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Looking to waste my time again, Huderp@starwars_was_better
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 02:07 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 06:06 |
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You mention Feat Points for Humans. What are Feat Points?
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 11:17 |
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welp... http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1203585/astral-diamond-changes/p1 cixorez fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Sep 10, 2015 |
# ? Sep 10, 2015 14:51 |
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cixorez posted:welp... Huh, that frees me up to craft I guess...
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 14:58 |
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nope that frees you up to leave the game since realistically you now only get AD on 1 char not 52 anymore -> no way to feed all the projects or progress with your own toon anymore
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 15:56 |
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Well, that sucks. Given that all of the other crafting professions are pretty useless, there's not much reason to use the gateway anymore. I still have over a million AD saved up, thankfully. This is going to hurt casual folks like me going forward, though. I don't usually have enough contiguous time to run dungeons. Maybe a skirmish once in a while. Hopefully they add some way to reward questing and/or heroic encounters.
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 18:43 |
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Hmmm, was patching.
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 18:46 |
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Bloodly posted:You mention Feat Points for Humans. What are Feat Points? Feat points are points you get to spend on what are essentially passive bonuses to your character. Heroic feats (which is where Humans get bonus points to spend) are general passives like more HP, more stamina, more crit, etc. After you hit Level 30, you stop earning Heroic feats and instead earn Paragon feats, which you can put into 1 of 3 trees, which are like most MMO progression systems in you pick a 'spec' and usually focus heavily in it. For instance, for Hunter-Rangers, the three trees are Archery (ranged combat bonuses and effects), Combat (bonuses to melee), and Trapper (focuses on fast power recharge and rooting with melee/archery hybrid) - usually this choice, in combination with your Paragon path choice, is what determines what your character does in Neverwinter. Regarding the AD changes...it's a very mixed bag. Going to suck, a lot, for casual players, and especially those who only solo. However, it's good in that it is going to reduce inflation which should make everything cheaper when buying from other players, AND hopefully the general outcry that seems to be occuring also encourages them to add similar rewards to solo activities such as campaign questing and such. If *that* happens, then it's not a huge wash as honestly it was incredibly impractical to run leadership on more than a handful of chars without the script.
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 19:00 |
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The AD exchange is totally hosed and from what I understand it's been like this for a good long while now so in all honesty they probably needed to do something.
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 19:04 |
From the sidelines I dunno, they didn't say the price of gmops was going to change or the stronghold ad sinks, coal wards and so on and so on. The speed at which you can catch up to bis slot players seems really important to me for new players. Like having progression is important in an mmo, I get that but it should also be actually viable for people to get to bis by playing consistently. Anyone who takes the time to think about realistically how long it would take to get there would have to shake their heads I think. Looking at the description of the changes all I see is that speed getting even slower. Its pretty much why I'm done. I wouldn't be too negative though. The game will go on just fine. When they release a new lockbox I bet the 420weedDrizzts won something announcements will be as frequent as ever. And it might not mean a whole lot to anyone who likes doing regular pve content. I understand they made everything substantially easier post mod 6. Its only really poison to people who like gearing up and maximising their toons or who want to participate in pvp without the high probability that they'll get smashed to pieces by some guy with 3x their gearscore.
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 20:33 |
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I suppose I have the benefit of being clueless about it all at this point. I am still trying to comprehend the character build system.
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 21:08 |
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Well, at the very least goat (Scott) is saying things that have me tentatively hopeful they will actually re-balance a lot of the economy in good ways after they nuke Leadership from orbit. http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/comment/12708053/#Comment_12708053 It of course comes with the usual caveat of *soon*, which can be anywhere from next week to a year from now before we hear anything, but hey, I'll stay an optimist. In other news, it's Double RP weekend! If you're just starting out and have a new artifact or you've just recently hit 70 and have your new artifact weapon and want some help upgrading it, PM me in game and I'll dole out loving fantasy-welfare goodness - Ellenan Xorlarrin@felixkelll .
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 21:25 |
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What's an artifact?
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 22:16 |
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just gonna quote a post from the official forum cause it's sadly the truth summed up rly great: -- When players are (1) repeating limited content for (2) such little reward that they (3) don't progress in a D&D game where (4) half the dungeons are missing and (5) existing dungeons give dull rewards and (6) they get roflstompled or botcamped in pvp and (7) they realize they can never get BiS through playing and (8) their Guild hall has not progressed in months and (9) pay to win BiS is over $6000 then (10) they feel unhappy and leave AD influx from leadership was out of control. A ballsy move to stop it. Sure the population will decline even more, that is a calculated risk the devs took. Neverwinter could survive depending on the devs next moves. A necessary change but possibly the death nail at the same time. Will be interesting to see how it unfolds -- i rly rly hope for all of you still holding the flag upright that their next move will be a good one but alas...
