Official Feedback Thread: Bonding Runestone Changes

noworries · August 2017

This is the thread for discussing the changes to Bonding Runestones and Runestones in general.

Please see the complete information here: https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1234031/refining-refinement

ollybongo89 · August 2017

Looks like they killed bondongs, it should have an uptime of 75%
At least with my augment its still 100% uptime

sorce · August 2017

So at Rank 14, it's 65% per Bonding, and there will be a 15 second up time (and thus a 15 second cool down).

So 195% - but only half the time... So Augments are now the new meta again?

darthtzarr · August 2017

Is there anything being done for the Anointed Champion DC with these changes? With a 50% up-time it will nerf Anointed Champion's power sharing (their main benefit) by 30 to 40%, not to mention making it inconsistent.

cilginordek · August 2017

confusedpoof said:

So 195% - but only half the time... So Augments are now the new meta again?

Doubt it, power sharing is still staying around it seems, which augments cant do.

trollpc · August 2017

Hello, will the new bonding version get a duration bonus if a companion has more than 1 bonding equipped? Or it's solid 15 seconds without any kind of bonus?

Thanks.

noworries · August 2017

trollpc#6223 said:
Hello, will the new bonding version get a duration bonus if a companion has more than 1 bonding equipped? Or it's solid 15 seconds without any kind of bonus?

Thanks.

The duration stays the same regardless of the number of bondings, but the percentage of stats transferred is the combination of all the bondings equipped.

morrigan81 · August 2017

I foresee another mass exodus of players in the near future.

scrublord · August 2017

wow really? ruining bonding runestones? how did that pop into your heads? so we basically will take forever to finish tomb, and most of us are pissed of with slicing bondings in half.. bad move.. really bad move.. you might lose a lot of players if those goes live..

galactic underwear..

smulch · August 2017

Please don't change bonding runestones the way you intent to. It's gonna be a complete nightmare to balance crit and armor penetration with a 50% uptime value. Please keep the uptime the same as it currently is and lower their bonus by half instead.

darthtzarr · August 2017

So given some basic math... bondings will be worse than augments by like 5% (at least), and will be unable to increase your armor pen (since temporary armor pen is useless), so bondings are now worthless?

Their only two benefits that remains are power sharing and debuff from active companion, however, the power sharing part was nerfed as well due to uptime and amount possibly not syncing with the power share buffs. This could mean that Anointed Champion becomes worthless (likely actually).

This means that only the debuff remains, and that was nerfed fairly heavily...

Would you mind explaining the math behind why bondings will still be better? I am not seeing it.

midnightflares · August 2017

I am personally (and surprisingly) OK with the raw stats that bondings give being nerfed, it was needed, however; the change to uptime is going to be extremely annoying for all of the people of use bondings to get their armpen, which is just about everyone...

scrublord · August 2017

you guys based this game around bonding after a certain point, now you decrease its power and value, to accomandate what?
with this change and only 50% uptime renders bondings useless , i rather use augment and slot eldrich runestones and have 100% uptime.. , so much invested by so many players on bondings, and u render them unplayable.. if you make the changes the way i read them.

mightyeriksson · August 2017

morrigan81 said:
I foresee another mass exodus of players in the near future.

Yeah, this re-work of Bondings was not what I had hoped for...

The hype for getting mod12 on console suddenly got a huge, dark, ominous cloud looming over it.

Removing that much stats from someones expensive runestones, and calling it progress is rarely painless, but yeah, this is not feeling great...

rjc9000 · August 2017

Okay, wait a second. Are there any plans to update the harder content for the Bonding runstone changes?

Because some dungeons (ex: Epic Spellplague or T9G) were balanced around teams with 3x R11/R12 Bonding Runestones.

So, you guys are going to take out atleast 100% of companion stats, and then nerf the uptime, and then keep the harder dungeons balanced around stats that players don't have?

GG.

Whoever predicted that Mod12 would be a redux of the Mod6 disaster was just half a mod shy of being correct.

tarkin · August 2017

I cant see how you would think this is a good thing. You are basically making companions completely worthless, not from a reduction in the percentages, but by reducing the up time on the bondings to 50%. I dont know about everyone else, but I rely on my companions bonding procs to maintain my Armor Pen and Critical Strike at the appropriate levels. If the bonding proc is only going to have a 50% uptime, then I am stuck with two options. 1)Run my builds with optimal AP and Crit at no bonding and when the bonding does proc, I am way over cap on these stats, or 2) Run my builds with optimal AP and Crit at bonding up and for 50% of the fight I will be completely worthless due to the fact that my AP and Crit will be so sub-optimal.

You said that bondings will still be best, the only way this is true is if the player using them is in a sub-optimal build/gear scenario. For anyone who actually has sufficient IL to optimize stats, they will be forced to convert to Augments for the 100% up time factor, even if it means an overall loss of effectiveness. 100% of an Augment, given the numbers you have provided, will be far far better that 50% of a bonding.

If you are looking to reduce the overall preference for bondings, then simply buff the augment effectiveness. There is no need to vastly overhaul the entire companion system.

No system that relies on temporary up time for stats like AP, Defense, or Crit are going to be effective. Power works just fine in this environment, most of the other stats do not.

