NeverWinter MMO

[garbon]

Odd that review doesn't make it sound very good or superbly made.

[Syt]

Which I guess why he says in the first paragraph he isn't quite sure why he enjoys it as much as he did.

Though I don't blame him. I'm similar. "Oh, a new MMO! I'm having fun!" => Week/month later: "Well, this is boring now, let's move on."

[crazy canuck]

The combat seems a bit too much like an old school arcade game - it seems combat boils down to targeting an enemy with your sights and clicking - a lot.  Also running from quest to quest on a linear line is boring after playing GW2.  Simply have to pick up quests before doing anything meaningful seems like a huge step back now. Still in the early game so I am not sure if all of it is like this.  But if it is I would get bored very quickly.

Lastly there is no real challenge to this game.  I keep getting health potion drops but I have yet to have any need to use them.  Come to think of it the concept of health potions and not instantly healing after battles is a bit odd after playing GW2.

[frunk]

Anybody else find it weird that you stand in a fire to get healed?  At first I thought I was taking damage with those numbers popping up.

[crazy canuck]

so it turns out characters are not going to be wiped when the game is formally launched.  This is more like an early open soft launch for people willing to put up with the early problems all MMOs go through with servers etc.

[crazy canuck]

This is starting to grow on me a bit.  Only played a few hours and I am only up to level 10 but once you get used to the combat movement and the double tap/shift keys to avoid attacks/kite it starts to bet more fun.  Also I was doing too much clicking.  You can hold down the attack button.  Unless you want to move - then it gets more involved.

I, of course, rolled a cleric, and after reading through the posts on how the healing mechanics work I think this could be fun (ie no fixating on health bars in this game).

Also, a word about generation your beginning stats - this isnt like DnD where only a couple really matter.  All stats are going to be beneficial to you in some way regardless of your class.  A stat of 10 is no bonus.  Anything below gives negatives.  anything above gives a bonus.  The bonuses and penalties are a multiple of the amount over (or below) 10.

So when you are rolling stats keep in mind that having a 20 in one stat may not be worth it if it costs you penalties in other stats. 

[Iormlund]

I keep getting health potion drops but I have yet to have any need to use them.

You obviously didn't pick Great Weapon Fighter.




As for my general opinion, I agree with pretty much all said (especially the first paragraph of the RPS review).


I can also point at the one thing that will kill this for me: €6 to respec your char.

[crazy canuck]

I keep getting health potion drops but I have yet to have any need to use them.

You obviously didn't pick Great Weapon Fighter.




As for my general opinion, I agree with pretty much all said (especially the first paragraph of the RPS review).


I can also point at the one thing that will kill this for me: €6 to respec your char.

Yeah, I read the forums and stayed well away from that.

So far I have played a cleric, wizard and Guardian Fighter to 11-14.

The Cleric is a bit uninspiring.  The healing is all hot (its impossible to actually target the guy who needs a direct healing spell).  As a result healing in this game is in the background rather than the "oh my god you just saved me" sort of reaction in other games.  On top of that the dps is week.  So, like the bad old days of WoW (before dual specs) the healer is hard to kill but takes for ever to kills stuff.

The wizard is a hoot but it takes a while to get the game play down.  Lots of cast, teleport, cast, teleport and making sure you are teleporting in the right direction.  But dps is high and the controlling spells in pvp are a lot of fun (until a rogue targets you and then its not so fun...)

The Guardian Fighter can do some good dps and cleave is a great tool for aoe clearing of trash.  Pvp was fun too.  Putting up block while a rogue burns all his encounter skills on you and then killing him at leisure is fun.  So is putting up block to guard the team members behind from range attacks while they burn down their targets.  Less mobility and control then the rogue and wizard but with a little situational awarness this class can make all the difference in pvp battles.  There is a lot of qq on the forums about people not being able to maintain aggro as a tank.  I think that is mainly because they dont understand how marking works.  In this system aggro is not generated for tanks by attacking - but rather defending and allowing their marks to tick away.  Tanks cant out dps wizards and rogues so if they try to build aggro doing that it is a losing proposition.

There is a lot to do in this game other than grind out quests (my least favourite part of the game).  You could level just by doing skirmishes (special instanced quick dungeons), adventures written by other players accessable through the Foundry and running regular dungeons.

It also looks like you go do most everything you would want without having to pay a dime.  I paid 5 bucks to get my third character slot.  Other than that I didnt feel the need to pay for any of the other perks.

[Iormlund]

I would gladly pay for more character slots. I've got all 5 Diablo III classes at 60 and had like 6 classes at 85 in WoW. I'm an altoholic.