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 22:26 |
I don't really see them making the game more open to people who won't pay to win, since mod 1 they just pushed the game further and further away from where you could thrive as a freetoplayer every single mod. It would be such a gigantic u-turn I just don't see it. I wouldn't sugar coat beta to mod 1 as a perfectly balanced wonderland , like it was always kind of hosed up because of how expensive enchants were and are but it mattered less then.
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# ? Sep 10, 2015 23:21 |
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I've gone and looked over the stronghold breakdown, and here's a list of what requires you to win at PVP to get: - the guild PVP armor set - the guild PVP structures - the Barracks boon structure (admittedly, the boost to power, XP, and incoming healing is dang good, but it just needs conqueror's shards which in theory you could p2w) And I think, technically, we may have to build but not upgrade one PVP structure to qualify for a Stronghold upgrade at some point? We'll see. If you're just not involved in PVP, a lot of the expense of best-in-slot (and there's a lot of expense for even one best-in-slot) just falls by the wayside, because you can do alright in PVE dungeons without anything that needs a Greater Mark of Potency. And there are just 6 of those right now, in addition to the 2 advanced skirmishes, and I certainly agree there could stand to be more and they could stand to be itemized better than all just feeding into the same two armor sets with a rare chance at some bits of an artifact set. Strongholds, though, seem to have a pretty big PVE component to them all by themselves, and moreso as they're upgraded because I've seen a lot of upgrades that promise to unlock various dailies.
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# ? Sep 11, 2015 18:42 |
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I have found the minigame in the gateway is addictive as hell. That said I leveled 4 compainions to L15+ in a day with it. It was then I learned about companion level caps
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# ? Sep 12, 2015 14:26 |
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Just going to put this here, regarding companions. It is a good read. https://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/1vspat/updated_companions_all_you_need_to_know/
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# ? Sep 12, 2015 15:42 |
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Wasn't Nasher the king of Neverwinter in NWN 1 & 2? Why is the king Neverember now and "The Nashers" a street gang? When does this game take place in relation to the NWN games?
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# ? Sep 13, 2015 03:27 |
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PureRok posted:Wasn't Nasher the king of Neverwinter in NWN 1 & 2? Why is the king Neverember now and "The Nashers" a street gang? When does this game take place in relation to the NWN games? AFAIK it takes place, like... a couple hundred years after NWN2? In between the NWN games and this one, Neverember took the throne from Nasher and most of Neverwinter was overrun by various bad guys (I'm pretty sure the two aren't supposed to be related). I think the idea is that Neverwinter has been in bad shape for a long time now, and Protector's Enclave is the one part of town Neverember has managed to take back and turn into a safe zone. The Nashers are a royalist/separatist faction who want to restore the Nasher family to the throne, hence the name. Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Sep 13, 2015 |
# ? Sep 13, 2015 03:32 |
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Opposing Farce posted:AFAIK it takes place, like... a couple hundred years after NWN2? In between the NWN games and this one, Neverember took the throne from Nasher and most of Neverwinter was overrun by various bad guys (I'm pretty sure the two aren't supposed to be related). I think the idea is that Neverwinter has been in bad shape for a long time now, and Protector's Enclave is the one part of town Neverember has managed to take back and turn into a safe zone. The Nashers are a royalist/separatist faction who want to restore the Nasher family to the throne, hence the name. In the whole FR lore from WotC (which, in one of the cooler things I've seen happen in an MMO, is being unified across as much media as they can possibly influence) the "old" city of Neverwinter was destroyed when the primordial underneath Gauntlgrym was let loose and basically volcano bombed the city. After a fairly substantial time skip (going from the 1300's DR to the 1400's DR) Waterdeep sent one of its Open Lords (Neverember) to go clean up and help the various groups trying to rebuild the city, and he became the Lord Protector. The Nashers are an anti-establishment kind of group that just happens to use the name of the last big line of Neverwinter Kings as their rallying cry. There aren't any remaining of Nasher's line as far as anyone is aware, so they aren't trying so much to establish someone as to overthrow our boy. Also, in a happy change, the Zen-AD exchange is actually rather free-flowing now instead of being backed up for ages with the AD changes incoming. I even saw some for sale at 499 AD per, so who knows- maybe one of the silver linings will be the exchange rate actually drops to where it used to be ages and ages ago. Still going to be hard as hell to GET AD, but if you can, changing it over to Zen won't be as painful.
