "middle ground" here too, of having the ranked PVP que be the "stripped down" PVP and the "quick play/ unranked PVP" let you keep your boons and what not...
A summary of the above is this. Power gap is too large for any matchmaking or any real PVP. You either need to: - decrease the top end of the scale, which means significant nerfs across the board to items/boons/bonuses. An example would be reducing SH boons from 8k down to a more reasonable 2-4k but this would be met with HUGE flame at the investment and cost of players/guilds. - increase the "floor" of the power gap. This would make PVE trivial as it would require easier access to more boons/items/bonuses. - The population cant support such a large power/item gap difference so making a way to create balanced games (by making it based on item level), leaves the players on both ends of the spectrum (the BIS players and complete rookie players) sitting in que for hours waiting for a next available match. The solution: Adjust ONLY PVP, by treating boons/mount bonuses and all extra-character bonuses like companions for domination. This reduces the top end of the scale, makes the power difference between a BIS player and a casual player much smaller. Allows for itemlevel matchmaking that would be more relevant than using booned/mounted item level matchmaking. It doesnt change PVE at all so those things are still of value. But it makes PVP lean more towards skill and even matched games and ALSO makes it much easier to balance without having to worry about some guy stacking 25k ARP or something and its effect on PVP, since you couldnt achieve those stat values in PVP.
Wow, just checked back in after leaving a few months ago because the PvP was soooo unbalanced and out of whack, unfortunate to see nothings changed. I played since release and I played every day for 4 or 5 hours, mainly PvP but it was just a cluster F when I had enough. Good luck everyone, I hope they do "something" to help the PvP out.
@ayroux I still remember when i were called "troll" and "crazy" (and "an easy solution for that you're saying is to join a big guild" argument from certain trolls) when i advised about problems that SH stuff and locked some content for the bast majority of players would bring into the game... And, once again, i were right. Since then, i were stating this: SH boons and stuff must be locked for PvE and SH content (This is: SH Siege and SH map) out. On OWPvP , these things should be locked away from it as it must be shut down from Dom PvP too. After that, i were called "troll" because "players have earned the right to use them" (Main argument from troll PvP Guilds, ofc) but was obvious that those players only wanted to stay OVER the averange player to stomp them easily.
I hope that devs, instead of keep listening to undergeared a bad players on BiS gear who can't play their own class propperly, start listening us, top players, to balance the game, as "certain" company did short time ago with their main MMO. If interested, i opened a thread about it, whoever who wants to know about it, look into my thread's story, you should find it easily.
yup. as unfortunate as it is... I was surprised when SH came out and they made the boons 8k each and released more and more boons... The item skill gap is just so much now and @opalsuns I think is just too new at this game to realize... Mods 0-3 were probably the best this game has ever seen, and its when item gap was the lowest - though it was still VERY high then too...
I think you nailed it, players dont want a good pvp game. They just want to stomp.
I love the idea of custom matches and would love for it to be implemented. That being said, it's more complicated than meets the eye. We'd have to rethink rewards or even turn them off for custom matches as it might end up being easily exploited. Still, this is something that is on our radar.
Call me Andy (or Strum, or Spider-Man)! Follow Neverwinter on Twitter: NeverwinterGame Like Neverwinter on Facebook: Neverwinter Follow me on Twitter: StrumSlinger
1. The que system i wrote above alongside new pvp mode/maps/LOBBY system
2. Continue with the class balance for the next 3 classes and maybe a new class to be released, and next class balance changes will target the new class and the remaining 2.
The problem with the healing is:
3. Lifesteal needs a depression , besides the healing depression , it needs like a tenacity stat lifesteal resistance, and endless consumtion needs a change
4. Drowned weapons the healing from it is far more superior than what the other weapons offer , that is why i advocated for a higher IcD
5. Wheel of elements the water buff is far overpowered than other artifacts and there are 40 of those in the collection , thats why i said instead of 100% it should be 50%.
