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Message from the Mimic King
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Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 83Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
Greetings Adventurers,
Thomas Foss, aka the Mimic King, here to talk with you about Neverwinter’s latest launch, Undermountain. With Undermountain, our core goals were to raise the level cap, provide exciting new adventures, and cleanup some longstanding class balance issues. At the same time, we hoped our improvements would pave the way for creating new classes and content in the future. We also wanted a way for players to progress faster through existing campaigns, while also giving us new ways to provide campaign rewards.
With so many impactful changes being made, we felt it was important to invite players to participate in a closed beta test and then in the open beta/preview. You came in like gangbusters and gave us fantastic feedback. Whether it was on the forums, or on Reddit, the team here really appreciated the dialogue. I would like to give a shout out to Rainer whose spreadsheet was a great resource and window into the player’s perspective. Because of the feedback we received directly from our community, we were able to address hundreds of bugs and assorted feedback. Thank you!
But, we’re disappointed that we didn’t get to all the reported issues. We received great feedback from players like krsbaws, who told us back in March that Tomb of the Nine Gods was broken, but we did not fully address it. For that, we are sorry, and the Neverwinter team is working hard to review all the issues.
We’re even more disappointed in our response to you since launch. It’s pretty clear we could have done a much better job of really listening. There was a lot of excitement at Cryptic about the new content and updates we had made, and we were quite hopeful you too would enjoy them. We fully understand now that some pretty critical bugs made it impossible for you to do just that. It was never our intention to make our most invested and important players feel alienated, but that’s just what we did.
Neverwinter is as dear to my heart as it is to yours, and I don’t like having a broken game, or even the perception of a broken game. We clearly missed some broken critters and levelling. We have been working to fix these as well as levelling and combat balance. Over the last week, the team has been triaging the issues being reported, fixing as many of them as we can, and discussing ways to better incorporate your feedback to make the game more enjoyable. Examples of steps we have already taken are:
• A reduction in specific dungeon difficulties (Demogorgon)
• A decrease in damage dealt from some problematic monsters (Malabog’s Castle Redcaps, Tiamat’s Devils)
• Fixing core class bugs (Paladin’s Base Dexterity Score)
• Fixed scaling issues with Encounters in certain zones and instances
• And many more! Check out the patch notes from our last few patches for more details!
We’re not done, and we’re still listening. We are working on additional updates and will roll those out as quickly as possible, and are communicating out the changes as we do.
As we get ready for our console release of Undermountain, we are striving to make sure the concerns of our players have been addressed in all versions of the game. For us, this is an ongoing conversation, where we all work towards making Neverwinter the best game possible. To that effect, I will be holding a Q&A during the May 7 Community Livestream at 11am PT to further discuss the state of Neverwinter and player concerns.
We don’t think we’ll make everything all right by just fixing the known issues, so we’re going to go the extra mile for everything you’ve done for us. Tune in on the stream on Tuesday and I’ll tell you all about it.
Thank you!
Thomas “Mimic King” Foss
Thomas Foss, aka the Mimic King, here to talk with you about Neverwinter’s latest launch, Undermountain. With Undermountain, our core goals were to raise the level cap, provide exciting new adventures, and cleanup some longstanding class balance issues. At the same time, we hoped our improvements would pave the way for creating new classes and content in the future. We also wanted a way for players to progress faster through existing campaigns, while also giving us new ways to provide campaign rewards.
With so many impactful changes being made, we felt it was important to invite players to participate in a closed beta test and then in the open beta/preview. You came in like gangbusters and gave us fantastic feedback. Whether it was on the forums, or on Reddit, the team here really appreciated the dialogue. I would like to give a shout out to Rainer whose spreadsheet was a great resource and window into the player’s perspective. Because of the feedback we received directly from our community, we were able to address hundreds of bugs and assorted feedback. Thank you!
But, we’re disappointed that we didn’t get to all the reported issues. We received great feedback from players like krsbaws, who told us back in March that Tomb of the Nine Gods was broken, but we did not fully address it. For that, we are sorry, and the Neverwinter team is working hard to review all the issues.
