Neverwinter Compensates PC Players for Heart of Fire Launch Struggles

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I think we can all agree that the Heart of Fire release didn’t go as smoothly as we all hoped. Of course all new major updates come with issues. It definitely felt like Module 15 had more of those “show-stopping” issues though. Nothing is more annoying than eagerly patching your game only to realize that you can’t participate in all new content. And Heart of Fire had progression bugs in many major areas.

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It more than ever felt like Cryptic simply didn’t have the resources do all the necessary things. They could barely answer to player feedback during the official preview phase because they were scrambling behind the scenes to get the most severe bugs out of the way. They didn’t quite succeed as many game-breaking things were still left in the game. In the last weeks we witnessed broken events, rewards, and players not able to properly progress through the campaign and Workshop system.

Devs Prioritize Bugs

As bad as the launch has been as appreciated was the effort from the devs to really prioritize bugs and get them fixed asap. The to-do list is still rich, but at least the effort is there. It’s not like you feel that they have largely moved on to their next tasks already, which sometimes has been the case in the past. They are just short-handed, at least it seems that way.

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I really like though that the devs try to put the players first with their recent fixes. The one to the first reward tier of the Winter Promo Rewards is a good example. They have probably gone for the fastest possible fix and accepted that some players might end up with more keys than intended. That’s how you should deal with such issues. It’s much more honest because you’re partially taking on the responsibility for a mistake you made yourself. I’m highlighting this because in the past the game would rather let players wait forever before handing out free stuff. Now you could say it’s unfair that some players get ten keys, but let’s just be happy for those that are able claim the package twice.

Professions Thank You Gift

More than that, Cryptic will now even hand out compensation for a subpar launch. They have worded it slightly differently of course and made it sound like it’s more of a “thank you” for giving feedback on the Workshop. But I do believe it’s fairly obvious that this at least serves as “sorry” to some extent as well.

[su_quote cite=”nitocris83″ url=”https://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/1244652/pc-professions-thank-you-gift”]We would like to take a moment to say thank you for your patience and enthusiasm in helping us address various issues with the recent professions overhaul. Due to the scope of the change, your input has been invaluable to improving the system. We will continue to address issues and read your feedback on the forums, but we also wanted to extend our gratitude to our PC players with a token of our appreciation. All players will have 1 (one) Account Bound Bundle available for free claim in the Rewards Claim Agent that includes 2 (two) Account Bound Epic quality artisan choice packs. Players will receive a random, not already owned, Epic artisan in the player’s profession of choice.[/su_quote]

This is actually one thing we’ve been calling for for the longest time. We all know there will always be bugs and issues, but there’s no harm in putting the players first, acknowledge mistakes, and take on responsibility. Handing out free stuff is a very efficient way to do this, and it doesn’t hurt, does it? Now the community actually feels appreciated, and might come back to do some more feedback! This is a major change of approach from the finger-pointing that happened during Huntgate, where the devs washed their hands of all responsibility while they actually were a major part of the problem.

Sure, we’re not talking an exploit here, but the different in handling both incidents is still obvious. It’s very nice to see that the community gets the nod from the devs here, although the “thank you” should have really been a “sorry”.


What’s your take on the “Thank You Gift” and the devs handling the Heart of Fire launch struggles? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

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6 thoughts on “Neverwinter Compensates PC Players for Heart of Fire Launch Struggles

  • November 29, 2018 at 1:28 pm
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    i think the loss of their balancing developer hurt them a lot. It really showed in their inability to respond to feedback as well as commitments made not being met before launch (commitments made over a month in advance).

    Further to that, their inability to stop release on a bugged deployment is pretty telling. They seem to press forward with a launch date regardless of readiness. This to me shows that “leadership” more closely monitors release dates than bug reports.

    Overall both show a lack of quality leadership at cryptic which we have come to expect. Proper leadership prevents over reliance on a singular (and apparently volatile) resource. That is backed up by the insistence on carrying through with launches while game breaking bugs exist showing that the “leadership” is monitoring milestones at to high a level and low level milestones are not being tracked at all.

    Despite that and the fact it is the holidays, they are still working to resolve issues. I think that shows character for the devs themselves who often get a poor rep (I’ve mentioned many times how you can see poor leadership as the issue not poorly skilled developers).

    Since you mentioned huntgate. I saw some “Unbanned Inspectors” in game this week, I’m assuming that’s the Floor Inspectors and maybe the guild is in the process of rebuilding in the wake of huntgate.

  • November 29, 2018 at 2:59 pm
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    Hmm. Not sure which of my characters should claim that freebie pack. The majority response on the forum seems to be that the Blue Artisans are actually much better – Prof/Focus not too low, vs slightly higher Prof/Focus but a massively higher Commission cost on the epics.

    It’s the extra time needed to gather acorns that annoy me.

  • November 29, 2018 at 7:33 pm
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    “Thank You Gift” ??????? Last i knew i lost millions of AD from new professions. The changes devalued all old items at an amount that comes no where close to what it was before.

    • November 30, 2018 at 3:09 pm
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      Yes, I had about 50 Grandmaster Alchemists and well over 100 Epic Heroes on my account, plus many, many, many Epic tools and Staff for all other professions.

      But at least the Vouchers I have now are worth 30,000 Credits for those rubbish Adamantine tools! Except the Leadership ones, which are worth 80,000 Credits!

      Yay! I can buy a metric fukctonne of Adamantine tools and sell them on AH for a pittance.

      Shame I cannot hire the Artisans I want with them. Looking at the stats, I think it’s only worth using the free Epic Application on Alchemists. Most of the others have far too high a Commission. With very, very few exceptions, the Blue ones are the best for speed and running costs

  • November 30, 2018 at 4:22 pm
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    i’ll never understand, people want the system to change, when it changes people complain of loss of value in old assets. Do we want new weapons or not, do we want professions to align to class progression or not, do we want new enchants or not

    • November 30, 2018 at 5:55 pm
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      I didn’t want it to change at all. I was quite happy with it as it was and hated the entire Mod 15 idea since Mod 14.

      But now I have started it, it’s actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be, but an astonishing gold sink and doesn’t trade value for equal value.

      My Major Labour Vouchers (Leadership) get me only 90,000 Credits and I can spend them only on SHIT quality Adamantine tools with a measly 360 Profundity and Fuckarse. I want to spend them on Artisans.

      I want to trade my Labour Vouchers directly for the Rare Gatherer of my choice, as the Epics are crap. I mean, hire and fire and wait long enough, the fecker I want will be knocking on my door, anyway.

      Eventually…

      And with 9 Epic Heroes per character, I only need 3 gatherers…

      🙂

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