[2021] CDP Topic: Game Content Accessibility

hi not sure if this is the right place for this but . since you have decided to nerf the orcus set have you thought of intro ducing and set that would be worth using. also have you thought of introducing an 16 piece set made up of the four artifacts and the 12 equipment slots . several games that I have played before have these types of sets. usally they give either a bounse to straight stats's on each piece or a percentage. you could even have the set bounse as this all 16 pieces gives an plus 2 to every strength,con,dex and so on along with 5000 straight state incresase . I am just putting this out there. also please stop nerfing stuff. also you could make it to where they only drop from epic or the trial dungeons. I think this would make it worth folks time going back and running the older dungeons. Hi Erik, Thanks for your feedback but this is off topic. This thread of the CDP is talking about inclusivity and accessibility in regard to different player types/levels in relation to our content. Thanks Chris

Hey folks! There’s been a couple comments regarding accessibility in regards to disability or impairment-friendliness. That is definitely an important issue and we already planned on making it a separate CDP topic In the future so feedback can focus solely on that :)

Hi All, Just dropping in to say i was out yesterday unpacking my house. I am going to spend some time today catching up and will be jumping in tomorrow. Chris

What is the purpose of CDP limiting threads to specific topics when less than 10% of the playerbase actually answers the question asked? The accessibility topic is closely linked to class balance and i am having to read through comments that have no relevance to it, so i just gave up on reading this CDP. Hi Sobi, When I have done this type of initiative in the past and over time it goes from being '10%'of the community to a much larger and diverse slice of player types and player base. Some folks will be reading and scared to post at the moment but that will change. The reason for having focused topics is so we can have focused discussion and a focused proposal. Chris

Feedback Overview 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. We are talking about doing exactly this Joseph. 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. Chris

I would like to start with congratulating with your attempt to communicate with the community, something which people had lost hope on. 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? Some great commentary here and lots for me us to think about. Regarding narrative (although slightly off topic) we are going to be focusing on this more moving forward throughout the game. Specifically player relevance/purpose, a living evolving world, and interconnecting arcs of various levels. Chris

TOMM: 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. Hi thefiresidecat, Engagement and Shared Experiences We are going to be working together to achieve this through the CDP whilst also ensuring that other types of players can also take part in the 'experiences' that generate engagement (rewards, progression etc) that is relevant to them. Normal and Master Content We are working towards this and we will provide more details shortly. Casual vs Endgame We are currently discussing ways to get new and more casual players into the 'Endgames' various tiers of progression. We need to have a little bit more internal discussion before going into more detail here but that detail will be part of this CDP thread. Scaling Do you and other members of the CDP feel that scaling has any value at all? What about events that all players would like to take part in but can't for example from an experiential standpoint. We all want players to be enticed toward the same high level goals and pillars (which we need to do a better job of defining, guiding and bolstering) and part of that is to play the same experiences that aspirational players are playing never-mind wanting to enjoy content that much of the player base is focused on at any given time. What if scaling delivered both this opportunity and maintained the sense of empowerment earned through progression and catered in a meaningful way to the different types of players goals in terms of rewards, progression and so on? Mastercrafting Discussing this topic currently for the reasons you mention and others. More to follow in this thread. Thanks for taking the time to raise these concerns and potential evolution's. Chris

