A Sad Decline

Hearing about Neverwinter Classic got me to re-read some of my old posts on this blog and made me all nostalgic. Damn, I really loved this game for a while, playing it on and off for about eight years.

I decided to have a look at Steam Charts to get an idea of how Neverwinter is doing nowadays, and it was honestly quite sad to look at, especially when comparing its numbers (green line in the screenshot below) against those of its sibling Star Trek Online (blue line), which is also based on a large IP and developed by the same studio.

STO shows only the gentlest decline over time, maintaining a remarkably stable population for more than ten years. By comparison, Neverwinter started out huge and held on to almost half its launch base for a full year, but then you see the first permanent decline around April 2015, when the Elemental Evil module raised the level cap and made an incredible mess of things (there's a reason it was on my own list of least favourite mods).

However, the devs eventually managed to stop the bleed from that and things remained relatively stable for the next three years, with the game even seeing a new peak of active users in July 2018, after the launch of the excellent Ravenloft module (also in my own top 5).

But then! Another permanent drop after April 2019 when Undermountain drastically revamped all classes (again, I agree with this vibe and it was another one of my least faves). The game recovered a bit of population during the Covid bump, but then experienced another permanent population drop at the end of 2021, when unwelcome changes to the enchantment system ended up driving me away as well.

I mostly take two things away from that:

1. As far as Neverwinter goes, I'm no contrarian and it's actually surprising how much my personal opinions seem to align with the masses.

2. It's very much possible to drive an initially successful MMO into the ground with repeated terrible decisions.

Neverwinter Classic?

By chance, I came across a reddit post today that proclaimed that the Neverwinter devs (are they even still at Cryptic?) are considering the notion of a Neverwinter Classic. Within less than 24 hours, it became the 9th most upvoted post of all time on the game's subreddit - we'll see how much further it goes.

Someone also posted a link to the survey itself - I don't know if it's legit, but I'm inclined to believe that it is. I filled it out either way, and if you're a former or current player of Neverwinter, I suggest you do too. It hit kind of hard to realise that I already fell into the "stopped playing more than 3 years ago" group.

I'm not sure a Neverwinter Classic would bring me back to the game for good, but I would definitely want to check it out, even if I'm not hopeful that the devs would be able to pull it off. I would love to go through the old levelling experience again, as well as be reminded of a time when enchantments and runestones were the only annoyingly obvious pay-to-win mechanic to worry about.

Enchantment Changes Explained

I finally sat down to try and sort out my enchantments as per the last post and it was one horrifying realisation after another. Basically Cryptic massively raised the floor in terms of financial investment to even equip enchantments, and is low-key scamming more casual players in the conversion process.

The first point is evidenced by the fact that no enchantments lower than rank ten can even be converted. If you were wearing less than that, you can just grind the old stuff into a few refinement points - which are as good as worthless - and leave your new enchantment slots empty. I don't know how much power this actually causes you to lose, but even if it's not that much, it feels terrible. Imagine if they did this with gear - making you vendor your old kit and then forcing you to fight naked until you're willing to pay up.

The second point is rooted in the fact that the only hint the game gives you about how to get new enchantments is to see the antiquities scholar in Protector's Enclave to trade old for new. You trade in old enchantments for "medallions" and then can use this currency to buy new ones. The cheapest thing you can buy is a new rank one enchantment for 30 medallions. At one point after the trade-in I had 17 medallions left. There is also an option to buy one medallion for 40k astral diamonds. So I bought 13 of them for 13x40k = 520k AD, so I could buy one more rank one. Later I found out that I shouldn't have bothered with this trade-in at all, as Bradda the Sage just outright sells the new rank ones for 100k AD in her shop, but of course nothing in the game tells you that! I only found out through an off-hand comment in a forum post.

But even if I hadn't fallen for this nonsense, 100k AD as the bare minimum to fill even one of your enchantment slots is way too high, even if it's something that you can grind out in a day at max level. That's not to even mention the new astronomical costs of upgrading just to rank two (of five). After the conversion, my item level isn't even high enough to do the new module (according to the game's recommendation anyway). The message I'm getting here is to pay up or not play. Which is a shame because I've never minded giving Cryptic some money for things, but I've always refused to outright pay for power, and I won't do so now either.

Dragonbone Vale & Enchantment Changes

You can probably tell from my lack of posting on here that I have once again entered a phase of not being all that interested in Neverwinter, to the point that I wouldn't even have noticed that they dropped a new module called "Dragonbone Vale" this week if a couple of guildies hadn't mentioned it and the character selection screen changed backgrounds. There wasn't even any kind of countdown or announcement on the launcher...