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# ? Sep 13, 2015 04:10 |
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free flowing ZAX is because of double RP weekend atm (and ppl dumping all zen for 500 AD too yes) it will return to cap and maybe even stay there forever cause of ppl no longer buying zen after AD changes alienate them maybe - just maybe - enough n00bs starting the game not knowing what they have gotten themselves into will still invest into zen but what will they buy - xp boosters, companions, accountmount - in short nothing that costs AD -> so no conversion zen isnt needed for your chars to progress in endgame or very little if u like - AD is, and very much so so what will happen after those n00bs finally arrive at endgame and see the reqs for charprogress? they check zax and either find out: 1) its at 500 -> good for them initially til they see/get told some 100-200mil AD is needed for 1(!)char to be/stay competitive/even run some content (not to mention the 200-800mil AD for strongholds(i gave up on calc after reaching 200mil for just basics but others did the whole thing and cam e up with 800mil for everything thats useful maxed out)) or like in STO: 2) its below 500 and maybe even sinking more or less constantly meaning they get less and less AD for their RL moneyz which will feel like tossing it on the trashheap after a while -> ppl stop and leave either way - zen wont be plentiful (and if im wrong and it is - what are u gonna buy with it?) not unless they implement some srs changes like slashing some zeroes off a lot of prices from bazaar - namely greater mark of potency - or refinement meters on gear sure if you wanna play nwo for story reasons (ending at mid 50-60 in mindflayerland) you can do so without spending a dime even with a slow goldhorse for added extra immersion its 1-2 weeks of good fun depending on playstyle but from there onwards its...mindless unfun repetitive torture gameplay and a bottomless mimic thats eating ur moneyz both virtual and now rl too i dare say many goonz only stayed for more than a few weeks cause of being fed by our established LS armies with those gone, low ZAX yes or no, this trainwreck will come to a grinding halt all the progress done in the SH will be for naught unless ur willing to spend loads of cash else its leave and migrate to another bigger guild (if they even take u in) for the boons u ll need to do mod8 content this is STO all over again only much much worse and even faster than back then in flyland feels a bit like they specifically asked for that sto designer to come over to nwo to do just that... i could be wrong - very much so indeed if they radically change some things - but i dont think so tbh and im writing this as someone who loved that game up til even mod6 cause i could afford it and pay others forward via a loving army of 156(!)chars - netting 3.2mil AD (not RAD) or 60-70bux a day which at the end of mod6 amounted to not much in terms of stuff i could buy and throw at ppl to make them stay competitive in content bottomline is: play til end of story and have some look around in stronghold map for some extra xp to bolster ur lvl progression and goonz-only-fun maybe even dump some influence into the mimsy then do urself a favour and leave - it will only get painful if u dont - maybe check back for mod8 and (if trends continue) leave that after 1-2 weeks too... after bad rant now for some lolz from the official forums: -- Dev Feat Trees. PATH 1: BALANCE Tier 1 Sudden Buff: One random class becomes 5/10/15/20/25% more powerful Sudden Nerf: One random class becomes 5/10/15/20/25% less powerful. Tier 2 Fix PvE: Monsters become 20/40/60/80/100% harder to kill with no explanation Pix PvP: Chances of PvP victory become 10/20/30/40/50% stacked towards higher-geared characters Tier 3 Pearls before Swine: The market price of once-valuable items drops by 40/50/60/70/80% Riches to Rags: Once-cheap items on the market become necessary to progress and their price inflates by 100/200/300/400/500% Tier 4 Money Chasm: Pay-to-Play characters progress 100/200/300/400/500% faster than F2P players. Cash Gate: Required currency to achieve endgame status increases by 60/120/180/240/300% Tier 5 Pushback: When players gain more than 50/40/30/20/10 thousands diamonds per day with a single feature, that feature gets permanently stripped of AD rewards. Arbitrary Cap: Astral Diamonds players can gain from a single source per day are reduced by 15/30/45/60/75% Final: Shaggy PuG Story: Players' success rate at anything becomes zero if they're in a PuG group. PATH 2: SUPPORT Tier 1 Deafness: Player feedback is 20/40/60/80/100% less effective Look into It: Patch Notes have a 10/20/30/40/50% chance to mollify players, making them less likely to quit. Tier 2 Economy: Patch notes gain 10/20/30/40/50% more attention from the players. This effect stacks up to 10 times for every time you mention "economy" in your post. Blame Game: 10/30/50/70/90% of the aggro from economy imbalance is directed to botters instead of you. Tier 3 Paper Plane: Every time you receive a support ticket from a player, you have a 20/40/60/80/100% to fold it into a paper plane and throw it out of a window instead of reading it. Big F: Tech Support automatically responds to tickets with a list of generic unhelpful tech advice, inflicting 50/100/150/200/250% your weapon damage on the player's computer. Tier 4 Forum Moderation: Threads lamenting game changes and/or imbalance are deleted 10/9/8/7/6 seconds after they're posted. Double Whatever: You become 20/40/60/80/100% more resistant to criticism when a Double Event is ongoing. Tier 5 Bouncers: When a player begins considering QQ'ing, 1/2/3/4/5 members of the community will take your side and encourage them to. Attention Lapse: Players in Protector's Enclave have a 10/20/30/40/50% chance of not noticing the number of advertising gold sellers doesn't diminish in spite of updates. Final Orwellianism: Players pointing out flaws in development choices are instantly banned. Their friends, contacts and guild have a chance of leaving the game. PATH 3: MONEYGRAB Tier 1 Gambler's Fallacy: All players' chance to quit is reduced by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5% for each dollar they invested in the game. ZEN Sale: Players will spend 30/60/90/120/150% more during ZEN sales. Tier 2 Sugarcoat: Makes your content look more promising, increasing player's chance to spend money by 20/40/60/80/100% Bulk Sale: When a player spends money on an item, there is a 10/20/30/40/50% chance they'll spend 9 times more to gain 10 of them Tier 3 Comfy Laurels: Pulls 20/40/60/80/100% of your funds from development. Expand Market: You gain a Xbox playerbase, increasing your revenue by 20/40/60/80/100%. Tier 4 Diamond Sink: Free to Play players now achieve endgame status at 90/70/50/30/10% their original speed Whale Hunter: F2P players who manage to make more than 600/450/300/150/50k diamonds per day are banned on sight -> http://blog.nwo-uncensored.com/player-banned-over-ridiculous-fair-use-policy Tier 5 Money-Sucking Drop: Players have a chance to "earn" items which require real money to be used. The chance they do so is 15/30/45/60/75%. Save the Whales: Refuse to take action against exploiters and auction manipulators, deflating currency by 10/30/50/70/90% Final VIP Program: When initiating combat, you drop a VIP Bait at your feet. Players who take the bait will become unable to quit for 1/3/6/9/12 months.