We’re even more disappointed in our response to you since launch. It’s pretty clear we could have done a much better job of really listening. There was a lot of excitement at Cryptic about the new content and updates we had made, and we were quite hopeful you too would enjoy them. We fully understand now that some pretty critical bugs made it impossible for you to do just that. It was never our intention to make our most invested and important players feel alienated, but that’s just what we did.
Neverwinter is as dear to my heart as it is to yours, and I don’t like having a broken game, or even the perception of a broken game. We clearly missed some broken critters and levelling. We have been working to fix these as well as levelling and combat balance. Over the last week, the team has been triaging the issues being reported, fixing as many of them as we can, and discussing ways to better incorporate your feedback to make the game more enjoyable. Examples of steps we have already taken are:
• A reduction in specific dungeon difficulties (Demogorgon)
• A decrease in damage dealt from some problematic monsters (Malabog’s Castle Redcaps, Tiamat’s Devils)
• Fixing core class bugs (Paladin’s Base Dexterity Score)
• Fixed scaling issues with Encounters in certain zones and instances
• And many more! Check out the patch notes from our last few patches for more details!
We’re not done, and we’re still listening. We are working on additional updates and will roll those out as quickly as possible, and are communicating out the changes as we do.
As we get ready for our console release of Undermountain, we are striving to make sure the concerns of our players have been addressed in all versions of the game. For us, this is an ongoing conversation, where we all work towards making Neverwinter the best game possible. To that effect, I will be holding a Q&A during the May 7 Community Livestream at 11am PT to further discuss the state of Neverwinter and player concerns.
We don’t think we’ll make everything all right by just fixing the known issues, so we’re going to go the extra mile for everything you’ve done for us. Tune in on the stream on Tuesday and I’ll tell you all about it.
Thank you!
Thomas “Mimic King” Foss
Go ahead, click on the chest...
Post edited by nitocris83 on
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Comments
Also please add character portrates back to the HUD. It is very difficult to keep track of our teem mates without them.
Original Serenity Mostly Retired DC
Tokarek Bearded Dwarven OP Tankadin
JuiceHead Goofy Human GWF
Member of H3llzWarriors and Limitless.
The game feels like it has got its foot to my face as it tries to push me out the door. So forgive my skepticism but it seems like you are indeed trying to Alienate some of your players, so i am taking this with a grain or 5 of salt.
I too wish to be recreated, and to be loved long after my death.
Fix scaling system bcs i want see progress in main game
Silv3ry on YouTube
it is also important that if you take away all free will from building classes that what is left at least works.. and isn't as broken and buggy as it was before losing so much freedom of choice in how to build, but again that's not what we are seeing. we're seeing less choice. Less freedom in game play style and a remaining lack of balance among the classes and it's still buggy and broken in the trees.
fixing the "known issues" isn't nearly enough because the "known issues" aren't the core of what is alienating your player base. 20 coal wards isn't enough this time. the hard core design changes seem to have a myopic look at the game while completely ignoring the question, is it fun? Everyone has been giving you feed back from the beginning that what you are doing is sacrificing what makes this game fun, unique and playable. if it isn't fun, if there isn't progression, if it's more punishing than rewarding.. We aren't going to hang out due to some misplaced loyalty.
So I really hope that on may 8th we're gonna hear about some serious base changes not just spot fixes that aren't addressing the problem like we've seen so far in various patches.
but thank you for the apology. thank you for acknowledging that everything isn't in a good place. a little honesty and humility goes a long way with most of us. it sincerely is appreciated.
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One thing that has been pretty much forgotten in Mod 16 is Professions and Masterwork. Not only that, you basically hosed the market on Consoles months before we get Mod 16, since people saw MW gear was not going to be useful.
Maybe there are just a few of us, but crafting was a very fun part of the game, and you made significant improvements in Mod 15, to only “kick us out the door” once the announcements of Mod 16 came out. I hope there are plans to refresh this part of the game.
Hope the neverwinter team can fix what needs to be fixed in the next patches. Looking forward to next updates (and new classes
True total class balance is a literal pipe dream. It will never be an obtainable thing no matter how many times you try. Caster Classes will always be somewhat overpowered regardless of how many times they're slapped with the nerf bat because they're literally built that way. Tanks will always be powerhouses that lay waste to everything in their path because they're built that way.