Conclusion: These 3 changes will cut down the surviability of few classes and people will again kill eachother, while the biggest problem remains the devoted cleric which i mentioned above that it needs class balance.
Lancer, I had to break this up a bit, I hope you dont mind, to have some back and forth.
First, I will defer to you, since you still play the game and as a spectator, I do think mine and @clonkyo1 points are valid and I do think they would fix the game. That said, I dont play actively and I dont think he does either.
1) Que System. Personally I think a Solo/Duo Que option and a full premade option would be a bandaid fix. I think it would HELP with PVP, it would be an improvement, but its not an ideal system IMO. I have a strong feeling, based on my years of playing this game, that the "premade" que would only be used to set up custom matches and I see this as a "devolution" from trying to make this game competitive again. Look past being able to set up matches. That would be fun for like 2 months and then once crushes everyone... Noone will want to play and everyone will avoid playing Absolute players.... Then what? Everyone is bored and goes back to solo/Duo Quing - which STILL wont fix the mix-matched games in which 2 BIS players que together and get matched with another 3 BIS players versus all PUGs who stand zero chance of playing.
I really truly believe, you should be focused on how to make a real matchmaking system in the game, and then trying to make THAT work, rather than trying to implement a system that allows you for your own lobby and custom games. That idea, will be a short term fix and I dont think will last...
I go back to a "ranked Q" and "unranked Q". I think once you find a GOOD matchmaking system, and you give a GOOD reason to que up for domination, everyone will be doing ranked PVP matches and thats where you will have your best bet of doing premades. The "unranked" que is just a total free for all where there is no "aim" on balance on either side. - Just like Overwatch has right now. You have "Quick Match" and then you have the "PVP Seasons". I think Neverwinter needs to have PVP seasons that last 1-2 months, that have a CLASS leaderboard and then specific rewards for the top 10 of each class or whatever. The problem with JUST doing this right now? They have ZERO real matchmaking, so I go back to trying to create a real matchmaking and I think it HAS to be based on itemlevel... They need to re-tool itemlevel to incorporate boons/companions/mount bonuses... Not just gear and enchants.
2) Ill never say no to class balance. But who is to take charge of this? The guy who did it, left... Do you really trust anyone else at this point to do sweeping changes? Im all for it though! I doubt itll happen.
3) Lifesteal needs a depression. I agree with the concept, but disagree with your solution. Lifesteal is already FAR too overpowered, even in PVE you often dont need a healer. Its worse than it was back in the day when CWs could AoE and with lifesteal keep themselves up. We have too much self healing. In order to fix lifesteal, they need to nerf it. - First, change lifesteal so its base severity is 50% and then make lifesteal % chance 200:1 stat points. This means the 8k lifesteal boon would give 40% lifesteal instead of 20% which starts to make stacking lifesteal less appealing IMO. Even though your "heal over time" is the same, you would get LESS burst heal and it doesnt reward the player who can stack higher %s like it does now. One of the most limiting issues with lower geared players is their inability to get high enough % chance to lifeteal, so its not worth stacking. Making it 200:1 makes it more available to others. It also buffs the effectiveness of the lifedrinker enchant that provides lifesteal severity now (as it would be a bigger impact than it currently is). Reducing severity is also a nerf to PVP because now you has less "burst" heals and more of a slower HOT. - Second, Change Endless Consumption to be a flat 5% increased lifesteal CHANCE. This boon is already a 33% chance to trigger and triple your heal. So its effectively doubling your lifesteal. Making this a fixed %, combined with above, will be again a way to raise the "base" player base, now making endless consumption an attractive option but not mandatory for people wanting to use lifesteal. Its still good, but not amazing especially if you can already get 40-50% Lifesteal with just 8k-10k lifesteal stat... adding 5% is only a 10% increase rather than doubling it. Both these changes will drastically reduce its effectiveness in PVP as itll no longer be able to "burst heal" you to full HP with one big IBS or something, itll be a slower heal but also not quite back to the PRE- chance where the chance was at 100% and the severity was what scaled with stat. Overall this would be a big hit to lifesteal and put it at a sweet spot IMO.
4) Drowned weapons - Id rather see the total heal nerfed than increased the ICD. Frankly, Id like to see this offer the same healing effects as a PVP potion - Which I believe is 1,600 HP / sec for 5 seconds? So it would be a drastic nerf to self healing.
5) Wheel of elements - Agreed, nerf this to 50% healing. 100% is too much.
Those changes above, would mean that any non healing class wouldnt be able to self heal very well. The only exception to this that I know of is the CW with their feat.... that frankly shouldnt provide as good of a self heal as it does.
Conclusion: You now would have real matchmaking, a ranked vs non ranked Q, PVP "seasons", less self healing - which will also spill over into making dungeons harder again too, along with PVP being more of a team effort and ALSO will lower the power gap a bit on the high end characters.
I think either way you go though, item level needs to be reworked and boons need to be added into itemlevel. I dont know the overall stat values, but would imagine you could use the stat difference from say a rank 12, to a rank 11 (150 stat points?) and how much itemlevel difference is that? I dont even know... But that should be the correlation to boons. So everytime you add a +400 stat boon, it would give you ALOT more itemlevel... Probably ~70 or something? When you add +8000 stat boon.... That would probably give you 1-2 thousand itemlevel. Which is exactly what needs to happen. So then you have a "BIS" player rather than being Ilevel 4300 something... he would probably be much closer to 10k item level... Which is NOW revealing on why PVE is so easy and reveals the massive gear gap issue. You have a 3k item level player who might jump up to say 4,500 via boons... but that 4,300 item level player would be 10k+. It would more accurately gauge item level.
Then you EITHER need to make a "PVP Character tab" that allows you to set your PVP gear for PVP and walk around in PVE gear doing quests, OR you need to create a "high water mark" itemlevel in which the game remembers what your highest item level achieved is, and then uses THAT to make you in PVP.
I still think a much easier way is to moot out boons and treat those stats like companions in domination, but thats just me.
Solo queue for competitive tournaments like NCL with matchmaking and leaver penalty
Pre vs pre "room system" without rewards, possibly with team ranking
The current queue without matchmaking and leaver penalty
I'm not so sure they will take away matchmaking and leaver penalty from this god awful mode that's currently called Domination, but there are hints at a solo and duo queue at least. If full premades are on their radar as well, we're getting very close to what we've been saying for months and months.
@strumslinger "We'd have to rethink rewards or even turn them off for custom matches as it might end up being easily exploited. Still, this is something that is on our radar."
100% Almost every BIS PvP player is fine with this. Our reward is simply having the option to put together private 5v5 matches with 10 players. We aren't asking for or want rewards, or a leaderboard for private matches. We simply want the option to play the teams we want and take the burden off the que system that is currently integrated into the game.
Real players have zero interest in pug stomping. It's extremely boring. We want the thrill of the sweaty match which is very difficult to get with the current PvP system and zero options.
I love the idea of custom matches and would love for it to be implemented. That being said, it's more complicated than meets the eye. We'd have to rethink rewards or even turn them off for custom matches as it might end up being easily exploited. Still, this is something that is on our radar.
Yes, turning them off for custom matches will be enough because, supposedly, you do custom matches just for fun
Comments
http://mashable.com/2016/08/16/destiny-private-esport/#y6HBT0JnROqz
opalsunsParagon Gaming
I guess when I look at my playtime. Sure there are always class balance issues in anygame, but the gear gap issues and itemization issues exponentially make that class balance even further out of wack...
If you did as suggested above, my guess is it were drastically reduce the class imbalance that you see in PVP. AP gain would be slower, self healing via lifesteal would be nerfed a ton.... classes that can overstack ARP would not deal as much damage etc etc.... The "1 shot GF" that was just "fixed" might not have even been a thing if you would have removed boons/mount bonuses and 3 artifacts.... I mean just the mount and SH ARP boon alone is what, 12k ARP? Not to mention atleast another 1,200 if im not mistaken from more boons... so 13,200 ARP from boons alone..... Or lifesteal... endless consumption gone. The ToD 5% Lifesteal boon? Gone from PVP.... there are a few other lifesteal boons too, removed from PVP. Lifesteal would likely have to be slotted in defensive slots to work, otherwise the % would be too small and without endless consumption, HP might be king again with no lifesteal....
The amount of change this would bring to PVP would be immense and I suspect MUCH easier to balance around moving forward, since any new boons or power that interact poorly with boons (remember avalanche) wouldnt hurt PVP and only be PVE issues.... You wouldnt have to worry about releasing things as much for sake of breaking stuff.
Sure, you will always have class balance problems. I didnt say neverwinter has NO class balance problems, I merely was suggesting that NWs biggest problem is in its hyper relevance to items and power creep which has created such a massive power gap between even a 3k "casual" player and a BIS 4k+ player that its no contest for the 4k guy to win....
This entire thing would fix all that, and while that 4k guys item level wouldnt change, its very likely that the matchup would now require much more skillful play from the 4k guy to win, when you just removed thousands of stat advantage he had over the 3k guy.
The whole point of building a toon would be pointless if PvP is the focus.
What you're basically saying is because YOU are bad at PvP and don't want to personally put in the time and effort to get better that you want an easy way to even the field.
How is that fair? It took me and others who are PvP focused months to figure out the best way to build our toon.
If you want to get better at PvP there are many factors to consider.
1. Finding the correct spec based off trial and error.
2. Finding the right players to build a team with
3. Playing every day, and not just one match
You wouldn't ask for your boons to be stripped for PvE would you?
My advice?
Get better.
opalsunsParagon Gaming
for solo que ---- just make a sure friends (friendlist) are not matched on one team only because they are friends. it will be just another fail version of "premades (guys from guild who know each other)" vs pugs
I and many others don't care about solo or duo que.
This thread is about 5v5 domination issues.
If you want to talk about solo or duo que please make a separate thread for it.
And @xsayajinx1, I don't care how many matches he/she may have won, removing boons from PvP is a terrible idea.
opalsunsParagon Gaming
Or like I mentioned above, remember when Avalanche multi-procced?
If the game had a much healthier/bigger population you could keep things like this in game, and do as you propose - adjust to the meta of each module. But the biggest issue with PVP is there seems to be zero real "even matchmaking". I mean even between two 4k Ilevel players you can see such a massive swing in power gap from things like the SH boons...
Points being, Neverwinter has FAR FAR too much power come from items. The difference between a new 70 and a BIS 70 is so crazy, I could probably come back right now from not playing since January, without knowing anything new about the game and take on an entire team of 5 2-3k ilevel players with my GWF... That "gap" is FAR too large and going back to even previous modules that was never the case. Back in mod 0, or 1 or 2 a BIS player couldnt reliably kill an entire team... Mod 3 was the "super GWF" that could probably do that, but thats due to the mechanics they over buffed, or an HR could but again, they over buffed. Ever since mod 3, the introduction of artifact equipment, more boons, mount bonuses, and SH boons, its created such a large item gap difference, its corrupted the entire game to the point that its my understanding PVP is nearly dead in NW... I still talk occasionally to people like Tyrion, Iyon, etc about the state of the game and read here. Tyrion told me once SH PVP hasnt popped in like a month.... Why is that?
What NW needs is a "reset" back to a more "pure" PVP that removes a lot of the item power difference between newer players and existing players. That gets rid of the insane power creep and stats that have come through the modules. I mean even adjusting class powers wont just help... Look at lifesteal, you can get a CRAZY amount of lifesteal as a GWF that can make you invincible coupled with insignias, water weapons, water wheel etc.... Self healing is WAY out of control and the primary culprit of this are boons.