What is the purpose of CDP limiting threads to specific topics when less than 10% of the playerbase actually answers the question asked? The accessibility topic is closely linked to class balance and i am having to read through comments that have no relevance to it, so i just gave up on reading this CDP. Hi Sobi, When I have done this type of initiative in the past and over time it goes from being '10%'of the community to a much larger and diverse slice of player types and player base. Some folks will be reading and scared to post at the moment but that will change. The reason for having focused topics is so we can have focused discussion and a focused proposal. Chris One thing that's been scaring me off from posting is the rigid reply format. That said, if and when you have one for the Foundry, I'll be posting quite feverishly (see my sig for a hint). Anyway, this is my thought with respect to accessibility: I'm concerned about there being a potential need to grind dungeons to acquire the gear to progress from one campaign to the next. This hasn't been an issue in the past, but the 20k IL recommendation/requirement for Mod 18 has me concerned. If you take a new player with the free Undermountain gear, let him progress through the campaign, and let him grind ME's for a little while, I'm not sure that said player will be at or even close to 20k at the end of that process. I suspect that it will be closer to 18k. Jumping that gap will require upgrading lots of enchantments to R11 or R12 and lots of purple insignia. This is true even if all previous campaigns were completed and all boons earned. We cant expect said player to grind LOMM to reach 20k because they can't even enter it if they're below 20k, and the gear from ME's is as good as gear from LOMM or even better. My personal opinion is that players should be able to progress from one campaign to the next without having to grind a new dungeon, especially if it's a dungeon that they cannot even qualify to enter. Hi hustin1, Just wanted to talk to your concern regarding format before heading home. The format is for putting ideas forward not replies or discussion. The reason for the format is for consistency in category of info and details as well as readability. For replies and discussion there is no format requirement. I will talk to your accessibility point tomorrow hustin. Thanks for contributing to the CDP. Chris

Scaling Do you and other members of the CDP feel that scaling has any value at all? What about events that all players would like to take part in but can't for example from an experiential standpoint. We all want players to be enticed toward the same high level goals and pillars (which we need to do a better job of defining, guiding and bolstering) and part of that is to play the same experiences that aspirational players are playing never-mind wanting to enjoy content that much of the player base is focused on at any given time. What if scaling delivered both this opportunity and maintained the sense of empowerment earned through progression and catered in a meaningful way to the different types of players goals in terms of rewards, progression and so on? there was some minor scaling in the game before mod 16 and it was fine. basically low level players could be scaled up for special content and for the most part the higher levels weren't touched going down. this was fine because while scaling players up also didn't honestly do a lot, the high level players in the content could easily carry the new players. it wasn't a problem before. I am not sure why the devs thought it was. No one was complaining about it. When we heard scaling was going to be introduced there was a huge outcry but we were ignored. Scaling as it is right now, has pretty much single handedly killed this game imo. I am not sure why the concern has been making the player as Not powerful as possible in all circumstances. that's not what D and D or MMOs are about. We level up to BE GODS. because that feels good. the new player wants to gear up to be a god too. I still remember my experience with this as a new player. there was a high level cleric in a dragon fight. a bunch of noobs and this one god. and I was like OMG. I want to be her... and from there I was hooked. It doesn't feel good to level everything up only to have it slashed in almost all content. Hey, I think MMOs mean different things to different people. For you it is clearly to feel like a God but for others that might not be their primary driver. How many times when playing D and D do you do a module that is vastly lower level than your character? Isn't D and D as much about the experience of playing with others in immersive and challenging (Not just power but also problem solving) worlds and situations as it is about leveling up and being all powerful? So in short (Hard to determine because you didn't tackle my questions) you feel that scaling up is fine but scaling down is a no no? So what is your suggestion in regard to an event where we want all players to share the 'experience' and feel relevant if certain players experience is dramatically reduced because the content is trivial to a % of players? I have no bias here at this stage. I want to observe and learn. And note the goal is inclusivity not normalization. Chris

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. Hi Duckie and Fireside (Replying to both posts here), Thanks for taking the time to post we really appreciate it. Regarding: 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. We are certainly thinking about this overall point and we will discuss in more detail soon. Regarding bugs we are very focused on release quality now as well and you will see improvements over time here. Regarding: 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. There is news coming in this area early next year. Suffice to say we agree. We will do a CDP on combat and class balance in the near future. Regarding Nerfs it is our goal to drastically reduce these occurrences by increasing our release quality. Looking forward to continued discussion. Sorry we don't have more details now, but they are coming as is more discussion with the community. Chris

