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CDP Topic: Game Content Accessibility
nitocris83
Member, Cryptic Developer, Administrator Posts: 4,498Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
For the first CDP topic, we would like to hear your thoughts on the accessibility of Neverwinter for the different types of players. For this discussion, we are focusing on the difficulty and ease of content and how this relates to hardcore vs. casual players, veterans vs. beginners, etc.
Feedback Format
Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback)
Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish)
Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter)
Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum)
Topic Discussion End Date: December 26, 2019
Reminders
Feedback Format
Feedback Overview (short description of the proposed feedback)
Feedback Goal (what this feedback would target and accomplish)
Feedback Functionality (how would your feedback work in relation to the current design of Neverwinter)
Risks & Concerns (what problems can you foresee with implementing your feedback that you would like input on from members of this subforum)
Topic Discussion End Date: December 26, 2019
Reminders
- We will not disclose information regarding unreleased or in-development content. This includes specific business-related metrics, dates or timelines, or licensing agreements.
- Game development is the primary focus of the team - developer presence on these subforums cannot realistically be as frequent as the community would like. This does not mean the team is not invested in this initiative; it is taken very seriously. Thread summaries and actions plans developed once a topic has concluded its run are extremely valuable in maintaining the development team aware of the focused feedback, discussions, and community sentiment.
- These subforums are meant to be a collaborative discussion where we all learn from each other, share perspectives, and come to the table with ideas for the improvement of Neverwinter. This does not mean that we will take action on every proposal or that positive comments from the development team are to be construed as promises.
- Keep comments and discussions on topic and follow the CDP Conduct and Expectations.
Post edited by nitocris83 on
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Looking forward to hearing all of your thoughts and brainstorming with you all on them.
At the end of the thread we will put together a proposal from all of the discussion and this will be referenced in meetings with the team.
Chris
Let's have two versions of each dungeon/trial (at least the level 70 ones): the one we already have and a "story dungeon" instance.
Feedback Goal
Story dungeon instances will let casual players experience the full story per zone and/or practice dungeon mechanics at their own leisure.
Feedback Functionality
Story dungeons are exact duplicates of regular dungeons/trials, with the difference being that A) they only reward a "practice sigil item" unique quest item and can't carry more than one at a time per dungeon/trial and B ) they can be entered and won solo (though you can still party up as it might be necessary in some zones like Castle Ravenloft) - meaning the enemies within do far less damage and have less hit points. No "elite" enemies, but all boss mechanics should still be in place for player training experience. Also, running these "easy mode" instances does not trigger any of the daily RAD rewards.
Minor change required for regular dungeons is that upon opening the "end chest" if a player is carrying a practice sigil item of the appropriate dungeon/trial they get an extra item from the random loot roll.
Risks & Concerns
While I'd definitely use said story dungeon (because I'd like to actually see and finish said dungeons in a timely manner, solo regardless of loot), I'm not sure how many other would actually do that. It's possible that even under prepared characters will just keep trying to PUG the existing instances in hopes that they get carried to earn the daily RAD.
On the flip side, over geared characters might opt to group up to farm the story dungeon for a practice sigil before doing the real thing to get more drops, which will I imagine will decrease the rarity in some items. Hopefully said items are sellable, as an increased supply on the market would help casuals gear up.
I propose to make a more dynamic based dungeons, that scale to the number of players (up to say 6) that are there when you enter it.
Feedback Goal
To make the game more accessible to all different types of players, those that like to solo things and those that prefer larger parties.
Feedback Functionality
The queue for the dungeon would allow any number of characters to enter the dungeon (up to a set number). But the monster difficulty would be dependent on the number of players that queued for it. It would have to be only for private queues, as public would probably try to group people together.
Concerns/Possible Issues
The biggest issue would be with disconnects and people leaving the dungeon in the middle. That and there could be a possibility of it reading the number of characters entering wrong and give a harder version than desired.