I haven't looked at it yet however, as another change introduced with this module is a complete revamp of the enchantment system that's been in the game since launch. Again, there is no real information about this in the game itself, and I'm once again finding myself frustrated with the amount of busywork Cryptic is throwing at players seemingly for the sake of it. At least in other MMOs I play, these kinds of conversions are mostly done automatically, but in Neverwinter I'm always supposed to manually sort through dozens of now outdated items or currencies and trade them in for their new equivalents at a vendor. I just don't have the will or energy to deal with this kind of nonsense at the moment.

Extreme Generosity

I've mentioned before that Neverwinter has become a lot more generous with its freebies recently, but they keep topping themselves!

Since the last week of July an event called "20 Weeks of Gifts" has been active, which lets you claim a reward from the promo vendor every week. To get this, hit L after logging in, click "claim valuables" and then go to the "promo" tab. Alternatively, you can get to the same window by visiting the Rewards Claim Agent NPC in Prospector's Enclave, who is marked as the third most northern point of interest on the map there.

I didn't previously feel the need to shout about these because while things like a free stone of health are nice, they're not exactly game-changers. These last two weeks they really ramped things up though! Last week we got a choice pack for a legendary account-wide companion, and this week we're getting the same but for a mount. I chose the Black Ice Warhorse, a classic that I've had an eye on for a looong time, but I just never felt like spending the money. I never thought I'd just get it for free eventually!

So even if you haven't been playing lately, I think this is the kind of freebie that's worth logging in for. I'd also keep an eye out for the remaining weeks of the event, because so far the rewards have only gotten better and there's still a lot of weeks to go that could hold nice surprises...

Echoes of Prophecy

So Neverwinter released a new "battlepass campaign" in the spirit of the Redeemed Citadel. Only this time, the "server event" aspect of it appears to have been removed, there is no leaderboard, and the "premium pass" doesn't grant a permanent unlock for the campaign either; it just gives you extra rewards and four additional months to do the content.

Instead of endlessly grinding devils and demons, this campaign mainly asks you to focus on re-running existing legacy campaign content and dungeon queues.

My first thought upon reading this was that it didn't sound great. I don't entirely mind the idea of a fresh incentive to repeat old content, as that could actually make for an interesting addition for alts that "need" to do these campaigns at some point anyway... but the time-limited nature of it and the paid pass not giving you permanent access anymore were somewhat off-putting to me.

However, then I found out that this time around, progress is also account-wide, and at least for this milestone, a lot less grindy than Redeemed Citadel ever was. Having just done the intro quests on four characters, I'm already halfway through the milestone.

I guess I'll do it then, though progress being this fast actually makes it a bit of a non-event again, as I might well end up completing the entire milestone by the end of today. Cryptic's new ideas about what kind of "content" is supposed to keep players busy for months on end remain somewhat disappointing.

Jewel of the North Cinematic

The other day I was surprised on logging in to find that Cryptic had added a cinematic trailer for Jewel of the North, which plays the first time you log in after the most recent patch.

The only other module I remember having a cinematic trailer was Ravenloft, and that's one of D&D's most well-known IPs. I'm not sure what exactly qualified this mod for the extra marketing budget.

The trailer isn't the greatest thing ever, but I do kind of like it. It's just sad that the way it wants to evoke the connection to the tabletop game and going on badass adventures with a party of friends doesn't really map to anything you can actually do in the game.

Backwards

Not only did Cryptic remove a bunch of zones with Jewel of the North, but there are other ways in which it feels like the game has oddly regressed.

For example the Ebon Downs storyline is back to concluding with the Throne of Idris dungeon - an instance that was in the game at launch, got removed with Elemental Evil, and then just became accessible again occasionally during the Tales of Old event. It feels pretty retro to just get sent back in there at the end of the zone for a quest... with the main difference that it can now be soloed.

Also, I remember I used to think it was pretty neat how Tyranny of Dragons expanded various levelling zones, added dragon heroics to them, and introduced players to the concept of progressing a campaign while levelling. This first half of the campaign has now been removed, and the zones that remain and that used to have dragon encounters in them have been shrunk back to their previous size.

This is such a strange module.

Things to Do in Mod 21

I was wondering what there was going to be to do for existing players in Jewel of the North if it was all focused on revamping the way levelling works. The answer is: not much. As mentioned in my previous post, if you never completed the levelling zones that remain in the game, now is a good time to go back and do them. Even if you already did them, there are a couple of new tutorial quests that you'll have to go through to earn the new rewards, but that's it.

That said, I reckon this is a great time to give the game another shot if you haven't played in a while. Just do whatever new quests Sergeant Knox has for you and the rewards will start rolling in in no time. The new catch-up gear will bring you close to on par with what used to be top level gear only a module or two ago. It's kind of impressive how far the game has come in terms of generosity there, because I still remember how stingy it used to be with simple quality-of-life things like mounts and bags. Now you have a blue quality mount and companion before hitting level ten and get a 42-slot bag just for completing Vellosk.

Campaigns and Adventures

A few years ago I gently poked fun at Cryptic for wanting to fit all the game's zone quests into their "campaign" endgame model. Considering what an awkward fit that was, I like how they've split content into campaigns and "adventures" with mod 21. A campaign is still what it always was: a grind to repeat content like dailies or heroic encounters in order to fill a bar and earn things like boons and access to higher-level group content.

An adventure on the other hand is simply a series of story quests - whether inside a single zone or delivered via loosely connected solo instances - that you're only expected to complete once, and at the end you get some more mundane (but in the new system also quite high-level) rewards such as increasing amounts of AD, gear, plus conveniences like mounts or bags.

All the old levelling zones that were kept are now adventures, as is Acquisitions Incorporated, which was always terrible as a campaign, seeing how it was basically a collection of story quests that the campaign framework required you to grind over and over again. The Underdark story (which was always completely disconnected from the campaign with the same name) has also been reclassified as an adventure, and the associated campaign to grind heroic encounters has been completely removed. This does make things more consistent.

The only downside from my point of view is that since they upped the rewards for adventures so drastically, they kind of feel mandatory to do on all characters now. I used to skip a lot of the old zones while levelling up my alts just to keep things varied, meaning that I'm now looking at potentially re-running zones like Neverdeath Graveyard, Vellosk etc. on half a dozen max-level alts just because the new rewards are too good to pass up.

Housekeeping Required

It's commonly agreed that one of the biggest challenges for players returning to an MMO they haven't visited in a while is remembering how to play their character, figuring out what to do next, and what all the stuff in their bags is. A big patch that makes major systems changes can be similarly confusing for existing players. But seriously, no game I've played is as bad at this as Neverwinter.

I'm still trying to sort out all my characters post-mod 21 launch. Quests reset, stats reset, new stuff to claim and use or stow away (unless you want those flashing notifications to bother you forever), old stuff made redundant and requiring trading in somewhere (why can't they just auto-convert obsolete currencies like most other games?)... just the amount of housekeeping required to keep playing the characters I was happy and comfortable with the day before the patch is insane. And it feels like they do this about once a year. Just why, Cryptic?

New Levelling Experience

Seeing how mod 21 is all about changing the levelling experience, I thought it made sense to create a new alt to check out how that's worked out. Thus Barb the Aasimar bard was born (more on bards another time). It's kind of strange to me to be investigating the tutorial again after I wrote about it being revamped only a little over a year ago.

I only played through that version of the intro once so my memories of it aren't very detailed, but based on what I wrote back then the first part outside the city doesn't seem to have changed much, except maybe that the combat felt a bit less faceroll than I remember. However, the part inside Protector's Enclave is completely different: We're once again back to no signs of fighting inside the city gates, and there's nothing about the Nashers wanting to steal the crown anymore. Instead you get sent to Sergeant Knox in the newly invented "Adventurer's Guild", where you're given a brief combat tutorial in a special training room before being sent straight to Neverdeath Graveyard.

I don't know whether I like or dislike this change, I just know that as a long-time player it feels extremely bizarre. With whole low-level zones and story arcs wiped out, it feels extremely rushed compared to the old experience... yet at the same time I'm not sure that's really a bad thing, considering I've said in the past that - in somewhat of an inversion of most games in the genre - Neverwinter's early levels used to be among the worst, largely because of how samey and front-loaded with system tutorials they were (which was alright the first time but extremely tedious on alts).

I could see it being appealing for new players to "jump into the action" more quickly, but my general experience with MMOs has been that propelling the player forward more quickly isn't necessarily more engaging either.

The lack of any sort of visible character progression with the removal of XP is also extremely strange to me. The new milestone system means that you only gain levels for completing certain quests, but until you are on one of those quests, there's no visual indicator of how close you are to the next milestone/level, so your only real motivation to keep going is sheer momentum or interest in the story, and let's be honest, with the exception of a few clever storylines, narrative has never been Neverwinter's strong suit.

I guess this also means that you will no longer have a choice of alternative levelling paths, which I can see getting rather repetitive on alts, even if the overall length of the journey has been shortened by a lot.

Barren, yet Overloaded

 ... is my briefest of day one impressions of mod 21. Barren, because that's how the Sword Coast map looks to me with seven zones removed - see below for which ones got the axe:

Overloaded, because every character has dozens of new rewards to claim for content they've already completed, and just claiming all the boxes without even opening most of them was enough to give me a slight case of inventory panic. I'll have to take all my alts through this process slowly.

Oh, and I gained a new max-level alt because my previously level 65 cleric alt that I created after Undermountain is now also at the new cap of 20.

Mod 21 Has a Name

I was starting to wonder whether the tradition to give each module a name was simply another thing Cryptic was getting rid of. But no, it's going to be called "Jewel of the North" (which is a "nickname" for the city of Neverwinter) and they uploaded a "features trailer" for it today:

Release is going to be in two weeks. Let's see how that NGE and bard class play out.

Neverwinter Turns Eight

You wouldn't be able to tell from the below image because nobody bothered to update the decorations in the stronghold, so they still have the number seven on them.

Also, the random text on this screenshot is there because for some reason my in-game screenshot functionality stopped working, so I had to use an external programme which doesn't automatically hide certain pieces of text. Such is life with Cryptic - they mean well and some of their content is very fun, but everything's always a bit of a mess.

In the Protector's Garden they took away the number on the floor and just replaced it with a lion logo. I also didn't see any numbered banners there - I guess that should future-proof the celebrations against forgetful developers at least.

I had misunderstood part of the post about the levelling revamp by the way and it's not live yet. In fact we don't have a date yet, but it's probably going to be in a few weeks.

New Class + Surprise NGE!

Apparently Neverwinter is going to go live with some huge changes next week, and they announced them... only two days ago.

The addition of bard as a new class is the least surprising bit of news, as this was already hinted at some time ago, and is very welcome (though I'm surprised they are dropping it on such short notice and with no real hype). Everything else, however...

• To be more in line with tabletop D&D, the level cap will be squished from 80 to 20.
• XP in the classic sense will go away; instead you will gain a level every time you complete a set piece of content called an "adventure".
• Some existing content will be re-tooled for this, but other zones will simply be removed. Officially they might come back later, but Cryptic has a bad track record on that front, so I'd advise anyone not to hold their breaths.

And those are only the most major of the changes.

I have no idea what to think of any of this; it just feels completely out of the blue. I only know that I struggle with it when a game that I've been playing for years decides to make major systems changes like that, and it's only been two years since Undermountain turned my Neverwinter world upside down and actively turned me away from the game for the better part of a year.

New Sharandar Episode 2

This week saw the release of the second sub-zone of New Sharandar. Mostly it's more of the same slightly awkward questing, but they changed the tuning now so that things are actually somewhat hard to kill again.

Also, for some reason it's apparently crash-tastic right now. On our first attempt at the new large heroic encounter as a guild group, the game crashed for four out of five people simultaneously, and we went on to suffer more crashes throughout our play session.

Sewers Most Fowl

I quite enjoyed the new April Fool's event that Cryptic added last year and was happy to see it return, but as my focus is currently on other MMOs I didn't really plan to grind the dailies again, plus at first glance it didn't look like anything had changed about the event. That was until I learned that this year, they also added an event dungeon called Sewers Most Fowl, in which you get to play as chickens in a group PvE context.

I did it with my guildies and it was great fun. If you enjoy this kind of thing, I can only recommend going in blind with friends and allowing yourself to be surprised - the event is on for another three days or so. Otherwise you can just watch me and my guildies bumble through it in this video:

TheLazyPeon Stumped by Neverwinter

TheLazyPeon is a well-known MMO YouTuber. The other day he released a video compilation of snippets from "failed" MMO reviews, as in games he wanted to review but gave up on for one reason or another. Most of them turned out to be indie or early access titles of some kind, so I was very surprised to see Neverwinter in there as well.

Basically Peon got bored during the starter experience on two different characters (which I can't entirely blame him for - I've said before that in an inverse of most MMORPGs, the early levels are some of the worst in Neverwinter) and then decided to try and jump straight into endgame group content by buying a level 70 character boost.

This caused him to run into an interesting problem however: 70 isn't actually the level cap anymore, there's no PvP before the cap, and most of the higher-level dungeons require some kind of unlock through completing quest content, so he still didn't have access to any queues other than the levelling ones, and those didn't seem to want to pop (I'm guessing at least in part because he was queued as dps). He eventually gave up in disgust. I always find it interesting how players manage to navigate themselves into "dead ends" in an MMO, and that was new one to me.

New Sharandar Impressions

Not a huge fan of the new campaign progression UI looking like the Redeemed Citadel one.

While the graphical fidelity in New Sharandar seems to be improved, it actually looks somewhat duller to me visually, as the increased "realism" has resulted in more muted colours for example. I liked how the older, brighter palette gave the forest a more magical feel.

More randomised quests of which you can only pick up and do two at a time = slightly meh for group play as you rarely end up with the same ones.

I guess it's intentional that this content is a bit easier again after Avernus, but at least the heroic encounters feel slightly ridiculous at the moment. The small ones finish so quickly that it's almost impossible to participate if you aren't already on top of one when it spawns, and even the zone's BHE gets obliterated in less than five minutes.