What did the King say?

Hey guys! After my rant yesterday that originated from the initial announcement of Keygate, Id like follow up with analyzing the answer from Lead Designer Thomas “Mimic King” Foss. Some of the things he wrote are quite interesting. I personally think Mimic King is only another guy receiving instructions. So if I talk about “you” I mean the actual decision makers.

[su_quote cite=”Mimic King”]As you may have heard, we recently announced, and put up on Preview, a new system for dungeon keys wherein viewing rewards would no longer be an option without using the key.[/su_quote]

That is quite interesting because in the first announcement from Xeltey you stated it was a bug that had been fixed.

[su_quote cite=”Xeltey”]There is currently a bug on the live server whereby a player may view the rewards without using a key. This bug has been fixed.[/su_quote]

So you basically confirmed you wanted to CHANGE the system and not fix it! You lying about the true intentions was the problem to begin with. You tried to change a mechanic by selling it as a bug fix.

[su_quote cite=”Mimic King”]Then you spoke to us: loudly, clearly and – amazingly so and in many ways – that this breaks something in the game that you have relied upon. A fail safe for checking to see if you are going to use your keys on loot – at least loot that is a return on investment on the key and time in the dungeon.[/su_quote]

Thanks for admitting that your loot is so garbage that we have to rely on this method. If you already knew, why didn’t you ever change this? Was this because we didn’t voiced it clear enough? Is this the only reason? Does this mean we, as a community, must always start a gigantic shitstorm to be heard? This would mean all the feedback we delivered you guys the last three years was for nothing. Because you only react in case a giant hate mob is coming your way.

[su_quote cite=”Mimic King”]Our forward looking goal has always been to be able to create better rewards tables in those (and other) chests, but we needed to secure the dungeon chest system first. We totally put the cart before the horse here. We’re all sorry for the heartache such a half move has caused.[/su_quote]

The funny thing is that I remember a blog entry from the earlier days of the game about how they decide which loot is in the chest. They said they have a special meeting room with a gigantic white board where they discuss such things in depth. At that time I already thought: Are you fucking kidding me? Nothing changed. Seriously. You put no thought into it whatsoever.

Drops from my utility enchantments like Dragonhoard Enchantment, Feyblessed Enchantment, Quartermaster’s Enchantment, Rank 8 and the Insignia Bonus Wanderer’s Fortune grant me far better rewards than multiple dungeon runs. And that even though you nerfed the effect of these drop enchantments into the ground with internal cooldowns and daily caps.

The only reason to run dungeons are the daily rough Astral Diamonds and Salvage to work towards our refinement cap. If you did special meetings you would have figured out really quick that your rewards suck. Nobody bothers with harder dungeons because doing the easiesr ones is totally sufficient to gain everything you need on a daily basis.

[su_quote cite=”Mimic King”]What good is first change without the second part?! I think you all were pretty clear on that, and you are right! When I’m reading on the forums that Aulduron opened 1,000 chests and used only a dozen keys on rewards he liked, this made me get my team really looking into the bigger issue here. The Rewards. Not just the rewards but the percentage chances of getting them.[/su_quote]

After all Mimic King does actually read the forum, because Aulduron indeed said this: http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/d … t_12895454. It is however in page one of the thread.

[su_quote cite=”Mimic King”]We hear you. I hear you. We are going to fix this.[/su_quote]

To fix the whole reward system you also need to take a look into the general progression of the game. The new weapon sets of Sea of Moving Ice will cost me about one million refining points. They offer an improvement, but for what do I need this overpowered weapon? The current content is way to easy. Lair of Lostmauth can be finished within several minutes. You basically kill monster groups within 10-20 seconds or even less and most of the time is waiting for the doors to open and monsters to spawn.

T2 Dungeons are no different. Castle Never maybe a bit longer, but not by a huge margin. I think Sharpedge and company are running Castle Never in ten minutes and most of it is passing through the dungeon. Killing the monsters and bosses is extremely easy.

Of course these are players at the very end of gear progression, but even with less gear it is still not difficult or time consuming. At this point trash mobs feel more like an Action RPG, only that Neverwinter doesn’t feature the masses of monsters like Diablo 3 for example.