First, in terms of Content, there is no campaign that is difficult to access or complete for all classes, so thumps up there. Thus, lets skip the 0.001% of the game experience from lvl 0-80. The same goes for any lower level dungeons except LOMM, CR and few others but even then, as long as you know the mechanics, you don't really have to be a hardcore players to complete them.
Then why do we find a very simply trial such as Tiamat with a huge failure rate? I believe the root of this cause is actually how you gate content behind the requirement of ILVL. A wiser choice would be to use a combination of factors i.e. primary stats and power. Many people have had put forward really good ideas on forums but most players that fail these dungeons are unequipped and expect to be carried. You cannot force them to learn the mechanics, but you can force them to be more prepared aka gear. It would be wise to focus on gating content behind a more realistic equation.
Jumping onto end end game content. I believe part of the reason why TOMM was disliked was because of it being a niche trial i.e. only for very hardcore gamers. Only you guys would know how much revenue TOMM brought but the matter of fact still remains that TOMM is actually a huge success. The reason i think it is disliked was because it introduced the holy trinity system into the game where players actually test their mettle.
As to why TOMM was a failure even among veterans. It was because the whole concept of the trial was gated behind few compulsory classes. I believe that the developer team failed to predict that such a trial would bring the pure holy trinity concept into the game for the first time in its history. In dungeons where hardcore veterans players clash, all that matters is skill. But when you bring in classes that are basically "who can spam faster" and still do crazy more dps, throws any sign of skill out of the window. You could have made TOMM a much bigger success had you balanced classes before its release and even to this day, you are completely ignoring the statistics.
I can with all honesty tell you that there is a minimum of 15% difference between a skill ceiling wizard and skill ceiling Arbiter, Warlock or Barb. That is the minimum and it could be more, but i do see people Exaggerate it to 40-60% but that might also be because Wizards are just so much more suited for TOMM than any other class.
Personally, i see neverwinter as a holy trinity game where skill matters and part of the reason why the new combat system was not favored. It is my opinion that even though more content should focus on the larger portion of population, the whole concept of upgrading gear (a core aspect of the game) demands there to be dungeons and rewards that scale with difficulty. In terms of revenue, the hardcore players are the core part of it; they also are the least patient ones. You will have to strike a balance between campaigns vs dungeons as the former really is a reflection of the latter. Most people complete campaigns for the rewards which dungeons are based on. If you wanted to test this theory, try introducing a campaign for people with no rewards i.e. boons and etc and let them enjoy the lore only. I would love to see how many neverwinter players actually complete the campaign. Dungeons with story embedded into them are very common in MMO's, maybe give that concept a try?
multi tiered dungeon systems more dungeons
Feedback Goal
to put an emphasis back on what makes neverwinter a great game - the combat (despite being nerfed heavily)
Feedback Functionality
especially with older dungeons - a bronze,silver, gold level system to each dungeon that "scales" in difficulty or even has tales of old like penalties placed upon us (like poison dmg or something each dungeon can vary) the rewards would scale by tier with gold containing a chance at an armor piece or weapon piece that you can combine with other older dungeons to make a set or maybe some sort of item you need for professions . Neverwinter always (especially pre 16) has been praised for its combat and by making tiers it will give newer players (bronze/easier) dungeons to complete and end gamers (gold/hard) dungeons to complete plus something to do and grind after thus putting the focus back on combat and running dungeons while we wait for newer mods to come out. maybe the bronze dungeon level can reward with items or gear that can help get you to silver and from silver to gold etc. the content is already there all you have to do is raise and lower the stat caps or IL for each tier
Risks & Concerns
would be getting the scaling right for each tier so that everyone felt there was a completable challenge and getting the rewards right so that it was worth grinding after this stuff. It seems that since Mod 16 the dungeons that were considered difficult (fang breaker, Codg, MSP, MSVA) is now way easier and the stuff that we used to blow thru sometimes solo (Lostmouth, Malabog[before nerf] Valindra tiamat) are now a lot more difficult but if this balance could be found it would give newer casuals and endgamer hardcore players all something to do satisfying both ends of the spectrum
Reduce the difficulty for small guilds in upgrading their stronghold.
Feedback Goal
Small guilds are often populated by casual players, as the hardcore crew would have joined or reached a level 20 guild hall sometime ago as those hold the highest benefits for the "bleeding edge" best in slot adventurers.
Feedback Functionality
There are a few options here:
One frequently suggested method is to create a "goods trader" which lets guild masters trade any resource which they have in surplus for any other resource with they are lacking, even if it's at a 2:1 ratio. To facilitate the continued player visitations of the various areas (which I imagine is the reason for the diverse resource pool to begin with), you can limit said trade to be maybe 50,000 outgoing units per week meaning that some grinding is still required.
Or if you want an astral diamond drain, simply let any guild member purchase said resource with no weekly limit.
If that's too much coding then the simplest change would be to reduce the cost of all stronghold structures by a significant fixed percentage. Note for those who don't remember - this exact change was already done once years ago, so not only is it do-able but it is certainly time to revisit this option.
Risks & Concerns
Guilds already at level 20 might gripe about their perceived loss of "elite" status if every pleb guild is given a handout. Likewise, players not in guilds will feel this change overlooks their own needs. This is exactly what happened the last time the discount percentage was applied, so odds are high it will happen again.
I can't speak for the pc side but the reason that it was fail on console was because someone from pc was allowed to come over on xbox on someone elses account, and give a certain guild the "win" of being first to complete it instead of letting the consoles battle it out fairly for 1st to complete.
It took the wind out of everyone's sails and many just stopped trying. I'd have had no beef with this if they had waited until someone had got the first completion honestly... and even if they had done it on their own account.. but no..
Also the type of gamer on console is different from pc. Pc mmorpg gamers expect to have to play with the holy trinity, we've been trained not to on console. The whole idea of equipping defense and having heals that JUST heal and tanks that JUST tank and not being glass cannon dps.. is kind of alien, and people seem to have been strongly rejecting it in their builds.
No one wanted to put some of their dps aside for defense and debuff.
For the most part exclusive 10 man parties are hard to get and this trial needed that. Most guilds/alliances are used to being able to do a swinging door of players: Which is more inclusive and better and healthy imo, but this trial pretty much demands a team you play with exclusively for the learning curve. It would have been better and more doable if it had been a 5 man party imo. I personally would love to see difficult content like this more often that requires insane gear and proper use of stats but I would like to see it done in a fashion that was more swinging door inclusive.
I spent millions building up for it and then it was like a party that didn't happen. it made a panda sad and discouraged.
NORMAL AND MASTER VERSIONS OF CONTENT:
I second the normal and master version of all dungeons and trials. In the past we've had some mechanics that were very punishing to learn. Many never mastered these and people that came to the party late didn't get a chance because training runs were done and no one was willing to take the days needed AGAIN for people who are just coming on board.
in example, the push pull mechanics of CODG. All it needed for a normal (IE Learning version) was a campfire that people could restart from when the party failed the push pull (although the push pull was a terrible unrewarding mechanic) instead of having to start from the very beginning again. in the earlier days of this game normal and master versions were done and they were very successful, The game was thriving on all levels. It was a golden age in many regards.
imo things should not be equal on all levels. This game has two classes of players the casuals and the end gamers and never the twain shall meet. The N dungeons should be for the casuals and the M should be no holds barred for the end gamers requiring extensive gear and or skill with high rewards. and the N with good rewards.
Some casuals will graduate to being end game. Some are happy remaining casual. The casuals are about story line generally and actual role playing. The end gamers are about the newest and shiniest toys and amassing wealth and competing in difficult content.
Having more playable story in the N dungeons would probably make that side very happy. Maybe some choose your own adventure type gameplay.
CASUALS VS END GAME: and retention of casuals to become endgame
Enticing casuals to become end game means giving them something to work for. Gear must matter. Gear must be at least a little challenging to obtain and it must make the user feel Good.. Feel POWERFUL. being able to go back and do some stomping thru old grounds that were once difficult is a very important part of this equation. Why bother building towards R 15 enchantments if your enchantments will never be worth more than R11 for most content??