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# ? Sep 13, 2015 15:10 |
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cixorez posted:a lot of words seemingly typed shorthand as a text message Really wanted to read this all. Really hard to read it at all.
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# ? Sep 13, 2015 19:48 |
He's explaining how brutally they hosed up the endgame. I understand you're leveling so its not really a problem yet. When you're loving around at 70 trying to find ways to up your power it will start to make a lot more sense.
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# ? Sep 13, 2015 19:55 |
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Goofballs posted:He's explaining how brutally they hosed up the endgame. I understand you're leveling so its not really a problem yet. When you're loving around at 70 trying to find ways to up your power it will start to make a lot more sense. No, I literally meant that it was painful to try to read. I don't want to get all grammar/spelling/punctuation nazi, but it made me want to headbutt my monitor. Hopefully by the time I get to 70, the devs will have something figured out. All in all, the game is amazingly well done. Moreso as a free-to-play game.
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# ? Sep 13, 2015 20:14 |
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english isnt my first language and writing about cryptic gets my hackles up so excuse my brevity
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# ? Sep 13, 2015 23:25 |
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Been playing this game and it's pretty fun, but is there any way to make protector's enclave and the stronghold map run at a framerate that doesn't feel like a slideshow?
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# ? Sep 14, 2015 00:13 |
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Things I've learned while leveling my Oath Paladin: -Oath Paladins are overpowered as gently caress -I'm consistently #1 in all categories at the end of dungeon runs, including healing -I literally have no idea what I'm doing, I'm just button mashing -leveling is a breeze -Oath Paladins are overpowered as gently caress
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# ? Sep 14, 2015 03:05 |
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Nita posted:-Oath Paladins are overpowered as gently caress This happens every time they introduce a new class. Leveling Rangers used to be able to lead the boards using 1 at-will power and nothing else. Once you hit 70 it definitely levels off.
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# ? Sep 14, 2015 08:32 |
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Goofballs posted:He's explaining how brutally they hosed up the endgame. I understand you're leveling so its not really a problem yet. When you're loving around at 70 trying to find ways to up your power it will start to make a lot more sense. Right! So let's have us another effortpost. This one's about : REAL ULTIMATE POWER: HOW YOUR NUMBERS GET THE BIGGEST Before I really get into the talk about it, let me address some common elements of free-to-play games, get them out on the table so we all can see them, right? The two most common monetization models can be summed up as pay-to-accelerate and pay-to-win, and many games have elements of both. Pay-To-Accelerate: But I Want It Now: This is content you're aware of existing, but there's a timer on it. Pay and the timer comes off. Neverwinter's shot through pretty heavy with pay accelerators, like XP bonuses or just the limit on piling up astral diamonds to buy things. The Stronghold's got a pretty heavy pay-to-accelerate mechanic in it too. The thing with pay-to-accelerate is that there's nobody you're racing against -- you just want to skip the intervening game or clock wait. Neverwinter's PvE follows this model at high levels - you'll have the opportunity to drop cash to improve convenience or skip content outright. Actually successfully participating in all of the PvE content is itself largely possible without any kind of huge-scale coordination or bought-up gear -- though generally not fighting through the Temple of Tiamat raid, because good luck herding 25 pugs. You just have to be willing to respect the pace content unlocks at and find a build for your class that you're comfortable with playing well. Pay-To-Win: Whales vs. Krill: This is content that brings you into direct competition with other players. Usually this follows a rather lopsided model, where everyone can compete in PvP, but anybody who's playing the game for free is basically just another NPC to kill, for someone who's dropped thousands of dollars on bought content. They may provide a challenge, but in the long term they'll lose more than they'll win, and the trick is keeping enough of a free player base around that the big spenders have new and interesting targets. Neverwinter's PvP leans heavily toward this model, where there is a theoretical apex, it's a big jump over what you can get for free, and you can only get there by climbing up a big pile of money. For most of the mechanics I'll be saying "it gets pay-to-win when" and describing why, but again, keep in mind that largely this is describing reaching that theoretical apex to compete against similarly paying players in PvP, not playing any PvE parts of the game. So what mechanics become relevant when you hit the level cap? WAIT, THE EXPERIENCE BAR'S STILL THERE: OVERFLOW XP When you pick up twice as much XP as it took to go from 69 to 70 in the first place - and that's harder than it sounds, since none of the new quests pay out as well as vigiliance quests, XP-wise - you'll pick up a random reward, which may