[su_quote cite=”Mimic King”]So, here’s what we are going to do. We are pulling back the dungeon key change for our upcoming update, Sea of Moving Ice, and scheduling time to evaluate and rebuild the rewards for the dungeon chests. This change will still happen, but when it does it will be with better rewards and a much better chance of actually getting the chase loot. Once the change is in, the plan is to schedule updates to these rewards each major expansion so that there is reason to revisit the dungeons.[/su_quote]

That is actually nice to hear. Because in the first statement from Xeltey it was only like:

[su_quote cite=”Xeyltey”]…and because the Neverwinter design team will be better able to design rewards for chests going forward now that the bug has been fixed…[/su_quote]

That sounds a bit generic to players. Like one Peridot extra, which by definition would be better loot. Plus if it is implemented afterwards it feels like a scam. I mean that is how scam works right? You promise and never really live up to it. In Neverwinter we have sadly experienced that quite often.

In my opinion you can’t do that anymore. Neverwinter players are burnt out by promises that never happened. It will only lead to a new shitstorm. So make the benefiting changes first and then change the full system or even better: Ask your players. You must be the person to comes to us. Not the other way round. We did this the past three years and it felt like talking to wall. The ball is in your court.

[su_quote cite=”Mimic King”]With that in mind, we would love to hear from you. What do you want to see in your Dungeon chests? I’m serious about this. Your feedback is important. Reply in this post!

Regards,
Thomas “Mimic King” Foss[/su_quote]

Oh don’t worry. I will make a suggestion. And it would be in the best interest if everyone who reads this also feels urged to post in the in the official thread. Because not enough feedback might be a signal for them that the loot is fine and that they only have to adjust it a little.

NWO_Unblogged

We are always looking for people that contribute to this blog. For more information contact us via blog@nwo-uncensored.com or check the forum.

7 thoughts on “What did the King say?

  • November 1, 2016 at 7:13 am
    Permalink

    Yep, i did not buy anything from his talkings. We all know how they define “better”. Nice thing is they ‘saw’ our complains. Woohoo. But where they have been all these years of nerfs.

  • November 1, 2016 at 7:54 am
    Permalink

    What get’s me the most is that when Mimic King did his initial stream with Strum, it was to introduce him to us and to get his take logged on the state of the game. While not overwhelmingly infectious, his enthusiasm, passion, and requests for feedback seemed genuine.

    So what is the first client facing decision he made? Keygate…. Really? Every bit of confidence I \ we had in you just went in the shitter. To make matters worse, you were obtuse to a number of things:

    -What it would look like to have a lackey tell us.
    -That you thought we would buy ‘bug’ as a valid reason.
    -That it would not be seen as intellectual laziness to ‘fix’ it by not actually ‘fixing’ anything (the loot tables).

    At worst, it makes you look like part of the problem – counting pennies instead of giving a rats ass about the content and players; at best, completely tone deaf and not competent to mange a project of this scale.

  • November 1, 2016 at 3:59 pm
    Permalink

    My 300 – 400$ that I’ve spent on coalecent wards they will surely not miss but if we ALL cut off the money stream, perhaps they’ll listen.

    • November 2, 2016 at 8:58 am
      Permalink

      I kind of think that was a major reason they traced the way they did with the Mae villa and all. I know I immediately stopped spending and so did everyone on my FL. We also logged on waaayyy less following the announcement. I would be shocked if both player activity and spending didn’t drop in a noticible way immediately following the announcement.

      • November 2, 2016 at 12:06 pm
        Permalink

        I log in to get my VIP key and log out.

  • November 3, 2016 at 7:50 am
    Permalink

    For me, I need to resist the ever present desire to be overly critical of Cryptic just for the sake of. To snipe everything they do or say with some ‘Capitalistic pigs!’ rhetoric. That said, any motivation to keep calm, to try to see the long game, is shattered by their shots from the hip – their ‘let’s see if this sticks to the wall’ approach to management. They do nothing to dispel the growing belief that it is a rudderless ship. I cant dismiss the thought that leadership is driving to work, every day, with a looped recording of, ‘I have no idea’.

    There is no shame in being over matched if there is an earnest desire to get better – get in the trenches and play the game you manage. There is, however, some culpability for willful ignorance (‘its a bug’) and laziness (they dont play the classes they try to ‘balance’). Without that, it’s all lip service.

    It’s no small task managing an MMO long term; not many have succeeded past a few years. IMHO, they just need to sell the IP to someone who has the talent, will, and dedication to continue the journey.

Comments are closed.