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[Dev Journal] Neverwinter: Character Progression in the Spotlight
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
MMORPG.com has teamed up with Cryptic Studios to bring our readers an exclusive developer blog that centers around character progression in Neverwinter. It's a terrific read for beta testers preparing for Beta Weekend 4 and for those looking forward to the open beta on April 30th. Check it out before heading to the comments to discuss.
One of the biggest pieces of feedback we got was that, although a lot of other elements were customizable, D&D veterans wanted to have more say in the powers they got at each level. Previously, powers unlocked or upgraded at certain levels; players got to choose which powers to equip, not which ones to learn.
Read more of our exclusive developer blog, Neverwinter: Character Progression in the Spotlight.
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Comments
This is a good move.
Will hardly affect the endgame but will make the leveling process more interesting.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Should make the low levels a lot better but need more specifics.
Weakest point in their game...
Character progression stops at max level.
There are just not enough Encounter skills to choose from, they need to triple teh number of available encounter powers, and then add 3 more hotbuttons to add more spice and skills to the game, 7 activatable power buttons and a classmechanic is just to minimalistic for my and many other players taste... It turns the use of your main encounter skills in clicking them the seccond they become available again almost almost the best choice and so removes thingking and making choices from the combat.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
Thank you for the laughs. Too funny. Appreciate the comedian.
It is a F2P game and looks like one that I can play 30 minutes or a couple of hours then go do something else. This is one of those that I am glad they are adding choices as that is what was fun about 4th edition when it came out.
I look forward to playing the game you make and put in front of the world. I'm sure noone will criticize the design choices you make or disapprove at all on how you choose to monetize your product.
@Robb - Cryptic does tend to create pieces of crap.
I don't know if the same thing will happen with Neverwinter but you can't possibly have your hopes up after you've seen what this company has been doing for the past years.
And it is incredibly sad as a d&d mmo could actually be what everybody was looking. The background provides enough freedom to engineer wonderful and crazy stuff all together.
What does Cryptic do? Strips down the originality of most of the d&d universe, takes the names and promotes its game as a d&d game.
D&D began as a bastion for creativity, freedom, uniquess and psychotic behaviour of disgruntled fantasy fans.
Where does Cryptic's game stand exactly?
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Action combat with false rooting is bad. The developers keep crying about how they made it this way for "impact", but the skills lack impact already. Try the Great Weapon Fighter and his ridiculous charge-up "at will" ability, all he does is hold the sword longer....
Cryptic is known for making crap and this will stay in-line with people's expectations. A quick and free diversion for folks, nothing more. They don't want to make it anything more as that is not their business model. They crank out a game, add in a ton of nickle and dime cash-shop items and later will add items which are pay-to-win.
I personally don't approve of their model and would rather have a D&D game that actually mirrors the univeres from 4e and the books better. I certainly never recall a novel that read, "As the Orcs charged our hero bravely stood in-place, holding back his sword arm for a mighty swing... After taking several hits to the face he releases his swing and horribly bruises 3 enemies in one mighty blow!"
It's not epic, you'll never cleave through enemies and its obvious that the developers are more in the amateur league for character movement, combat and dodging then what we've already seen from games like Guild Wars 2 and the upcoming Wildstar.
Not saying GW2 is perfect, but its hard to knock the fluid combat model of GW2 compared to Neverwinter's pause and poke combat.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
It can't be too hard, nothing is fluid, the armor/weapons and other skins are few and far between. So making a new class is just a matter of adding 1-2 new weapons a few animations some lack-luster skills and paultry "specs." I would expect the Scourge Warlock and Ranger to be along in a few months.
Still what are you really getting?....
The funnier part can be trying to land those encounter abilities. Certain bosses fly all over the place, sometimes literally, while you stay rooted during a charge up or doing a long animation. So you can totally waste a critical encounter ability simply because the game allows the MoBs to constantly move while you stay rooted... its genious.
This is a Cryptic game. This is what they do. This is what they have always done. This is what they are known for. Small, action based games with no real lore or intrigue where you do not have to think but just hit a few buttons and go on to the next area.
City of Heroes was an excellent game, but by no means was it a deep game or have any real substance (other than the Invention Origins systems which came later).
Champions Onlins is basically the same way. A little action game where you make a couple of choices but that is about it. Again, nothing wrong with that.