I think a return to normalcy is what this game needs. The campaign system, the boons, all that stuff should be treated like companions are in domination. Domination should be a stripped down version of your character that is what will make the most "skill based" system possible. Sure items will always come into play and a 4k will still dominate a 2k-3k player hands down. But the amount at which they can dominate will be reduced and instead of having a "god character" you will just be "very strong" compared to others.
The solo Q vs Premade Q I see as more of a bandaid than the actual Fix for PVP. People play this game to get on with friends, do quests, level characters, etc. They dont want to be forced to either que by themselves OR get a full group of players to Que with, only to get smashed by BIS premade after waiting 1 hr in the que unable to do anything else....
PVP needs to be addressed at the source of the issue - the item gap/power gap that is caused by items. Even look at Destiny which is "arguably" the most popular RPG type PVP... The power difference between a BIS player with BIS weapons is BIG, but still the most rookie player can come in and have a chance to kill them. The item gap is still within a "reasonable" level where the veteran has an advantage... however in this game, you can literally face smash the keyboard and win through sheer item power. You could do nothing but hold left click and at will and win through sheer item power. Until that is fixed, Neverwinter will never rise back to its former glory days with its population and involvement in PVP. Ever since they released artifact equipment, that was the beginning of the end of this game making a massive item power gap that could not be overcome through skill...
1) Ranked
2) Non ranked
Que system. Where you bring back the leaderboards but only do leaderboards based on your class. So all the "DCs" will have their own class leaderboard and not have it be cross-classes.
Overwatch has a system like this. "Quick Play" is just anyone who is available... versus their pvp seasons are "ranked games" based on your "ELO". However this still goes back to the primary problem in NW. "Skill level" means NOTHING comapared to item powers... The most skilled 2k player could never beat a horrible BIS player.
Which means the "match making" would need to be based on item power, but Ilevel doesnt include things like boons into it... So now you need to change that. You also run into issue with gear swapping so you que with 2k armor, then swap to 4k armor.... So you would have to lock armor on que, which means you cant go do PVE sitting in Que with your PVP gear on... etc etc... It ends up creating problem after problem.
So a better way to solve ALL of this.... Strip out boons/mount bonuses from PVP. Create a "PVP tab" that has your characters PVP stats on it, when you que for PVP, it locks THIS tab - enabling you to still wear PVE gear on your character and do quests or w.e. Then you can do "ranked" matchmaking based on PVP tab item level that gets locked on que... and it will load THAT version of you into PVP where gear gap is diminished. You win/lose and it increases/decreases your rank on the leaderboards but ONLY compares you to others of your same class.
If you dont want to do ranked ques, you can do quick play /unranked ques with friends and it wont count towards your kills/deaths/wins/losses on the leaderboards but it ALSO wont do any real "matchmaking". So the quick play is que at your own risk as who knows who you will get matched with.
But this provides avenues for all the player base. The die hard PVPer now has ranked PVP with real matchmaking, leaderboards, and competitive games. The casual person can do non ranked or ranked with buddies and if he does ranked he is evenly matched and he can que up with 2 of his/her friends and do PVE or whatever and not feel they are about to get smashed by a BIS premade.... Also the item gap difference has been significantly lowered....
The only alternative to all of this is to create a new item level system in which TOTAL stats count towards item level and would make a current "BIS" player closer to a 10k ilevel versus 4k, (just an example) and then you could do some sort of "high water mark" on itemlevel in which the PVP que remembers the highest item level achieved. But this hurts BIS PVE players as they go for high item level and sometimes suck for PVP.... That is the only OTHER solution but frankly.... only a small % of population would be at that 10k ilevel spot and que times would be insanely long for PVP that would lead to BIS premades not waiting for 2 hours in "ranked ques" and instead hop to quick play and it leads back to where we are today: noone ques for pvp because they get smashed.
A summary of the above is this. Power gap is too large for any matchmaking or any real PVP. You either need to:
- decrease the top end of the scale, which means significant nerfs across the board to items/boons/bonuses. An example would be reducing SH boons from 8k down to a more reasonable 2-4k but this would be met with HUGE flame at the investment and cost of players/guilds.