include another power point, so you can get some more powers to tier 4 or fill in the blanks in your power list. I don't know how random getting power points is, if it's at fixed intervals or guaranteed minimum intervals or what. It gets Pay-to-Win when: you get fed up with waiting for the chance of getting a new power point and grab an XP booster. I ALWAYS WANTED A KITTY: COMPANIONS Companions become more and more of a liability in the post-70 game. AI partners aren't that reliable to start with, and the fights are getting more difficult and need to be more controlled. So usually your companion will be a cat bought from the Wondrous Bazaar or one of the many varieties of ioun stone available for zen. Their runestones and equipment will directly feed into your stats, and they don't exist on the battlefield to be killed or attract extra attention. Your other active companions are there mostly for their buffs. It gets Pay-To-Win when: well, the cat runs 800k AD, and ioun stones are bought with cash directly. Upgrading companions for better active-slot buffs is also possible and pretty expensive as far as spending AD goes. Getting good gear for your companions is generally pretty easy now that best-in-slot gear, or at least nearly so, is generated from the Gateway game - open chests or beat the boss in a tier 6 Sword Coast Adventure. Some common equipment types in the pure-combat stats, "of the loyal avenger" or "of the striker", can be fairly expensive, but the rest is cheap if you don't want to play for yourself. Runestones will be covered later on, but the Binding Runestone family generally offers the best boosts and those ones are cash-shop exclusives. In fact, they're part of the biggest heading of them all: HOW UNCOUTH, WORTHINGTON: LET'S TALK REFINEMENT They show you the refinement tutorial super-early and it seems pretty simple, right? Feed a bunch of little things into a big thing, pay a trivial cost for an upgrade with a small chance of failure, get a slightly bigger thing. Well, there's all sorts of ways that one gets more complicated, and two of them are that upgrades start costing more and needed more to get there. So, what all is available to refine? YES, IT WORKS FOR PIGS: ENCHANTMENTS AND RUNESTONES As you go up in levels, more powerful enchantments and runestones will drop, capping out at the occasional tier 5 when you hit 65. (You can score the even more occasional tier 6 from a Dread Ring daily chest and, as far as I know, nowhere else.) You'll need to refine to get higher, but you can score the occasional Mark of Potency from refinement nodes and those odds don't look too bad, right? 3K RP to get from 5 to 6, 13K to go from 6 to 7, and you've more or less doubled the power. It gets Pay-To-Win when: well, from there, you can quadruple it. There is a Rank 12 available now, but not only do you need Greater Marks of Potency (GMOPs), which you have to buy for 100K AD a pop, you'll often need to feed in another enchantment/runestone of the same rank. Here are the rough requirements: Tier 7 to Tier 8 - 35K RP, 1 GMOP, one Tier 7 Tier 8 to Tier 9 - 100K RP, 2 GMOPs, one Tier 8 Tier 9 to Tier 10 - 300K RP, 2 GMOPs, one Tier 9 Tier 10 to Tier 11 - 600K RP, 5 GMOPs, one Mark of each artifact type Tier 11 to Tier 12 - 1M RP, 5 GMOPs, one Greater Mark of each artifact type. Now, artifact marks aren't too much of a burden to get, mostly because of Dread Ring dailies. So, completely ignoring how you generate the RPs, any wards you might want to buy, and assuming the best luck possible, a single tier 10 needs 8 rank 7 enchantments and 10 GMOPs, and then it's another 10 to get to rank 12. 20 GMOPs is 2 million AD, or about 40 bucks on the market. 40 bucks for a single one of the very best enchantments or runestones. NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS: WEAPON AND ARMOR ENCHANTMENTS High-level gear also includes slots for weapon and armor enchantments, which you can think of as... hmm. Surrogate feat slots, maybe? Without some kind of purchase, they're only available as shards, which need 4 to fuse into 1 functional enchantment, which then functions as a tier 7 for purposes of what it needs to refine and upgrade. It gets Pay-To-Win when: oh, word one, roughly. Every fusion for a weapon or armor enchant happens at 1% odds, which means you'll need to get your hands on wards. Either coalescent wards (guarantee fusing, per) or a lot of patience and tolerance for bad luck and preservation wards (don't lose components on a failure, 100 for ). It is possible to save up invokes and have a chance at a coalescent ward that way, but it's only a chance at pretty long odds. A single tier 10 enchantment needs 32 enchantment shards and, effectively, 15 coalescent wards, which is a much more certain 150 bucks since you can't really rely on astral millions. Now, enchantments that were available in their whole forms within the past few lockboxes - that's bronzewood, barkshield, flaming, fireburst, frost, and frostburn - are often on the auction block for less than the cost of the coalescents and GMOPs theoretically needed to make them. Still going to cost you, though. THE LAST UNMAPPED CONTROLLER BUTTON: ARTIFACTS You begin the game with one slot for usable artifacts. 