@"cwhitesidedev#9752" is there list you already have of topics this thread has brought up? a copy of that might make it easier for us to list the 3 most relevant ideas. maybe start a poll? Sadly no but honestly the information is most useful from folks who have been reading through. I know my 3 for example but I don't want to bias anything by posting them currently. Regarding a poll: Personally I would prefer it if it wasn't a poll so people can add short reasons for why they like the ideas they are representing. Chris

Quick reminder that the focus of the CDP now is to pick the three ideas you liked the most in regard to the topic of the thread: Accessibility. Oremonger did a pretty good summary above (Many thanks Ore) although I would recommend (if you have time and haven’t done so already) reading the parts of the thread that interest you the most so you can get up to date on the discussion and details before picking your top three. Thanks Chris

> @"tempus86#1158" said: > While I really like this program, and how much attention it is getting and I am also very concerned that yet again, we have a new mod release, only a mere 3 weeks away, we have multiple Dev created feedback threads for mod 18, and still, its the same old same old, little to no interaction to feedback. > You have promised better communication, and except for this CDP program, which is just a concept, it is not actually a reality yet, we are yet to really see that. > > There are some very valid concerns about Mod18 in the various sections, and with only 3 weeks left and no real communication happening, are we to assume that, Mod18 is going to be released pretty much as it is on preview right now? > > I know its the holiday period, and I know Chris and other new members of the team need time to implement real lasting change, but two of the things that was promised moving forward, was better build releases and better communication and I believe this should be applied to Mod18 release, not just future projects Hi Tempus, Whilst I understand and appreciate your concern and frustration driven by your passion for the game/community this post is off topic and a little disruptive to the CDP flow. Your points are well made however. This said we have been discussing mod 18 feedback frequently before the holiday and when I return I will check on our communication around feedback and I will (time willing) do my best to support the community and team in regard to communication around iteration for mod 18. I know for example that there has been iteration based on feedback but unsure whether or not it has been communicated out yet or what the previous protocol was in regard to communication around iteration. Moving forward as you know it is our goal to be as transparent as possible but meaningful communication takes time and this is something I need to support the team and the community on in respect to all areas of the game. I would really appreciate it if we can stay on topic moving forward. Thanks Tempus, Chris

Bump. So for the next and final stage prior to the CDP Accessibility proposal is to list what you feel are the ’top three ideas’ that have been raised so far in thread (They can be high level and micro ideas for example High Level: Multiple Types of the same dungeon or Micro: An option that allows you to change 'Telegraph' FX colours palette). Feel free to add your thoughts around them as well. We will let this run for a few days and then I will put a proposal forward on behalf of the CDP that you can all critique before it is handed of to the team. Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts. Chris

Happy New Year All. Looking forward to our journey in 2020 as a collaborative team! Chris

Greetings everyone! I have begun the summary of this topic; I will be re-reading and doing a write-up for every comment in order to be as comprehensive as possible. That will allow us to better see the common elements or groupings of ideas for a general summary. This thread will remain open until Monday to allow for any additional last minute feedback or top 3 takeaways commentary.

Morning All, Quick reminder to please stay on topic for this phase. If it looks like we are at the conclusion of this phase then we will close the thread in preparation for the summary and proposal at which time the thread will be opened again for any refining of the proposal. I will check back later. Chris

Thread is now officially closed. Thank you all! EDIT: Thread will re-open for a short time for additional comments when proposal is posted on Wednesday.