Just a suggestion, before you lose a ton of players. Try adding playable content that does not require a perfect party composition and 15K+ IL to complete. Its fine to add this, but just give the average player something to do as well.

cambo1682 · August 2017

I would like to echo the question asked about how you concluded bondings will still be the better runestone? Do you guys even play your game??? cutting the uptime instead of a straight stat reduction, and in my opinion the transfer reduction itself is over the top for the price they have commanded, is probably the absolute worst thing you could do to them. I have never seen such a negative buzz in alliance chat, not even around the much hated and poorly implemented dungeon key changes. I think you seriously need to rethink this one or there is going to be a HAMSTER ton of red ink at Cryptic by Christmas.

cilginordek · August 2017

rjc9000 said:
keep the harder dungeons balanced around stats that players don't have?

Players will have some extra stats from r14 enchants. Dungeons arent really balanced for those high end groups anyway, they are way too easy for them. Most of the boss mechanics can be skipped.

snapzz · August 2017

noworries#8859 said:
This is the thread for discussing the changes to Bonding Runestones and Runestones in general.

Please see the complete information here: https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1234031/refining-refinement

What are you guys freaking doing with the state of the game? First in all secret without any warning and 2x RP events within 1 month. People have been grinding for their stuff. Bondings going to be 195%(if that's true) will make every single dungeon twice as hard.

So what about 31th August double RP? Is this a distraction of fooling players to dump all their hard worked RP in trash what might become useless?

I hope there will be some drastic changes because this is absolute CRAZY not cool.

siegeric · August 2017

If the bonding change goes live, Zen market companion sales will tank as bonding stones are one of the main drivers for their sales. Like others have stated, I just don't see how bonding remains viable without a consistent uptime. It will take a significant rework for a lot of players to achieve the needed armor pen and crit (even with the new higher-rank enchants) to reach their current state. This doesn't help new players as it just pushes the final goal further away or appeal to your current player-base as you are pulling the carpet out from most of them. I'm not sure why these proposals aren't broken up into smaller pieces to judge the impact individually rather than in one large wave.

blur · August 2017

Dont you think that you completely destroyed what people worked hard for? Everyone will prefer constant stats from augments instead of bonding companions. With bonding buff up time of just 50% you destroyed more than only bondings.

klivingstonhess · August 2017

RIP Anointed Champions... this will make the class worthless

cilginordek · August 2017

Finally a nerf to bondings. Been waiting for it for ages.

einsieg · August 2017

No. This is way beyond the pale. You can reduce stats, or reduce uptime, not both. If you cut stats by this amount, and cut uptime in half then you have killed bondings, removed all reason to use them, especially with how much Eldritch are being buffed. With this change, you are saying that half of the stats of my character are going to vanish for half of an encounter, and I won't even have significantly more stats than a properly kitted out augment during that time.

Please rethink this entire endeavor.

baronstragen · August 2017

I have stuck with this game since beta. I even stayed through mod 6 - but if you go with this @noworries I will be most worried. This will make the end game unplayable due to time constraints, and I will have no choice. This is in my honest opinion, a poor fiscal decision on your end. I suggest you do not implement it.

Unknown · August 2017

This content has been removed.

meraks · August 2017

Why? Why would you destroy the efficiency (value) of an item the difficulties have been based around players having instead of increasing the value of the items you want to see more viable? This type of change has the potential to negatively effect the economies you claim to care so much about keeping in balance, by destroying what investments people have already made, and potentially forcing them to move in another direction starting from scratch.

fluffy6977 · August 2017

@noworries#8859

With the new Eldritch Runestones and an Augment you get roughly 175% of your Augments stats all the time, if I'm reading your table correctly. 195% half the time is not better by a long shot, though I could live with it matching an Augment w/Eldritch at 175% with a 100% uptime to truly give players a choice about how they want to play, and with what companions. As is you're just going to see people brush off their old Augments and shelf their comps.

This of course assumes you fix the power sharing issue with companions with bondings transferring power from DC/OPs back to the owner for a 4x buff.

chris · August 2017

I'm sorry, but some of you sound like you're willing to compromise on the bonding stones with reduced stats, etc. ANY reduction in their abilities would be a complete insult!

onodrain · August 2017

Are runestones and enchantments going to stay unbound? Or will they be bound to characters?

If they stay the way they are now, mostly unbound. Then we can move them freely around our characters, upgrade and sell them as we please.

meraks · August 2017

So I am thinking that this change does not effect other runestones?
Bringing a topic I querried earlier this month again into question, regarding using an augment with eldritch runestones, instead of a striker with bondings.
Assuming 5 legendary companions, and 3 rank 14 stones on each. (x = Summoned Companion stats)
Bondings+striker will provide 31% of SumComp stats 100% of the time, and 185% SumComp stats 50% of the time (31%x +(2/(65%x*3)) for an effective 128.5%
Eldritch+bulette pup will provide 207.5% of SumComp stats 100% of the time. (100%x + 31%x + (25.5%x*3)) for 207.5% though stats will be lower due to runestones not providing extras. even still if you use an augment with only one defensive spot, you would gain over 150% of stats consistently.

Is my mathematics wrong here (it may be because I've been out of school a longf time)?

Edit: updated numbers for eldritch % and to name the bulette pup.

Official Feedback Thread: Bonding Runestone Changes

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