SCALING:
The other thing that isn't helping ANYONE is scaling. All content should be level 80 other than a few levelling dungeons. Even the casuals race to the very final level (even though real level isn't base level it's ILvl). Scaling makes it too easy for the end gamers and punishing for the casuals. If things were just level 80 for the dungeons it would find it's own balance as it used to pre mod 16.
Not to mention, if you spend millions of time and or ad or real life money you want the perks of the things you've earned to always be in effect. If I have all level 15 enchants do you expect me to be pleased to have it scaled down for most of the content in the game? My build becomes unreliable. Yes, unscaled some content may become trivial but as it is now ALL content other than Tomm is trivial for the end gamer. When things were across the board one level with no scaling to speak of there was a lot of content that was rewarding to complete AND there was an actual point to levelling up your gear to the highest level. It was never irrelevant.
not to mention it seems to just be making things buggy and unbalanced. more events have been wonked because of scaling than I can ever remember.
please please please remove it.
MASTERCRAFT
Mastercrafting: This used to be a thing that was a whole ecosystem in the game. the end gamers and the casuals who focused all their energy on mastercrafting (endgamers as far as mc but casuals in build) supplied the game with the best or at least the best niche gear. the lower levels could make good ad by supplying the end of the line master crafters with supplies thus becoming more powerful in other parts of the game. Some gear for mastercraft (forgehammer) was important and powerful for MC. this has all been done away with and not replaced with something else to grind for. mastercrafting is pretty much dead at this point. it was an important point that kept A LOT Of people engaged in the game.
My personal feedback:
My feedback as a player is that at this point in the game there isn't much to engage me anymore. In fact, there is nothing to keep me engaged. I've been slowly moving away from this game. Everything that encouraged engagement has been either nerfed into the ground or just entirely obsoleted. Even the winterfest event that everyone used to grind for forgehammers is not worth spending the time on anymore base level tools are more powerful now.
I miss having things to do, events that mattered. Refinement events used to be a thing you'd save up for and grind all weekend for every available amount of time you had. You'd have to do the professions event to make money to afford the refinement events. the other events had things that were worth the time and effort to grind for and felt really good when you finally did get that rare drop. that's all gone. things aren't being updated. none of the vendors or zen store ever get updates. I want to love this game. I want to stay. I want to have things to do. I want some complexity.
Also the unending stream of nerfs. we play to feel powerful and good about the game but all we are met with is a never ending stream of nerfs. We complain about a bug in our class.. what is the result? We get nerfed further... give us the good news not the hammer.
Bravo can't fault anything said here .... Well put!
Combat System:
Just to add - The best thing about this game was it's fast paced rotation combat system, Feats and build choices..... The combat system right now is frankly boring the encounter skills cool downs are excruciating and character build / feat choices are gone.
Dungeons and End game challenge
The way I see it end game players only have 1 trial and 1 Dungeon left, the older content and trials is just so easy and very recently being made even easier for new players. We've never had many dungeon options available to us and with only 1 piece addition added per MoD they have been played to death - this was acceptable when the content was more challenging and fun. Nobody wants to go play content they have played to death in easy mode for substandard and outdated chest rewards.
LOMM is an end game dungeon it wasn't difficult to master the mechanics. A tank is only really useful for the boss fights - There is no traditional tank takes agro before DPS engage mechanic. DPS run ahead of the tank through the trash with relative ease - so a tanks primary function is bosses agro only. Master Difficulty dungeon option and more content in general would be very much welcomed.
Suggestion
I think it's time to remove the requirement to be standing at a fireplace to change between AOE and Single target DPS builds.... The load out system was implemented and fireplace placement was factored into dungeons for a short time at least, but that seems to be an oversight in some content now. Being able to switch builds outside of combat or enabling portable alters to facilitate build swaps would be far more practical.