2 more unlock at 60, and 1 more unlocks at 70, though the artifacts in these slots only apply their stat bonuses, not their click power. You pick up one artifact for free at level 21, and can get others at the PVP shop or unlock various class sigils by getting two classes to 60 and talking with one of them to a guy named Jarlaxle in the Icewind Dale tavern, who will open a quest for you at the Lord Protector, which will set you to 70 and run against level 70 opposition but unlock that class sigil if you clear it. Once the unlock is done, you can delete the sigil freely since you can claim a new one on any character who doesn't have one, at the claims agent on the west side of the upper plaza in Protector's Enclave. You will lose all refinement progress on a sigil if you delete it, though. Artifacts have over a hundred individual levels you can upgrade them through, but most of the time you're just fractionally improving their stat bonuses. The actual artifact click power upgrades in effects and recharge time in big jumps at 30, 60, 100, and 140. Getting to 30 needs about 22K RP, a Mark of Potency, and one mark and two lesser marks that match the artifact's type. It gets Pay-To-Win when: well. Getting to 60 needs about another 300K RP, a GMOP, and one greater/normal/lesser artifact type mark. 100 needs another 3.5M RP, 5 GMOPs, 2 greater and one normal artifact mark. 140 needs another 7M RP, 5 GMOPs, and 6 greater artifact marks. 60 is actually a pretty reasonable target all told, but 100 and 140 are much more ridiculous. Though they're not as much of an upgrade sink, since the total upgrade cost compares to a single rank 10 enchantment. Of course, if you're looking to complete an artifact set bonus, you'll either need to grind out or buy for a ridiculous cost the click-power artifact that completes the set. The Seladrine set drops in Malabolg's Castle, and the Emblem of the Seladrine is exclusive to there. The Lathander set drops from the Dread Ring Campaign, and the Eye of Lathander is exclusively a rare drop from daily lair chests. The Lostmauth set drops in the Lair of Lostmauth (obviously), and the Horn of Blasting is exclusive to there. Valindra's Guard set drops in Valindra's Tower (duh again), and the Shard of Valindra's Crown is exclusive to there. The Black Ice set drops in the Kessel's Retreat skirmish, and the Black Ice Beholder is exclusive to there. The Imperial Dragon set comes from the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, and the Rod of Imperial Restraint is exclusively a rare drop from the two strongest dragon fights, Venfithar in Rothe Valley and Vilithrax in Whispering Caverns. The Tiamat set drops in the Temple of Tiamat, and the Orb of Tiamat's Demise is exclusive to there. NOW IN WEARABLE FORM: ARTIFACT EQUIPMENT Artifact equipment can go on your main hand, off-hand, cloak slot, and belt slot. Refinement requirements are actually kind of relaxed compared to the other tiers, and it only goes up to 60, with notable breakpoints at 15 and 35. 15 needs 42K RP and one of each lesser artifact mark. 35 needs another 500K RP and one of each normal artifact mark. 60 needs another 4M RP and one of each greater artifact mark. Each artifact comes in two level bands - one equippable at level 60, one equippable at level 70, and the level 70 version has about 50% higher stat bonuses. Artifact main-hand weapons selectively boost one of your at-will powers, and all three major upgrades will improve this boost to at-wills and base damage. They start with an offense slot, 15 unlocks a weapon enhancement slot, 60 another offense slot. The level 60 versions are available through the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, but that's a bit of a legacy system since you need two rare drops from dragons to get them in the first place and they're outclassed by the level 70 version, which you get at the end of the Elemental Air zone, about which I effortposted earlier. Artifact off-hand items selectively boost one of your class features, and can generate boosting a feature from another paragon path entirely. All three major upgrades will improve this boost. They start with an offense or defense slot as appropriate for the item type, 35 unlocks an off-stat boost like AoE resist or companion power, and 60 unlocks an offense slot. The level 60 version is buyable through the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, but again, it's outclassed by the level 70 version, which you get just for hitting level 70. Artifact cloaks will either boost your AC or generate action points in combat, in addition to their other stat ups. The major upgrades improve the AC/AP gain. They start with a utility slot and unlock an offense slot at 60. Their level 60 versions are mostly defunct and buyable through campaign stores when available at all (Lathander and Seldarine from the Sharandar/Dread Ring stores are account-bind, so twink away) and their level 70 versions, often called "greater", are available through the set locations noted above or from the Temple of Tiamat, either directly as a drop or buyable from the Well of Dragons vendor for 15 Linu's Favor. Or, you know, let other people do the grinding and buy off the AH. Artifact belts will boost one or two of the Big Six stats, STR/CON/DEX/INT/WIS/CHA, in addition to their other stat ups. The major upgrades take a single stat from 1 to 4 or a pair of stats from 1/0 to 1/1 to 2/1 to 2/2. They start with a utility slot and unlock a defense slot at 60. See above for where you get level 70 versions of all the set belts, which boost two stats. Level 70 single-stat belts are occasionally dropped by Lostmauth and most of them are available for even cheaper on the AH. It gets Pay-To-Win when: well, a little bit Pay-To-Win, at least. Getting to 35 is doable, getting to 60 is a pretty long-term investment. The Elemental Fire main-hand and all off-hand abilities are available randomly, and need 4 Cubes of Augmentation, available only as an AD purchase from the Wondrous Bazaar, to unlock a random new slot. The one you want could be the very last one you get, which would run you about 600K AD. The off-hand stat bonus needs 4 CoA to unlock a new type and 1 to reroll a random new value up to 400, so you're looking at possibly 400K for the