Greetings! Some amazing discussions came out of this inaugural CDP topic - we strongly encourage everyone to read through the comments but we've also put together a topic summary. This summary is meant to cover the overarching themes and relevant subtopics so may not encompass discussions that are better suited for their own CDP. The proposal for this topic is still being worked on and we are aiming to have it available later this week. CDP – Topic #1 Summary Background For the inaugural CDP topic, players were asked for their thoughts on the accessibility of Neverwinter in regards to the different types of players (hardcore, casual, veteran, beginner) and the difficulty and ease of content. Note: This CDP discussion did not include accessibility for disabilities or impairments as that is intended for its own separate topic. The topic thread spanned 13 pages with a total of 388 replies and 9,087 views. Discussion Summary The following major themes emerged from the comments: Multiple versions of game content (dungeons/skirmishes/trials) One of the most popular pieces of feedback was a need for different difficulty versions of the same content, specifically dungeons, skirmishes, and trials. While players differed slightly in their approach regarding scope, how many tiers, and how to adjust the difficulty, there was a general consensus regarding the value of the different versions in regards to accessibility. Having this option would allow both hardcore and casual players to experience content, provide a learning/training area, and allow for flexibility in party/class setup and requirements to successfully complete the content. In-game learning and information resources Expanding upon the “learning/training” aspect of multiple dungeons was another popular request for more in-depth information availability within the game. Hardcore players conceded that casual and new players were at a strong disadvantage in regards to understanding the complexities of stats, builds, and other progression-related features in the game. While the immediate benefit would seemingly be for newer or casual players, this is actually seen as a boon to veteran and hardcore players since it would reduce the amount of “live training” inconvenience they would have to do when queued with less experienced players. Engagement motivators Long-time players strongly emphasized the need for motivators or drivers to return to the game on a consistent basis. The vastness and richness of Neverwinter systems and contents is viewed as underutilized; newer or leveling players still have a “reach max level” goal or content to run through. Masterwork professions, older dungeons, campaigns, achievements, and more were mentioned as areas of the game that would revitalize engagement or drive motivation. Bonus theme: Scaling A final theme that was voiced across a large portion of the feedback was the impact of scaling. There continues to exist differing opinions on scaling, ranging from whether it should even exist to how it should be utilized but a common element is that long-term players should not be punished for their progression. Hardcore players want to feel the positive impact of their efforts in their gear, their refinement, their builds, etc. While this may seemingly be at odds with a continuous desire for challenging content, they key element is providing challenge in end-game/new content while not making older content punitive to hardcore players. Secondary themes Among the core themes there also emerged some tangentially related topics that merit mention. A strong emphasis was made on Rewards and Loot Tables across the major themes. Having different tiers of dungeons would require different rewards. Having educational resources in game about the different rewards would allow newer players to better understand their viability or provide guidance in content directive. And, finally, making rewards sufficiently motivating for players to engage with content. A secondary theme that emerged was the impact of Strongholds and guilds across the different player types. Guilds provide resources and support, with smaller guilds being more populated by casual players which in turn means less resources and support. Support for providing mechanisms for smaller guilds or beginner players in small guilds to optimize use and growth was voiced, but consideration was also given to the potential concerns or frustrations of the work and effort put in by larger and higher level guilds.

Greetings folks! Chris apologizes for the delay in the proposal but we've begun discussing the next topic which we think will be of great interest to many of you. We are hoping to make Rewards and Progression the next focused topic for the CDP! Stay tuned for more developments as we wrap up Topic #1 and continue on with some more great discussions!