Likewise, there is no way to obtain total class balance because no matter what is changed, there will always be players who complain that their classes aren't being tended to, and/or said changes to class is a nerf or it's too op.
That being said, I'm echoing above statements that scaling in other places than undermountain are absolutely broken. You probably had the best intentions in mind, but I'm echoing what I said when I was very upset at the changes on preview that this was too much change in such a small timeframe. This should have been done in stages to ensure the changes wouldn't have 1) destroyed our trust in you and 2) broken everything else like it has.
What I loved about Neverwinter pre-undermountain was the variety each class had. Now it's just cookie cutter copies of one another with little to no variety (ie: changing paragon trees to a selection of 5-6 feats), which is boring. I don't know what constituted the change, nor do I really care the reasoning behind it. While I'm getting used to it, it's still a disappointment and I'm sure I'm not the only person to say that.
So, all in all, get better! Do your job as you should, and listen to people when they give you a feedback, improve your performance, and learn stuff you don't know or get someone who knows what he is doing!
UPDATE:
Forgot to add this too when I wrote the things above. This "apology" more seems like a really desperate move since you are killing the game for quite some time, you have already lost way too many players and if you continue like this you will lose those who are still in the game. So, think smarter and do your job seriously and professionally, not like something that's not of importance. At least take a bit of your time and effort and do what you all are paid for, and not just sit on your asses doing nothing, or making even more mess.
Hopefully it is genuine, will wait and see if the actions align with the words.
If the simplifications implemented in Mod 16 do result in more content, more classes etc. in the future, then I'd be happy enough with that.
Thanks, but please adjust the scaling so it isn't detrimental to progress your characters.
One point my girlfriend made is that it seems the dev's and/or playtesters are not "playing" the game. They are going through the motions of testing powers and testing this that or the other thing, but they really aren't "playing" the game. It's work. And as a result, the game itself has become work for us too. And we don't play this game because we want work - we play it to play, we play it for fun not to work. And yeah, work can be fun too, but a video game should be inherently fun, not work.
Forcing 5 level 80 toons to have to work at completing Dread Legion or even VT or ECC isn't fun. Forcing them to work at completing a new dungeon like LoTMM, yeah that is fun. But when you have completed something and grown beyond it years ago, having your legs cut off so a dungeon is "challenging" isn't actually fun. It's just painful.
Guild: Ruathym Corsairs
Fix the scaling (my personal opinion scrap it all together) bring back letting us choose stats and give us freedom and creativity not this cookie cutter loadout.
If you are going to keep scaling, then you need to make it where you are not completely wiping out progression. If you keep scaling, then also increase rewards as now the time ratio to reward ratio is also completely screwed.
The biggest one is scaling, There's no getting around it, a lot of dungeons are impossible and getting 100k ad per day is really hard, specially for those that can't play for a long a time, scaling has to go and never come back.
Some classes are unplayable (paladin) and others are just OP as hell (Cleric), making these changes live without balancing them was a HUGE mistake.
The last big one is the Feat system, Why do them even exist anymore? 50% don't actually do something useful and the other 50% are for skills that we don't use. Why was this given a green light? This is everything BUT in a good place. This system is MASSIVE DOWNGRADE from old feat system.
There are a LOT of small things but this post is already too long.
tldr: you needed to actually finish mod 16 before releasing it.
> • Fixed scaling issues with Encounters in certain zones and instances
This does not say "Removed scaling from the game in its entirety. We liked the idea but realize we got it entirely wrong. In a future mod we may reintroduce it after we've rebuilt it from the ground up and tested it approprietly."
Please fix that error by the Q&A. Your playerbase has been very clear on how it feels about scaling.