right unlock and maybe another 100K to get the bonus above 300 if you're really worried about that. Also, swapping bonuses is 5K AD, which is admittedly not that much. Also, unlike everything else listed, artifact equipment doesn't upgrade with enchantments. You need either generic refining stones, a particular boosting type called resonance stones, or to feed it identified green, blue, or purple equipment, with a double bonus if it matched the artifact's slot. If you have a lot of identify scrolls coming in it can be a decent if tedious use for all the trash greens. Lastly, though the greater belts and cloaks are generally in wide circulation on the Auction House, grabbing a specific one for a set bonus can get a little pricey if it's not on in the Temple of Tiamat itemization, but generally those prices don't break 100K. And that's the end of the refinable stuff. Campaigns tie into refinement in a big way and I've got an effortpost on those coming up later, but there's one more thing we need to cover. Well, two more things. There's an even stronger artifact weapon and off-hand set unlockable in the Stronghold.. at Rank 8, which unless we get a massive influx will be kind of a far-off dream to obtain. But the other thing we need to cover is: THE REST OF YOUR BODY: ENDGAME EQUIPMENT In general, artifact equipment is going to be the achievable best in slot. So what goes in all the other slots on your body? Well, the game has simplified this a little, so here's a general overview. Armor (head, chest, arms, boots) has several sets you can collect and covet, the highest-end of which is further upgradeable through Black Ice Shaping, for large amounts of Black Ice and small amounts of Unified Elements. You can get various non-upgradable L120 sets just by playing campaigns - Dread Ring, Sharandar, and Tyranny of Dragons each have their own variant set, and there's also one unlockable at the guild, which we ought to be getting to... within the month, maybe? This will set you up pretty well to do Tier 1 dungeoning and skirmishing, which is everything but Cragmire, Grey Wolf Den, and Temple of the Spider. The Black Ice set is buyable and upgradable purely for Black Ice, and starts out with lower stats than the Alliance set but can be boosted over the short term by investing even more black ice in it. The Alliance set will drop from Tier 1 content, mostly dungeoning, and can be bought for Seals of the Elements, which you also earn from doing Tier 1 content, with a kicker pack equal to dungeon-clear rewards for doing your first dungeon of the day. It's account-locked but not character-locked, which means you can run dungeons on your main to twink out your alts with it. The Burning set is the grand prize coming out of PVP. I don't PVP so if anyone does I cede the floor to them on how you get it and how tough it is. The Elven set doesn't drop directly from Tier 2 content - elemental-upgraded Alliance gear does - but it's obtainable through Seals of the Protector, which you earn from doing those dungeons, again with a daily kicker pack. The rate at which you earn those was recently patched to be on par with earning the Tier 1 seals, at least comparing dungeon clears to dungeon clears. The Dragonflight set is the current best in slot, and in addition to Seals of the Protector it needs people to clear the Dragonflight event, which spawns at the Stronghold for I think 15 minutes every hour, and getting the currency requires defeating two dragons within a minute of each other, which means multiple geared-out teams of 5. Pretty sure this is beyond our ability to produce at the moment. Jewelry (rings, amulets, belts) have their own versions in the various armor sets, but really what you want here are personalized rings, which require getting a character to 25 Jewelcrafting as they're bind-on-pickup to characters. You'll need to craft a tier 3 gemmed adamant ring, which is about a 400-point bonus to two stats with one offense or defense slot, and then personalize it to put an extra slot. Actual personalizing only requires some Arcane Shards, which you can scoop up from leadership chests or which drop rarely, but making the ring needs some Elemental Aggregate and a Dragon Egg, the later of which is notably rare. Personalized belts and amulets also have that extra offense or defense slot going for them, if that's a selling point over the artifact versions. I think, given strong enough enchantments, this might make them preferable stat-wise over artifact pieces, but of course then you're losing out on the AC/AP/character stat and set bonus. Clothes (shirt, pants) are still good when crafted, for a nice spread of stats and an enchantment slot, but again, Dragon Egg and Unified Elements needed, which explains any elevated prices for them you may see. Right, that should cover pretty much everything, though I've probably made some mistakes which other experienced people can correct. Again, this is spelling out what it takes for MAXIMUM NUMBERS. The highest-end PVP may require MAXIMUM NUMBERS, but most solo or casual group content will not need MAXIMUM NUMBERS. Though we'll have to see what crops up in the currently-theoretical Mod 8 and how much of a stronghold buff it assumes you have. Glazius fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Sep 14, 2015 |
# ? Sep 14, 2015 14:38 |
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Fog Tripper posted:No, I literally meant that it was painful to try to read. I don't want to get all grammar/spelling/punctuation nazi, but it made me want to headbutt my monitor. TL;DR The main problem is: THERE IS NO CONTENT TO RUN THAT DROPS ANYTHING VALUEABLE or PROFITABLE. In actuality over the course of 12 months everything profitable while playing the game was NERFED.