The problem comes when Cryptic somehow acquires the IPs for two of the most storied, lore friendly franchises of all time. Star Trek, which has 50 years attached to it and the Forgotten Realms which has massive amounts of written lore.
The people who love those two franchises do so because of the rich history that goes along with each universe.
But Cryptic does what they always do, make little action based games. Is there a true fan of Star Trek who can actually play STO and say it is a faithful adaptation to the Star Trek universe? Hell no. Is there a true fan of either D&D or the Forgotten Realms who can honestly say that Neverwinter represents the best of the Forgotten Realms? Of course not.
They went 4th edition because it's easy to do. Cryptic does easy things. They do not spend time on developing complex gaming systems or games with true depth.
How could anyone actually think this game would turn out to be anything other than an instanced based, lobby-level grind, F2P money grab? Especially when every game is a precedent. PWE buying them made them even more of what they are.
He's right, there needs to be more than 3 active encounter powers available at once. Even offering 6 or 7 would make the combat a little more tactical. He did hit it right on the head you mostly just spam your encounters when they're off of cooldown.
There is no need to make ludicrous statements about 8 hotbars. He's not advocating that at all. The game being based on 4ed has nothing to do with only having 3 active encounters at once. In any event it's based on 4ed, not a strict interpretation of them.
Character customization is very limited and should be expanded. It faces pretty stiff competition from it's peers in combat style (Tera, RaiderZ, GW2, TSW, etc) and the customization they offer. While action oriented combat is somewhat by design minimalistic, this is too restrictive and narrow.
3 or 6 or 10 slots for abilities wouldnt make a difference.
The abilities themselves are too situational or bad for a real time action based combat game.
Less situational abilities with 20 second cooldowns would make the combat a lot better.
For the most part Tera got around the problem by comboing abilities together but you still had the problem of too many abilities and too many abilities being very situational.
But, the encompassing problem here is that D&D 4th Edition tried to shoehorn MMO combat into a Pen and Paper system now Cryptic is trying to shoehorn that into an action game.
This is, unfortunately, 100% accurate. People will play Neverwinter, most people will have fun doing so, but it will ultimately be a forgettable junk-food experience.
The sad part of it is that Champions Online has actually matured to the point where it could be more than a F2P cash grab. They had put a lot of effort into turning some of the systems around.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Yep very important that players get to choose what to learn and what to use......One of my biggest pet peeves about so many MMOs is that character development is non existant....Way too many of them you automatically learn skills and automatically have stats raise.
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Enter the famous Cryptic Cash Shop. At their current rates? Your new "Class" will run ya about 20 bucks.
Enter the famous Cryptic Cash Shop. At their current rates? Your new "Class" will run ya about 20 bucks.
fine with me game is free.. $20 is a bit steep id pay $10 for a new class thoughI angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Typical Cryptic hate bandwagon nonsense from someone who has obviously not played a Cryptic game for more than 10 minutes. CoH and Champions both have extremely robust character customization, in terms of both appearance and gameplay (STO I have never played so I can't comment there, but I do know it has extremely robust appearance customization). Champions especially, if you put the slightest effort into your character you will never see someone else that looks the same, and the gameplay systems are very deep, allowing you to mix and match powers and stats just about any way you like to fit your gaming style and still be effective (of course there are ways to maximize effectiveness by ignoring theme, but such a thing is unavoidable in any system based on math, and it's overkill for any of the content in the game).
Personally, I loved both CoH and Champions. And I have absolutely zero connection with the history of either IP. They are both great games. The problem with both games that seems to be a running gag with Cryptic is that they were abandoned shortly after launch and received very minimal content updates and bug fixes. In fact, I would say that is the only real problem with either game: extreme lack of content and development time.
Cryptic makes great games. They just suck at longevity.
Having said all that, NWO does NOT feel like a Cryptic game. Character customization is extremely lacking in all areas. The character models are terrible and lifeless and all look inbred. Appearance customization is very minimal. There is no choice in armor appearance and every new piece you find looks identical to the last piece. Skill selection is very limited and unbalanced. Feats are nothing more than tiny math trees that give marginal performance boosts.
To me, it reeks of a cheap, hastly assembled F2P asian game that you typically see from Perfect World. Many of the systems are direct copies from a typical asian grinder and from what I have seen, there will be similar cash shop shenanigans as well.
For the first time, I would say that Cryptic has made a poor game. Which, if you ask me, goes AGAINST their track record. And I think we have Perfect World to blame for that.