Coming Up

The undisputed meh-ness of Heart of Fire has caused my pet tank and me to give Neverwinter the cold shoulder for the past month, especially as we had much more entertaining alternatives to play, but that doesn't mean that I stopped caring about what Cryptic will bring out next. So I was pleased to find out that they just announced the next module, which will be called Undermountain.

Unfortunately, based on what else they announced, it sounds like this will be another module heavily focused on systems changes, including but not limited to changing the very names of classes, changing how tanking and healing works, removing feats and power points, changing item and level scaling, changing the way stats work - which includes the removal of recovery and lifesteal, which is huge - and the raising of the level cap to 80.

The reason I started the above sentence with "unfortunately" is that while all the explanations given for these in the linked dev blogs sound reasonable enough (Healing is currently pointless? You don't say!), Cryptic has a history of being very bad at getting balancing right, so I expect the launch of an expansion with this many gameplay changes to be an utter disaster. Plus the level cap increase, something that would be a normal and happy event in many other MMOs, brings up memories of Elemental Evil, Neverwinter's worst module ever. (There were many things wrong with Elemental Evil and not all of those had something to do with the level cap increase, but it was certainly a contributing factor.)

So I'll be keeping an eye on what else they announce for Undermountain - I'll definitely want to check it out at some point, but based on past experience probably not at launch.

(As an aside, while reading up on this piece of news I learned that Neverwinter Unblogged is shutting down - that is a great shame and a huge loss, as this site was a big part in keeping me up-to-date with what was going on in the game and often provided very helpful info for a more casual player like me.)

Too Much Info

One of the things I don't like about Neverwinter is that a character's power level is an extremely complex construct and made up of way too many different parts. My character sheet lists more than forty different stats, and even though not all of them can be found on gear, that is only the beginning.

There are also your basic D&D attributes (strength, wisdom etc.), paragon paths, feats (talents), powers, boons, on-use powers on artifacts, not to be confused with artifact powers on your main- and off-hand, enchantments, overload enchantments (totally different), armour kits, active and passive bonuses bestowed by certain companions, active and passive abilities granted by certain mounts, insignia bonuses from mounts (even though the stable system has been in game for over a year, I literally only learned how these work the other day), and I wouldn't be surprised if there was more that I'm forgetting right now.

I pretty much ignore half of this stuff to be honest and it hasn't really hindered my ability to complete basic quest content. But there is huge potential for min-maxing here, creating a wide gulf between those who can be bothered to figure it all out and those who don't. Plus every time Cryptic adds a new system to the mix, I can't help but suspect that it's mostly meant to give them yet another thing to sell in the store or to put into lockboxes. People are less likely to cry about pay-to-win if they can't even keep track of all the different ways in which you can increase your power.

I Hate Respeccing

The biggest obstacle to getting me back into the game right now has been the fact that all my characters had some of their powers and feats reset in the last couple of months. From reading other MMO blogs I've gathered that there are a fair number of people who enjoy trying out different builds and who love games that encourage them to do so frequently. For me it's the exact opposite though.

In my main game I can just about deal with having my talents reset, but in one I play more casually, like Neverwinter, having to re-assign points to abilities I can barely even remember becomes a huge obstacle to getting me back into the game. Fortunately I managed to sit down today and "get on with it" on all three of my characters. Even if my new builds are terrible (which they probably are), at least I can get back to playing.

Endless Levelling

One thing I find interesting about Neverwinter is that once you hit the level cap of sixty, your experience bar doesn't go away. You keep gaining experience as before, but instead of actually levelling up, you receive a "level-up reward" every time you fill the bar. This usually consists of some minor enchantments, similar to what you might find in some treasure chests, but you also have a chance of gaining an additional power point and therefore unlocking additional abilities. This doesn't actually make you more powerful, as the amount of abilities you can have on your bars at the same time remains the same, but it increases your options and saves you from having to reassign your power points if you want to try something new.

Personally I don't actually care that much about the extra power points, but I like this system nonetheless. Hitting max level in any MMO is an achievement, but if you actually enjoy levelling, it can also feel a little disappointing - a bit like hitting a wall. Retaining your experience bar softens this blow somewhat, and you can continue to enjoy that feeling of levelling up even as you start to dip your toes into endgame content. Of course the rewards lose their luster after a while, as they are really not that great, but by then you will hopefully have had enough time to get sufficiently engaged by the endgame instead.

Limited Action Sets Suck

One thing I don't like about Neverwinter is the limited action set, meaning that while you have access to X abilities in theory, you can only have Y of them on your action bar at any time, with Y being a much, much smaller number than X. I can just about tolerate the system in this game (though I'll yell "Gah! Need to change my bars around again!" occasionally), but I don't understand why this seems to be becoming the new trend in MMOs. Supposedly it encourages interesting decisions. I disagree with this for two reasons.

1) A lot of the time, these "interesting" decisions are actually no-brainers. As a Devoted Cleric, it's obvious that I'll need some dps abilities while I'm out questing, but want to have heals available when I'm running a dungeon. All the limited action set achieves is that it forces me into a lot of frantic UI fiddling every time I get a dungeon queue pop while I'm out in the world doing something else.

2) When there actually are interesting decisions to be made because ability A might work well on the first boss, but ability B might be better for the second one... the decision of whether to use A or B would still be there even if I could access all of my abilities! I suppose you could argue that it's more "meaningful" if it has to be either-or, but in my opinion that additional meaning is not worth the drawback of having to constantly adjust your UI.

In practice, what ends up happening to me at least, is that I just end up trying to eliminate the need for decisions (and the associated ability swapping) by building a set that has a little bit of everything, even if it isn't great for anything, and then never changing it again.