For me, I was pretty upset when Mod 16 went live as I felt it was severely rushed and I felt a little betrayed. So many of us had been testing and reporting and many of us felt like everything we said went in one ear and went out the other. I blamed the corporate attitude of "we got to get this out by this deadline no matter what" which is the wrong attitude for corporate to have but it's very typical. We all expressed we'd rather the game makers release it months later than release a broken mod. We were given the impression bugs would be fixed prior to release and thus was the reason we weren't being notified on a release date at that time. This built up trust. We were told that you guys wanted to make the release as smooth as possible. This built up even more trust.
I felt like all the trust that had been building back up was thrown out the window as the release was so badly broken. I'm pleased to read this message from you and deeply appreciate your words!
I live in the Guild Hall, I run a guild and Alliance in game, my husband and many of our members grind guild quests every day and we run both Dragon Flight and Marauders. We were very disappointed to see guild hall humanoids all epic dungeon boss levels... even the tier 1 heroic encounters like Lake and Dock supply woes. Everyone in my alliance was extremely saddened when we went to run Marauders and it failed before we even started. Previously we could easily kill all 4 guild hall dragons with about 12 people and this week it took 18 of us to take down just 1.
Many players also feel very cheated. We invested real money (many of us including myself) buying Tigers and other great companions, spending lots of AD to level them up etc... now those companions are useless which is very sad. 5% and 10% chance to trigger an effect on the archons is pretty bad if you ask me... The other big betrayal is the extreme cut in RAD we receive from seals. What was 1,000 RAD for spending 100 seals now costs 300 seals... we can barely even farm seals right now because dungeons and HEs in places like Barovia are so broken. This is really going to hurt players that don't spend a lot of money and who don't have all day every day to play but truly love the game. Now they have to work 3 times as hard to earn these rewards.
I'm glad you guys are making progress in balancing the classes. I really appreciate the fact that you've made Healers and Tanks mean something again by doing away with lifesteal. I do hope the Paladin tank is fixed though as they still feel squishy compared to what they should be.
There are a lot of things I do like about Mod 16 despite the issues. I love the game and am going to tough it out until things settle down. I will say, from the players perspective, and these rumors can be heard everywhere in game, it really felt like at a corporate level they were intentionally trying to kill this game like a few others that died owned by Cryptic. Please don't kill Neverwinter.
I hope to be on when you are live streaming and will try to rally the troops to watch as well. Thanks!
Original Serenity Mostly Retired DC
Tokarek Bearded Dwarven OP Tankadin
JuiceHead Goofy Human GWF
Member of H3llzWarriors and Limitless.
A lot of player lost their faith in developers (me too). Personally I will not trust ANY of your words untill I'll see some real improvement in the game
The response both to beta testing and to preview server testing was to ignore the really important feedback of the community. Worse, the extent of this could have been easily verified by the team if they bothered to play the content. Some of the most important feedback was that there were serious problems and that the game was less engaging than Mod 15.
One single round of Tiamat, Ndemo, or any other group content would have confirmed that Mod 16 was not working.
Park a casual player in front of the screen for a Mod 15 -> 16 respec and just see how they react. Had this been done even once, it would have been clear that all these changes were not making the game easier for a new/casual player.
Ask a D&D tabletop gamer if the game in the new mod feels more or less like D&D. The answer is clear. You changed from 4E to 5E character names, but nearly everything else moved into terminology completely unlike D&D 5E (or any edition).
Very importantly, even the announcement of Mod 16 followed a period of several deeply flawed events released for Mod 15 with severe bugs that needed emergency patches. The community really needed a win. Our guilds, our friends... we all needed a win. As it is, guilds and alliances are disintegrating.
Listen to the overall community, test and test again, make sure it is working, give yourself the time to complete development, and never forget that you are representing D&D. It's a true shame to see what happened here.
I'll end on the only positive note I can offer. Undermountain is a gorgeous and fun story. Overall, it's creative, it's fun, and it's great D&D. It's one of your best storylines. Had you released just Undermountain, this would have been a success story.
Learn about Neverwinter and the Lore of D&D on YouTube
Check out my acclaimed adventures for the tabletop D&D game, including my latest: Adamantine Chef: Supreme Challenge! and Jungle Treks or Chultan Death Curse: Revised for Tomb of Annihilation!
-Stephen Covey (Author of "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People")
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.