The constant nerf solution to a problem is a real problem e.g Clerics have had 6 or 7 successive nerfs leading up to and post MOD 16..... player base slowly thins as people start getting annoyed.
Class balance currently is worse than ever currently even with the game and mechanics dumbed down to current levels - the length of time it takes to even acknowledge these imbalances is abysmal (current waiting time is 7 months). You can't seriously expect people to spend money on the game when no matter what BIS item they purchase, they are held back by a imbalanced damage or self buff formulas some classes have experienced for some time.
Like that you are showing an interest Whiteside
All the best in your new role and I hope you can make this game successful again.
Major rework of legacy campaigns
Feedback Goal
Remove uneccesary time wasted on grinding for outdated gear and legacy dungeon unlocks. This would help new players avoid the feeling of beeing overwhelmed by 6 years+ of outdated content on their way to level 80. I see absolutely no reason at all to keep the time-gating for the older campaigns.
Feedback Functionality
Use the Undermountain/Elemental evil campaign design. Let players finish legacy campaigns when they feel like it.
Risks & Concerns
Sybellas legacy campaign quests has to have a minor rework.
Decrease the portion of total stats that are recieved from companions/bondings.
Feedback Goal:
Allowing easier catch up for new players and simplifying the gearing process.
Feedback Functionality:
Currenty the catch up gear available from the campaigns don't serve their purpose because a large majority of stats needed for content come from companions. If the stats from the companions were reduced to 10% of a players total stats, that would not only make catch up gear more useful but also make balancing stats for the content a lot less frustrating of an experience.
If that is achieved trough reduction in total stats, the content would have to be balanced accordingly.
Risks & Concerns:
This would be a fairly big change in regards to companions and usually there is some well placed lashback when that's done without enough testing.
I will be brief.
We want more content like ToMM. Its great. Makes players have a goal to upgrade their characters. We also want easier versions of hardest content with lesser rewards for other players so they can enjoy and learn the mechanics.
We want variety of ways to play each class. That means more relevant feats and class features. Now 90% of them are so bad that its embarassing. Also class bugfixes should be a priority.
We want that some items behind RNG are also obtainable grinding. No matter if the grind is hard but putting some very important class items only available for RNG makes you feel so bad when you have bad luck. (For example companion gear and armor from ZOK boxes or alabaster weapons)
Thank you and good luck
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
With that being said, I do not believe that all content should be completable by all players, there should be different tiers of content. Harder content however, should very clearly indicate in some way to players that they may not succeed at it and that this is intentional. Item level as a system should be done away with because it does not properly communicate difficulty. Instead, each dungeon should require you to have completed the previous dungeons, with some constraints.
Feedback Goal: Make the current key system less intimidating to new players, and reduce the proliferation of keys that may now be rarely used.
Feedback Functionality: Currently the game has a plethora of different keys from the various campaigns, with most of them used only for a single dungeon or skirmish. This can be overwhelming for new players who have few campaigns completed, but get dropped into a queue they have no keys for by the random queue system. In addition the creation of keys uses campaign currency that directly competes with the player's ability to progress in the campaign, or to support their guild for more mature players. Many of these keys are rarely used now as they are so specific and the random queue system discourages playing more than one queue of each type per day, so a player may end up wasting currency on keys they never use, or running content they have no keys for, and cannot make as they have too little currency.
I would like to see the existing keys for most content merged into more universal keys applicable to any queued content of the same type the key was originally used for e.g merchant prince, bank vault, lesser demonic, bramble and kessel keys become "skirmish" keys, runic, chultan, valindra/malabog etc become "epic dungeon" keys, and omuan, greater demonic, dragon queen and elk tribe/brotherhood/storm giants keys become "trial" keys. This would allow people to do random queues and have an appropriate key for the content they get, even if they have not progressed enough in the campaigns to be able to make the specific key for that content yet. For mature players it allows us to pick which campaign currencies we "waste" on keys, so we can save the more desirable ones for guild stronghold vouchers.