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# ? Sep 14, 2015 16:52 |
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cixorez posted:TL;DR Well, other than Lostmauth. Because that is still broken as hell and everyone wants it. So if you ARE wanting to compulsively run a dungeon in order to get a rare drop to hopefully sell for a lot of AD, eLoL is the way to go.
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# ? Sep 14, 2015 18:06 |
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Wait, you have to talk to Jarlaxle? Wasn't that Drizzt's enemy/nemesis or whatever? I seem to remember them fighting in some dwarf caves or something.
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# ? Sep 14, 2015 20:18 |
If I recall he's not an antagonist per say more of a friend to antagonists who isn't especially invested in their winning or losing. Sort of like a quasi evil Hans Solo who's around for fun and profit more than anything else.
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# ? Sep 14, 2015 20:35 |
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cixorez posted:TL;DR Yeah, from my noob seat that seems to be the crux of the issue. AD via leadership was a bad thing, but really the only route to get "things" at the price that cryptic set. Either they need to drastically reduce those prices, or open up non P2W avenues to acquire like level-powered gear. I really have no idea about stronghold prices and mechanics and whatnot so far. But I have to ask, have we as a guild considered joining a larger guild? Maybe a stronghold SHOULDNT be attainable by every tiny guild that thinks themselves a special snowflake. Fog Tripper fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Sep 15, 2015 |
# ? Sep 15, 2015 02:22 |
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I don't really care about getting uber powered, honestly. The level of effort to get that stuff is usually not worth it. In this case it's cost-prohibitive as well. Especially when the AD situation is not settled, I don't see a lot of point in investing a bunch of AD.
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# ? Sep 15, 2015 03:22 |
I'll just put this out there a rank 12 enchantment has 100% of the stats available to you for that slot. A rank 12 has 700 points of whatever, lets say its power. A rank 7 has 230 points of lets say power. That' 230/700 or 32% of what you can do with that slot and the typical level for most peeps. How about rank 10 that's 430 of power or 430/700 or 61% of the stats available to you. Most people will never ever hit rank 10. When dungeons were genuinely rewarding I made rank 9s and figured I couldn't go forward,. There was only a super marginal difference between me and a dude with 10s. Right now thats not true. 40% of the available stats are between ranks 10 and 12. You repeat that stat across 10 or so slots of available to to you it won't be pretty, even less so when you think about the difference between a teal artifact and an epic one. Like what the gently caress. I've loved neverwinter more than most but what the gently caress? I left my stuff in the bank some time ago, a bunch of rank 12 enchants. I know whoever saw them remembered but I hope they got handed out fairly. To be relevant a rank 7 used to have like 60% to 70% of the stats availible Goofballs fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Sep 15, 2015 |
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# ? Sep 15, 2015 03:42 |
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On the note of free stuff - if you are playing and think you might stick around for a while, when you hit 60 or so and start getting armor that lets you slot an Enhancement (the purple box) send me a PM in game. I'll happily send you a Soulforged to stick in there which should make any and all PvE you do a lot easier, plus it's always a huge plus to have on any dungeon or skirmish runs you go on.
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# ? Sep 15, 2015 06:25 |
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FelixReynolds posted:On the note of free stuff - if you are playing and think you might stick around for a while, when you hit 60 or so and start getting armor that lets you slot an Enhancement (the purple box) send me a PM in game. I'll happily send you a Soulforged to stick in there which should make any and all PvE you do a lot easier, plus it's always a huge plus to have on any dungeon or skirmish runs you go on. Do you happen to have an enhancement like that for a weapon? Just acquired a Dragon Bone Scepter with a purple slot.
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# ? Sep 15, 2015 22:36 |
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# ? Jun 1, 2024 06:06 |
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Great changes to leadership, Cryptic. Now it's just as useless as every other profession.
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# ? Sep 16, 2015 03:13 |