Neverwinter Dev Tracker

✪ Part 7 – Slots in Items. Feedback Overview. This is not directly related to rewards and progression, but it goes hand in hand with streamlining by making it more convenient to use multiple items, thus actually promoting item choice. The current slot system for enchantments is antiquated and can be greatly improved. Feedback Goal. Make it easier to swap between items. Make the user interface for changing enchantments more friendly. Make the user interface helpful for colour blind people. Feedback Functionality. Remove slots from items, instead embed them into the UI. Changing items changes the type of slots available or enables/disables slots. For example, if you have a radiant enchantment slotted in an offensive slot and you switch to an item with a defensive slot in that area, it swaps the effect from offensive to defensive. If an item is not slotted, the slots are disabled for that piece. Its recommended with this system, to remove the gold cost from unsock... Read more

✪ Part 6 – Chase Items. Feedback Overview. Improve the design for chase items, both through crafting which currently has no chase items and through item drops. Feedback Goal. Ensure that the hunting of chase items is a fun process and not a frustrating one. Provide incentive to go after chase items. In some areas, add an element of risk and reward for the creation of chase items. Allow for the revitalization of old items. Feedback Functionality. Whilst the M17 implementation of chase items is good, it is possible to do it better, especially in the implementation of crafted chase items which Neverwinter has never really had. Here are (in my opinion) some important rules. Chase items should not be gated behind drop RNG unless they are also unbound. Going after items like Shadowstalker rings is frustrating, not fun. ToMM rings are an excellent implementation. Chase items should not be rewarded from levelling content and should be adequately challenging in contrast... Read more

✪ Part 5 – Crafting. Feedback Overview. Make crafting a more satisfying process long term, which both rewards players who craft and players who collect resources. Feedback Goal. Make gathering of resources rewarding to both new players and endgame players. Make crafting rewarding long term. Hopefully, make farming resources unreasonable to do for bots. Make the gathering of resources more interesting and less of a chore. Feedback Functionality. I have linked this before, so I won’t write it all out again, just link to it again. https://www.arcgames.com/en/forum... Read more

✪ Part 4 – Itemization Philosophy. Feedback Overview. Clearly delineate the purposes of crafted gear vs gear with unique effects vs gear with a set bonus, as well as target the general intended power level of gear vs content. Currently whenever a new piece of gear is added, it either automatically invalidates every other item on that gear slot, or it is already invalidated itself. For meaningful itemization this needs to change. Feedback Goal. Make both crafted items and dropped items useable in the long term. Make chase items more interesting and in some cases more expensive. Add back an element of choice to itemization. Structure rewards better, to make planning future rewards relative to content easier. Feedback Functionality. Currently, crafted gear and dropped gear compete for the same slots. Crafters are faced with the frustration that often anything they create does not persist for longer than a single module and they spend more time than not being unable to ... Read more

✪ Part 3 – Campaigns as optional content. Feedback Overview. Old campaigns have the problem that, for the most part, once you have the boons you have no reason to go back to them. In addition to that however, they also have the problem that until you do have the boons you feel compelled to run them. Feedback Goal. Provide a reason to run old campaigns after obtaining the boons, without feeling compelled to do so. Provide a reason for new players to run campaigns. Make campaigns feel optional and fun, rather than compulsory activities. Feedback Functionality. The way I would resolve this issue is by adding new rewards to campaign daily quests after a player has completed the campaign. These rewards would either be in the form of RP, RAD or materials used for guild upgrades. The purpose of this is twofold, one to incentivize a player to run through this content and keep it relevant post its sell by date and the second is to provide an upgrade path to new players. In ad... Read more

Hi Fabricant, First of all thank you very much for all the time you invested here and also for the formatting. I actually agree with every single goal with the caveat of (and i am sure you are thinking this) still including vertical progression but in wider intervals. Could you give an example in regard to this point please? 'Allow for meaningful player choices in terms of item use.' On to your next sections (-: Chris With regards to this, it has to do with the way itemization currently works in Neverwinter where there are very clear obvious choices in terms of what items a player at end game should be using. A lot of the choices that exist are "non choices" in the sense that yes you could use them, but you would be consciously deciding to use something worse in favour of a better option. An easy example I can use, from a DPS players perspective is the Ebony Chest body armour, which increases your power by 10%. Sure, I could use something else as a DPS, but I would be choosi... Read more

✪ Part 2 – Boons Rework. Feedback Overview. Boons are the only long term reward a player obtains from campaigns. They play a role in character progression and are currently extremely lacklustre, while at the same time acting as a major chore for older players wanting to level up a new character. They also add up over time, leading to eventual power creep due to the way they are structured and the longer the game goes on, the more “catch up” a new player must do as a result of them. Feedback Goal. Change boons progression to horizontal rather than vertical, to help curb future power creep. Make boons more meaningful and feel more impactful. Currently they are extremely lacklustre. Bring back an element of player choice in character customization, by pitting meaningful boon choices against each other. Make “alting” less of a chore, due to the reworked boon functionality. Reduce the amount of catch up a new player must do. Feedback Functionality. Change the way camp... Read more

Apologies for the (extremely) long post. This is a subject I have a very strong opinion on, so I am breaking up my feedback into a general overview and then each sub section for readability purposes. Table of Contents. In order to quickly access any parts of my post, you can Control F and search for the following, just copy paste this text in to get that section. ✪ Part 1 – New Progression and Reward Paradigm. ✪ Part 2 – Boons Rework. ✪ Part 3 – Campaigns as optional content. ✪ Part 4 – Itemization Philosophy. ✪ Part 5 – Crafting. ✪ Part 6 – Chase Items. ✪ Part 7 – Slots in Items. ✪ Part 8 – Potential Implementation and Conclusion. ✪ Part 1 – New Progression and Reward Paradigm. Feedback Overview. Reworking the way character progression and rewards are structured internally, to have a consistent paradigm going forward both for item design and the rate at which player power progresses relative to content. Feedback Goal. Prevent unnecessary clashes betw... Read more

Hi All, I know I said I would be jumping in today but it just wasn't possible due to today ending up being a very busy day for me. I should have more time tomorrow. All i would say is keep the ideas and thoughts coming. Whilst conversation about ideas is good I wouldn't drill to far down into any specific area just yet. We will do that as part of the second phase of this CDP. Sorry I haven't engaged sooner and I am very much looking forward to doing so. Chris

Hey folks! Thank you to everyone who has participated so far. A special nod to @thefabricant for the extensive (but clear/bullet point) posting. It definitely highlights one of the aspects of the CDP – creating a broad topic in order to then distill it into priorities and subtopics! It provides an informative and constructive starting point for future discussions. While people are participating in this discussion, I'd love it if folks could also keep in their back of the mind how they would divide this this topic into different ones while still keeping it a comprehensive discussion. For example, @krumple01 asked why should players feel all their progress is taken away after spending a lot of time and resources. This is a secondary theme that came up during the accessibility CDP discussion as well; it might be useful to be aware of recurrence of themes and if they should be their own topic or if they are naturally just embedded in multiple aspects of the game.

Hi All, Just a quick note to let you know that we are still working on the high level road map but likely will need another week on it. As always output from the CDP is intent and therefore timing around delivery and content are subject to change. We want to make sure we can achieve high quality with this plan therefore we are currently discussing options in regard to development logistics and release cadence. Thanks for your patience, 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 wh... Read more

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... Read more

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 th... Read more

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 ... Read more

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 upo... Read more

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

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

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 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... Read more