Notable exceptions for the system would be keys for newer content which is still considered "current", so Inexplicable and Tower keys would remain as they are until that content becomes old enough that it is no longer considered current. Likewise new dungeons and trials added in future mods would get their own unique keys in the same way, until they become old news in later modules.
Risks & Concerns: The demonic keys are a little hard to categorise, the lesser key was used for skirmishes, but with its stealth removal the greater key is now used for a trial, epic dungeon, and 2 skirmishes. This itself is frustrating, and one of the reasons I cane up with this suggestion, it also makes it difficult to say what category the greater key falls under. In terms of risk, while these changes would be useful for new players with limited campaign currencies, long time key hoarders may end up with a glut of keys.
As an aside, it would be great if Kessel's retreat was fixed so we can finally use a campaign key to open the second chest, rather than it only opening for a legendary dragon key.
Recycling of k-team mode
Feedback Goal
To give a challenging experience to mid-endgame players. There is a huge variance between low geared and endgame players in the matter of content difficulty (such happened at last event hell pit)
Feedback Functionality
Implement an additional coffer or a quest for completing a dungeon in k-team (hardcore + reduced ilvl) as we did on mod 15 (could be the same mechanic of 1 weekly quest with a varying dungeon). This way, endgame players would have something challenging to do and it's an easy thing to do as it is already implemented (just with a modification on the rewards)
Risks & Concerns
Rewards of this mode shouldn't be equipment or needed ítems because low geared players won't complete it. In my opinion proper rewards would be enchanting stones, mark of potency, pres wards, etc. (not bound). With bad rewards ppl just wont do it, it happened already with the gallant gear
Bring all Dungeons/Skirmishes/Trials to level 80 with Normal/Epic versions and have Appropriate Rewards
Also have a Dungeon Token Implemented to Incentivise running all Dungeons/Trials
Feedback Goal:
• Normal Versions to start at around 55k stat requirements IL 17k
• Epic Versions to start at around 75k stat requirments and IL 23k
• Have 25+ Dungeons/Trials available to casual and veteran players alike
• Give Tailored Rewards based on the Dungeon ex. TONG only drops Chult based Companions/Mounts ie. Compy
• Normal Versions drop Normal/Rare Drops - Epic Versions Drop Epic - Normal should have small chance of Epic
• List Dungeons/Skirmishes/Trials in Order of Difficulty and IL so Newer Players know how to progress
• Give a Single Dungeon Token per each Dungeon/Trial completed each week no matter the difficulty
• Create a Dungeon Token vender with rewards to help upgrade Enchants, Pres wards, and Health Stones
• Base prices on a approximate max of 25 or so Tokens a week
Feedback Functionality:
This would be doing away with Dungeon Scaling which has rubbed some players the wrong way. Then adding a Token per each Dungeon run that you can buy items from a vender. This will incentivize players to run all Dungeons/Trials/Skirmishes at least once weekly. Thereby increasing everyone's overall skill in all said content. While at the same time helping gear them at the same time.
Risks & Concerns: ??? Open to any concerns..
Difficulty modifiers using already implemented systems for queued and open world content.
Feedback Goal:
Maximize the content available to players, no matter the stage of end game progression; allowing for progression and challenge simultaneously.
Feedback Functionality
There are many systems that could be used to accomplish this goal (Normal vs Master Queue Options, Cards in Barovia Hunts, Tales Embellishments, Counter Stats, Expedition Runes).
Risks & Concerns
This concept would greatly benefit from the community/devs coming up with additional ideas to modify gameplay.
People can also still strive for increasing the stats on their character. Devs can simply offer an exchange like when they did with the enchantment overhaul. Then no one will be losing any investment they've made.
Better Accessibility for Color-Blind Players
Feedback Goal
Color-blind players need to be able to change colors in games, particularly where red = bad, green = good.