Hi All, Thanks so much for your patience and putting in all the effort in what is our first CDP! (Many more to come). Things have been really busy of late and we hope in future we will be able work with you on the CDPs more efficiently (Logistics and CDP schedule). On top of this we will have more direct communication about CDP outcomes, actions and discussion in streams. I was going to frame things as a proposal but I think we are all mature enough for me to actually communicate what we are planning to work on (or are actively working on) with the caveat that all features and content are subject to change. If there is ever a big course correct we will let you know. I hope that sounds ok. I would say about 50+ % of the team has read the CDP and about 90% have skimmed through it locking on areas that are closest to them. The team is already aware of the areas listed below and in most cases we are about to start work (brainstorming, planning) on the areas or already have (unless stated otherwise). The CDP discussion will help inform the work moving forward and no doubt we will be reaching out for further info, questions and/or thoughts regarding certain topics. We will do this on streams, through mini CDP topics, in some cases calls, emails and of course re-reading and discussing specific posts from this CDP. And we will keep everyone up to date on the progress in these areas both through communication and the preview server. Therefore we intend to be working in the following areas this year although some of the features, systems and content will be released in phases. To this end we will be publishing a high level road map in the coming weeks! - Streamlining of the 1-80 experience in which we will tackle campaigns, rewards, progression, player education (Core systems, damage, healing, item power, etc), tool tips, discover ability, player purpose, goals, time to get the best experiences of the game etc. This is a huge undertaking and one we are very excited about. We intend to deliver this in phases throughout the year but closer to the end of the year. - Tiered content such as trials with easy and normal versions of trials for example and dungeons. - Inclusivity whereby lower level players will be able to take part in events, strongholds, dungeons as well as other types of content that we will discuss at a later date. - We will be making existing content more relevant to players across the board with some rewiring of rewards,activity's and progression. - We will be working on evolving scaling so it is more relevant, meaningful and less constraining for all players. - Better accessibility for players with disabilities and researching how we may be able to work with https://ablegamers.org/ in this regard. - Refinement of early game communication systems allowing more freedom for new and existing players to play together and communicate. - Story telling and narrative arcs will be a core component of the whole experience including content delivery moving forward (Not mass effect (-: ) - Guild quality of life and profession/systems evolution (This is something we are discussing. We will update with more info later. We are still in the process of prioritization and therefore I am not sure how much work we can do on this at the moment). - PVP discussions and potentially a separate CDP thread spinning up in tandem with other CDPs concurrently. This is a lot of work. As I said much of it will be phased based and released bit by bit both for development reasons and so we can more meaningful shape the game together moving forward. We are right in the middle of discussing how we achieve the areas along with how we develop and deliver content moving forward. We can talk in more details about this on next weeks stream (21st Jan) and moving forward. Again we want to thank you for all of your hard work, your contribution, your passion and for following the guidelines of the CDP to make it is meaningful, effective and meaningful as it can be. This is the beginning of our journey together as we evolve Neverwinter and the whole of the team wants to thank you for taking this journey with us. We will leave the thread open for 24 hours should anyone have anymore comments or feedback regarding the above. Chris P.S: Our next topic is Progression and Rewards.

This looks like a great start, and I look forward to more transparency and working hand in hand to make an even better game. But I do have a request: Seeing that "Progression and Rewards" is the Next CDP topic and is something of a spin of: "- We will be making existing content more relevant to players across the board with some rewiring of rewards,activity's and progression." Can we please get some better info prior to or at the start of that CDP with the current loots tables/ the number of total loot tables managed by the team, this would help inform prior to starting that topic and allow the community to stay a bit more focused. Let me check on that and get back to you. But yes probably. Thanks Lordaeolos, Chris

A general question: How it is planned to go from here? I mean that there are a lot of topic even in the summery, and their implementation, and scope can vary differently. Will there be a discussion per topic? A drafted ideas posted before the start spec is closed? IMO a lot of the development teams ideas, goal and targets were/are understood, and the more significant disagreement or disappointment was usually in the details of the implementation (due to deadlines, limited resources or whatever reason). There are many ways to solve each problem, and the results can differ greatly, some will be loved, others will be a disapointment. To add to the things above, with limited resources will we get a "vote" of the scope and at what price some things will be. Seems that there is a lot there on the list, and many things can be refined more and more but it will come at the cost of other things, perhaps the community will agree to compromise on one way of implementing something over another if it has huge difference in Dev time commitment and will allow some more better implementation of another item on the list. TL;DR: Do we get to see/say/feedback on the ideas of how the issues above are done before they are finalized and implementation begins? If so how it is going to work? Hi Micky, I cover that in the post: The CDP discussion will help inform the work moving forward and no doubt we will be reaching out for further info, questions and/or thoughts regarding certain topics. We will do this on streams, through mini CDP topics, in some cases calls, emails and of course re-reading and discussing specific posts from this CDP. And we will keep everyone up to date on the progress in these areas both through communication and the preview server. We will engage and collaborate as much as we can. Thanks Chris

If you manage to get half of this done you will be my hero :P We are going to do our very best and we will be in communication all the way through this and past this year in regard to how we evolve the game. Chris