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What I've Seen .. (done)
OG_Solareus
Member RarePosts: 1,041
What I've Seen So Far
Game is pretty active. I would go as far to say that Neverwinters is feels as populated as ESO and GW2 which is shocking and not shocking at the same time. As posted earlier about steam chart (gringe) on Steam atleast there 1000 concurrent players which imho is great imho. Combine that witht he other games on Arc, Gearbox is doing pretty well for themselves
Combat :
Plays exactly how I remember it. No re-imagining of the core aspect of controls or skills. Skill have gone through a buffs and nerfs to fit in to the new leveling mechanics. What I like about how they made the game console friendly, is probably the smartest design choices that are completely transparent to the base game.
Example would be leveling is now done through quest completion. Instead of incremental percentages for every player in the game, it is a simple check on whether a player has done the quest. Why is this important, simply put it saves so much data on a server. Instead of constantly updating a players progress in a percentage, it's a simple flag in the database or a boolean that is saying quest check 0 or 1 if 1 == level is 3. These kind of improvements make playing the game a lot easier and less burdening. Sometimes that xp bar can be a players worst enemy. Knowing when you will level allows a player to sit back and enjoy the content.
Enhancements and gear progression :
This is the biggest change in the game. A change I didn't fully comprehend because of inventory A.D.D. meltdown. When I logged in, all of my enchantments where gone and placed in the mail. I had some pretty high levels like 17ish probably worth a few million astral diamonds back when they could be slotted. I ended up getting so frustrasted I just trashed them because they didn't work in the gear. I also didn't realize there's a quest that gives out a second 42 slot bag, double rip.
DO NOT TRASH YOUR ENHANCEMENTS ! You can trade them in at the antiques vendor. So for me, I'm having to start at square one level 1 enhancements. The nice change though is they only go up to Rank 7 (I think). Also a nice change is fail stacking. Yes you read the correctly you can fail stack, in a much smarter way then any game I've seen.
The enchanement, needs 3 orbs of something , i'm not completely in-tuned with the verbage yet... anyway, a anti-failure item protects each major part of the enhancement. Then after so many failures the player will reach a 100% enhancement mark. Some items it is 3 times, other items 150 times. So the success rate is 1% with 1 mote(I remembered that hehe) and motes scale from 1-20%. So banging 5 20% motes gets to 100% or failstack with 1% mote and safe gaurd the 3 orbs needed which are 100k a.d. each 150 times to can to 100%. Reguardless on what aveneue taken, there's always light at the end of the tuneel, unlike BDO.
If luck is on your side, you could possibly only need 3 orbs of orbing to failstack all eight main enhancement slots. KEep in mind though you will also need 150 x 8 x price anti-failstack things.
economy :
The in-game economy seems to have transitioned quite a bit. My last time playing items were so out oif reach in the auction-house it was one of the biggest reason I stopped playing. Now the auction-house is filled with accessible items for all levels and prices ranges. I beleive this is do to the rough astral diamond revamp.
Rough astral diamonds seems to be the gatekeeper of runaway prices. Player can only refine 100k rough diamonds a day. I don't think that changed from previous iterations. What has changed is getting rough diamonsds. It is so much easier now with the quests and random queues. Random Queues first tof the day can ranged from 12k to 50k rough diamonds and some core quests will give players 5k rough diamonds. The Elemental quest line which is around 100 -ish quest paid out 500k rough diamonds (est.) total.
This ease of rough diamonds has definitely reflected in the auction-house. With around 50k astral dianomds a player at lvl 20 can easily get up to 25k item score.
Item score drives the ecomony basically. To really get to end games S tier, it won't be a peice of cake. There's so much to level in enhancements, pets, companions. With ease always comes some vertical accesss and that shouldn't be an negative imho. It will be a grind , but Cryptic made is some what tangible with the rough diamond aquistition revamp. RIght now with a few weeks in I have spent well over 1 million astral diamnds and my gear score is 36k. I started out at 15k gear score lol.
Final thoughts :
There's a lot of content. There's a variety of items ranging from gear, enhancements, pets and mounts. There's a decent sized player base, not a land rush but enough to make the world feel filled. There's dynamic events, adventure quests, campaign questing, Dragonslayer system, the dungeon augmentation system that allows for difficulty increases in some dungeons including the dragonslayer dungeons. The community is just amazing. Very dedicated to game and sometimes a little elitest when doing the advanced dungeons but that is nothing new in mmos lol.
As a rotational gamer, this fits how I play mmos now. I'm also looking forward to the next module. I could really write a book about this game, there is just to much to cover 
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. Post edited by OG_Solareus on
Comments
I wasn't a huge fan of the whole kill a million dragons to earn this currency to get this item endgame, but it was a good time overall.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
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not a lot of games "aren't" that...
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
It must be something you can shut off which I must have done because I don't get them at all in sto.
But, in the core of it? It's a bloody fun game. And I have to single out Elemental Evil. While grindy, it's such a mega cool experience! Acq.Inc. sure is an acquired taste, but is also very memorable. Still, Elemental Evil.
I know you see a WAY LOT LESS of those annoucements in STO's.
The last time I really saw them was during this last Phoenix prize box event while standing there, but then I played a few space quests and didn't see any.
Maybe they surpressed them while you're in space?
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
All in all, I'd say it's a better game now just because they explain and give more to the new players which helps.
Not to say it's perfect. The grind / money past the easy Item Level points pretty much takes on a life of it's own and becomes a job.
As long as you don't get sucked into that and just know at some point you'll hit a wall and it's time to start a new character or go elsewhere you're fine.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter