With Elemental Evil's level cap increase, Cryptic decided to boost all the old level sixty endgame areas up to seventy. I had to think about this for a while, because I'm not against repurposing old content in principle. I do however think that in Neverwinter's case this has not worked out very well for a couple of reasons:
1) Considering that the quests for places like Sharandar still pop up at level sixty and that the game offers (somewhat ineffective) level scaling, casual and returning players get suckered into thinking that they can level up in those old zones and get trounced as a result, which causes them to leave in frustration. (I actually had this problem myself to a degree.)
2) With effectively no old content left at sixty, the only way to level up by questing is by doing the new Elemental Evil zones. This means that players are funnelled into what's currently probably the worst content in the game, and may - again - cause them to leave in frustation.
3) Even for those who can cope with the new level 70 versions of the old campaigns, playing through nothing but the exact same content that they've done before just to get a couple of new rewards is bound to get boring quickly.
Also, it simply feels tedious when mobs that you used to be able to beat quite easily are now so much stronger - especially when your character is the one who's supposed to have gained power. My pet tank and I did two rounds of Icewind Dale this weekend and what used to be a fun little romp left me feeling tired and exhausted. While we never died, it took ages to kill anything, and since the mobs were so deadly, complete focus and constant dodging were required at all times.
I've recently returned to playing Neverwinter after over a year and a half time off. I made Scourge Warlock and hit level 63. I went to Drowned Shore location but honestly I'm having a bit of trouble doing these quests... I'm not particularly good at this game in the first place, so do you have any advice about the best places to level up/ways to improve gear? I mostly play alone too.
ReplyDeleteI feel for you, I'm not very good at this game either!
DeleteThe gear curve is really steep from 60 onwards, so that even having just a few items below the intended level can really drag you down. You can check the auction house to see if anyone is selling some level 63 greens for cheap, or do the repeatable "seed" quests every day to accumulate greens and enchantments. The lower-level Tyranny of Dragons campaign content (Neverdeath, Ebon Downs etc.) can also help with gearing up. Since it's lower level content, it's much easier (even with level scaling) while the drops are still scaled up to your own level.
Yer, I noticed that the early T of D content is possibly the most enjoyable part of my NW experience at the moment, though there's this Ghost Stories quest now - I went ahead to try it only to be slaughtered by the first wandering group of minions in two or three hits. Level scaling seems to be completely out of whack - it's ok if it's your char getting downleveled, but it's completely different story when it's the other way round. I guess I need to grind for now and stick to the lower-level quests, it is not the time for ragequitting yet :P
ReplyDeleteYeah, never mind Ghost Stories and the other "lair" quests that come later... I still can't solo most of those even at 70, as everything just hits so hard. It's particularly annoying when there is a large number of mobs as it's simply impossible to dodge everything at once. But for now, I'd say hang in there. There is definitely content left that you should be able to complete solo even as you're levelling up.
DeleteSo I'm on the final set of quests in Reclamation Rock now and it just feels like 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I mean I'm 68 almost 69 and still getting trashed. It just doesn't seem like I'm growing in strength at all. I'm no good but I don't think I'm that terrible. Though I did read a bit that Scourge Warlock is the class that's the most badly affected by Mod 6 so I find comfort in that.
ReplyDeleteI think that the problem is (and this happens in other MMOs as well when they increase the level cap) is that as they rejig the stats to work with the new levels, your character's power actually decreases for a while as you level up, which is made worse by the mobs around you getting more powerful more quickly. Hang in there and good luck.
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