- increase the "floor" of the power gap. This would make PVE trivial as it would require easier access to more boons/items/bonuses.
- The population cant support such a large power/item gap difference so making a way to create balanced games (by making it based on item level), leaves the players on both ends of the spectrum (the BIS players and complete rookie players) sitting in que for hours waiting for a next available match.
The solution: Adjust ONLY PVP, by treating boons/mount bonuses and all extra-character bonuses like companions for domination. This reduces the top end of the scale, makes the power difference between a BIS player and a casual player much smaller. Allows for itemlevel matchmaking that would be more relevant than using booned/mounted item level matchmaking. It doesnt change PVE at all so those things are still of value. But it makes PVP lean more towards skill and even matched games and ALSO makes it much easier to balance without having to worry about some guy stacking 25k ARP or something and its effect on PVP, since you couldnt achieve those stat values in PVP.
And you are in the minority with your opionion about private and solo ques.
Sorry man your ideas would make PvP worse.
And again, please keep the solo duo que ideas out of this thread. This is about 5v5 domination private ques. Stay on topic.
opalsunsParagon Gaming
I think you nailed it, players dont want a good pvp game. They just want to stomp.
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First, I will defer to you, since you still play the game and as a spectator, I do think mine and @clonkyo1 points are valid and I do think they would fix the game. That said, I dont play actively and I dont think he does either.
1) Que System. Personally I think a Solo/Duo Que option and a full premade option would be a bandaid fix. I think it would HELP with PVP, it would be an improvement, but its not an ideal system IMO. I have a strong feeling, based on my years of playing this game, that the "premade" que would only be used to set up custom matches and I see this as a "devolution" from trying to make this game competitive again. Look past being able to set up matches. That would be fun for like 2 months and then once crushes everyone... Noone will want to play and everyone will avoid playing Absolute players.... Then what? Everyone is bored and goes back to solo/Duo Quing - which STILL wont fix the mix-matched games in which 2 BIS players que together and get matched with another 3 BIS players versus all PUGs who stand zero chance of playing.
I really truly believe, you should be focused on how to make a real matchmaking system in the game, and then trying to make THAT work, rather than trying to implement a system that allows you for your own lobby and custom games. That idea, will be a short term fix and I dont think will last...
I go back to a "ranked Q" and "unranked Q". I think once you find a GOOD matchmaking system, and you give a GOOD reason to que up for domination, everyone will be doing ranked PVP matches and thats where you will have your best bet of doing premades. The "unranked" que is just a total free for all where there is no "aim" on balance on either side. - Just like Overwatch has right now. You have "Quick Match" and then you have the "PVP Seasons". I think Neverwinter needs to have PVP seasons that last 1-2 months, that have a CLASS leaderboard and then specific rewards for the top 10 of each class or whatever. The problem with JUST doing this right now? They have ZERO real matchmaking, so I go back to trying to create a real matchmaking and I think it HAS to be based on itemlevel... They need to re-tool itemlevel to incorporate boons/companions/mount bonuses... Not just gear and enchants.
2) Ill never say no to class balance. But who is to take charge of this? The guy who did it, left... Do you really trust anyone else at this point to do sweeping changes? Im all for it though! I doubt itll happen.
3) Lifesteal needs a depression. I agree with the concept, but disagree with your solution. Lifesteal is already FAR too overpowered, even in PVE you often dont need a healer. Its worse than it was back in the day when CWs could AoE and with lifesteal keep themselves up. We have too much self healing. In order to fix lifesteal, they need to nerf it.
- First, change lifesteal so its base severity is 50% and then make lifesteal % chance 200:1 stat points. This means the 8k lifesteal boon would give 40% lifesteal instead of 20% which starts to make stacking lifesteal less appealing IMO. Even though your "heal over time" is the same, you would get LESS burst heal and it doesnt reward the player who can stack higher %s like it does now. One of the most limiting issues with lower geared players is their inability to get high enough % chance to lifeteal, so its not worth stacking. Making it 200:1 makes it more available to others. It also buffs the effectiveness of the lifedrinker enchant that provides lifesteal severity now (as it would be a bigger impact than it currently is). Reducing severity is also a nerf to PVP because now you has less "burst" heals and more of a slower HOT.
- Second, Change Endless Consumption to be a flat 5% increased lifesteal CHANCE. This boon is already a 33% chance to trigger and triple your heal. So its effectively doubling your lifesteal. Making this a fixed %, combined with above, will be again a way to raise the "base" player base, now making endless consumption an attractive option but not mandatory for people wanting to use lifesteal. Its still good, but not amazing especially if you can already get 40-50% Lifesteal with just 8k-10k lifesteal stat... adding 5% is only a 10% increase rather than doubling it. Both these changes will drastically reduce its effectiveness in PVP as itll no longer be able to "burst heal" you to full HP with one big IBS or something, itll be a slower heal but also not quite back to the PRE- chance where the chance was at 100% and the severity was what scaled with stat. Overall this would be a big hit to lifesteal and put it at a sweet spot IMO.
4) Drowned weapons - Id rather see the total heal nerfed than increased the ICD. Frankly, Id like to see this offer the same healing effects as a PVP potion - Which I believe is 1,600 HP / sec for 5 seconds? So it would be a drastic nerf to self healing.
5) Wheel of elements - Agreed, nerf this to 50% healing. 100% is too much.
Those changes above, would mean that any non healing class wouldnt be able to self heal very well. The only exception to this that I know of is the CW with their feat.... that frankly shouldnt provide as good of a self heal as it does.
Conclusion:
You now would have real matchmaking, a ranked vs non ranked Q, PVP "seasons", less self healing - which will also spill over into making dungeons harder again too, along with PVP being more of a team effort and ALSO will lower the power gap a bit on the high end characters.
I think either way you go though, item level needs to be reworked and boons need to be added into itemlevel. I dont know the overall stat values, but would imagine you could use the stat difference from say a rank 12, to a rank 11 (150 stat points?) and how much itemlevel difference is that? I dont even know... But that should be the correlation to boons. So everytime you add a +400 stat boon, it would give you ALOT more itemlevel... Probably ~70 or something? When you add +8000 stat boon.... That would probably give you 1-2 thousand itemlevel. Which is exactly what needs to happen. So then you have a "BIS" player rather than being Ilevel 4300 something... he would probably be much closer to 10k item level... Which is NOW revealing on why PVE is so easy and reveals the massive gear gap issue. You have a 3k item level player who might jump up to say 4,500 via boons... but that 4,300 item level player would be 10k+. It would more accurately gauge item level.
Then you EITHER need to make a "PVP Character tab" that allows you to set your PVP gear for PVP and walk around in PVE gear doing quests, OR you need to create a "high water mark" itemlevel in which the game remembers what your highest item level achieved is, and then uses THAT to make you in PVP.
I still think a much easier way is to moot out boons and treat those stats like companions in domination, but thats just me.
Solo queue for competitive tournaments like NCL with matchmaking and leaver penalty
Pre vs pre "room system" without rewards, possibly with team ranking
The current queue without matchmaking and leaver penalty
I'm not so sure they will take away matchmaking and leaver penalty from this god awful mode that's currently called Domination, but there are hints at a solo and duo queue at least. If full premades are on their radar as well, we're getting very close to what we've been saying for months and months.
100% Almost every BIS PvP player is fine with this. Our reward is simply having the option to put together private 5v5 matches with 10 players. We aren't asking for or want rewards, or a leaderboard for private matches. We simply want the option to play the teams we want and take the burden off the que system that is currently integrated into the game.
Real players have zero interest in pug stomping. It's extremely boring. We want the thrill of the sweaty match which is very difficult to get with the current PvP system and zero options.
opalsunsParagon Gaming