Feedback Functionality
My husband is color-blind. He has had a great deal of trouble in the past, particularly with seeing red splats on the ground when the ground is a green shade. I believe the biggest issue he had with it was back in Mod 4 & 5, when the dragon in Ebon Downs does their powers, but there have been several times since then. I think adding a color wheel or something similar would benefit color-blind players, regardless of which form of the color-blindness the player has.
Risks & Concerns
I can't really think of many risks to adding a color-wheel or similar method to change game colors on the screen, but I'm open to feedback. I wasn't really sure if this was appropriate feedback for this discussion, but since accessibility was mentioned, I felt it was worth mentioning.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
Topic: Explanation of Counter Stats In Game
Overview
Since Mod 16, the counter stat system has pretty much centralized the game. Balanced or not, this is the direction that the dev team wants to take moving forwards.The main problem with the system is that the counter stat system is barely explained in game, does not list enemy counter stats anywhere, and is overwhelming for new players.
Take for example, Critical Strike. New players might want to find what their Critical Hit chance would be, but are instead presented with only the "Critical Strike" stat. Nowhere in game does the game state that players must "take their Critical Strike stat, subtract it from enemy Critical Avoidance, then take that difference and divide it by 1000 to get your Critical Hit %".
Even if the player finds out how the system works, the actual enemy counter stat amounts aren't given in game, and if they are, it's easy to miss. The only source of enemy counter stats in game is in the queue window for dungeons/raids, which lists what enemy counter stats for that dungeon/raid, but not for anywhere else. In addition, the text is small and very easy to miss if one is in a rush.
This lack of information in gamehas led to a few Reddit threads cropping up about new players who suddenly are dealing no damage while leveling, but not understanding why. While there was that Mod 16 blog on how counter stats work, not every player reads the blogs/forum posts/knows where to consult outside information.
With that in mind, my proposed feedback attempts to solve these issues by placing the information in game.
Goal
Functionality
An example would be an enemy that deals fixed damage to players and has 10,000 counter stats (this enemy would allow players test Defense or Deflect).
Another example would be an allied NPC with varying percentages of health that can be used to have healers test how their heals work relative to Crit/Power.
For the practical training, a quest objective could be to first spar with Knox when Knox has 15,000 Defense.
After the spar, have Knox remark on the player dealing less damage due to Defense.
Then have Knox hand out a temporary ring with 15,000 ArmorPen, then have the player spar with Knox again.
After the spar, have Knox remark on having increased ArmorPen relative to Defense (" notice that your attacks dealt more damage when they penetrated through my armor"), which would help emphasize to new players "raise your ArmorPen to equal enemy Defense".
Alternatively, have an NPC look the player's stats relative to enemy counter stats, then give advice relative to where they're lacking. For example, if the player is short of 7000 ArmorPen relative to enemy counter stats, have the NPC mention something about raising ArmorPen (something such as "raise your ability to penetrate enemy armor with magic items").
Risks/Concerns
There a is a huge gulf between what I perceive as three distinct groups of players. To mitigate this I suggest “step ladder” difficulty of skirmishes, dungeons and trials along with appropriate rewards to make a clear path of both item and skill progression.
Feedback Goal
Rework Queued content that supplies rewards and mechanics training to continue to progress players.
Group definitions:
-Group #1 new and casual players without a solid support network, they tend to lack experience or resources to run harder content. The majority of these players have played less than a year.
-Group #2 are players with either resources or the skills needed to run end game content, but not both. This group can play nearly all content easily, and represents the majority of the player community
-Group #3 are players at the top of the game with vast resources, and the skills needed to smash any game content. This group represents probably less than 1% of the players in game but is also composed of some of the most vocal perceived “community leaders”
Feedback Functionality:
Let’s say that the easiest content is rank 1 in both gear requirements and mechanics. The hardest is 10. As the game stands right now the ToMM would be the 10, whereas the next hardest is closer to a 2 or 3. This is creating a pretty large skill and resource gap in the player community.
A rank 1 dungeon should have rewards and mechanics that trains me for a rank 2, and so on.. step laddering people up the chain until they can play the hardest content.
Let’s say for example that LoMM should be a rank 5 on the ladder. That means it should have mechanics included in the previous tiers, and add 1-2 new mechanics, that would then be used in the next tier… as well as drop items that actually make your character stronger… without some of those rewards it should be nearly impossible to climb the ladder
Risks & Concerns:
Risk #1 Is to ensure that the lower tier dungeons also have rewards that will attract all levels of players to want to do this content.
Risk #2 is player over power: To mitigate this, I suggest putting a stat cap on items lower down the ladder.. for example rank 1 could have a power cap at 50,000 for example.. so even if your power is above 50,000 with scaling.. you would get your power cut down to 50k… this would also make it easier to keep those lower ladder runs more challenging and balanced.
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Feedback Goal: To better prepare players for various dungeon mechanics.
Feedback Functionality:
Allow players to practice complex dungeon mechanics in an environment outside of the dungeon itself.
Example: the CODG push-pull mechanic. There is no way to practice this outside of CODG itself. That is why it had to be nerfed - unless you learned the mechanic during the first few weeks of practice runs when the trial was new, there was no way to learn or master the mechanic by practicing on your own. So instead of nerfing content, provide us a way to practice it instead.
Risks & Concerns: Dev resources would have to be devoted to develop a training ground for these mechanics, but it would also mean that dev resources would not have to be utilized later on in nerfing those mechanics.
Thanks for the proposals, observations and thoughts. Proud to be part of this initiative with you all.
We have a very busy day today. I will continue reading the thread over the weekend and reply as necessary if need be.
At the moment we are in the ideation and information gathering phase. After a few days we will start to focus the discussion into a few key areas. Discuss what we as a group like and don't like and refine as necessary.
I hope you all have a great weekend and thanks again for taking the time to work together or making Neverwinter the very best it can be.
Chris
Feedback Overview
Implementing difficulty Tiers within each dungeon i.e. common to mythic, for every dungeon in Neverwinter. To open the maximum tier, each subsequent lower tier must be completed. Higher tiers rewards with higher quality items. The faster a dungeon is completed, the higher the chance for better rewards. Therefore a benchmark timing needs to be implemented for each tier.
Feedback Goal:
1) Maximises the usage of all content for all types of audience i.e. hardcore players to casual players. 2) Gates less prepared players into a tier, reflecting their capabilities. 3) Allows for progression and the sense of challenge as you climb tiers, the former rewarded with items to provide a sense of achievement. 4) More friends gathering for a challenge and a timer that can always be hoped to surpassed, hence increasing competition.
Feedback Functionality
Not much is required as the game recycles through content that is already available. No need to come up with an appropriate way to measure skill and therefore gate content as the players will be gating themselves if they are unable to complete and thus removes any blame on the developers. The difficulty of each tier should increase critter health and damage but if desired, new mechanics can be implemented for higher tiers for the same dungeon.
Risks & Concerns
Players unable to complete a dungeon may blame it on their team mates so expect PUG to become more common as a side effect. Players carried to higher tiers would struggle to complete the higher tier, but they will always have lower tier options available when they are unable to find someone to carry them. It may segregate the more casual and beginners because the rich or more geared players are getting rewarded with even more gear and thus making rich richer.
Reworking Masterworks (MW)
Feedback Goal
Make MW a functional part of the game again.
Feedback Functionality
1) Provide the ability to make additional items that augment or replace the current equipment similarly to the original MW items did. This could be done by providing new MW levels or additional MW recipes that are earned like the Chult recipes.
2) This would provide incentive for players to continue to make AD to purchase the items as they would likely be BIS.
3) Show those that had previously made the investment of time/money/AD into MW feel like what they did was worth something and not a waste of resources. The current professions can make items as good as or better than the original MW could.
Risks & Concerns
How to properly align this into the current professions system so that it doesn't create gaps but a smother progression that gets harder to achieve too quickly (like MW 5 to MW 6 is a 10x effort/expense). This might not be for all players, but if done right, the results would get attention from those that are looking to keep BIS equipment like it did previously.