I don't mind the Cleric style in principle. I loved my smiting priest in WoW. The complexity of juggling damage and healing, all those CDs and buffs really kept me from getting bored as it happened with the shaman.

I've set aside my GWF for now. I ran the Mad Dragon dungeon with a pug last evening with disastrous results (lots of fun for me but people don't like to wipe). So I'll be waiting for my mates to reach level 30+ to try again with them. The class itself is beginning to grow on me. My only gripe now is that I can't get out of crap in time because I'm often stuck in a seemingly never-ending animation (plus maybe high latency). This really hurt with all the Magi in the Dragon.

Meanwhile I've created a tank as well. It's much better than GWF in everything. More DPS, faster questing, blocking overrides at-will animation and to top it off it is ridiculously fun in PvP as you point out.
I would really like to try the vaguely worded Tactician capstone feat (Martial Mastery). Alas, with ZEN respecs I'll probably go with a tried and tested DPS/PvP build and move on when I get tired.

[frunk]

Things I've liked so far:

Professions (crafting) is more fun than in GW2.  I like that I put my hirelings to working making things (or guarding things with the mercenary) and I get stuff after a while. 
Zen (the real money currency) is purchaseable with in-game currency.  Just like in GW2 you can buy the real money stuff with money or effort, or a combination of the two.
The player community is coming up with some fun adventures with the Foundry.  I've been disappointed by GW2's post release content, but something like this breathes a lot of life into a game.


Things I haven't liked:

Not being able to change movement direction (or react in combat) when inventory or character browsing is thoroughly annoying and isn't getting less so.  Particularly since...
There's a lot of walking.  I haven't found a way to teleport unless you buy/have scrolls, but managing that is so much more troublesome than just popping up the map and jumping/paying where you want to go (ala GW2).
Attack skills seem to root you while you use them, which is another letdown after GW2's fluid combat.

Both this and GW2 have a blizzard of currencies, half of which appear to be pointless or at best a needless complication.  Neverwinter lets you track them all in a single screen, but that doesn't make it any less of a pain.  They should be kept to a manageable and clearly understandable set:
Real Money (Gems in GW2, Zen in Neverwinter)
In Game Cash (Gold/Silver/Copper in both, Astral Diamonds in Neverwinter)
Experience (Same in both)
Non-Transferable "Achievement" awards (Karma, Laurels, Glory, Skill points, Achievements in GW2, Glory, Seal of the Drake, Celestial Coins and many others in Neverwinter)

I'd really rather not have this ridiculous number of non-transferable award currencies running around.  Maybe one for PvE, one for PvP and that should be it.  They are effectively saying they don't trust the market mechanisms for certain key aspects of the game, and want to wall them up into their individual areas.  Fine, but don't subdivide it into a bunch of confusing and messy different currencies.

[crazy canuck]

Attack skills seem to root you while you use them, which is another letdown after GW2's fluid combat.

That is the biggest issue for me playing a wizard but the mechanic is different with guardian fighters who can move while blocking and attacking (although at a slower rate).

[frunk]

I think the Neverwinter economy has the same mistake that GW 2 has.  Earlier this year GW 2 added laurels.  They let you get the best equipment by doing dailies and instantly made it one of the most important currencies in the game.  Neverwinter has Astral Diamonds, which is generally the most flexible and valuable currency in the game.  This is primarily earned by doing dailies, having your professions earn them or buying them with real money (Zen).  So, I can get most of the daily maximum of that currency by running a few dailies and checking up on my professions. 

I know both are meant to let casual players compete with the hardcore, but I think it's a mistake that arises from trying to limit access to the best possible equipment.   I'd prefer if both went the GW 1 route, where max equipment was pretty easy to acquire, and what differentiated players was their builds (and what specific equipment they chose).  That lets you experiment with the best, see what you like and switch to different builds relatively easily.  Now, I'm not that interested in doing much other than the dailies and then logging out because extra effort isn't going to get me that much closer to the best unless I start spending real money.  When I do earn enough I'll have to make permanent and irrevocable (at least until I earn enough to rebuy) decisions on my build.

Effectively the supposed casual friendly system actually makes it that much more hardcore.

[crazy canuck]

I agree completely.  The number one thing that turned me off this game is the realization that I would have to grind dailies to get good equipment.  As you quite rightly pointed out, this does not appeal to casaul gamers like me but rather it appeals most to the people that can spend hours a day grinding out the rewards - and still play the rest of the game.

As a casual player, I would rather just play through the game.

[sbr]

I have mostly lost interest in the game too, which sucks because my friends are still playing it and liking it.

I'm not too concerned with grinding for best gear, I just  really wanted to hit 60 so I could play with my friends, most f whom are already there.  I just can't seem to get past level 38 though.

And I bought Skyrim and played that all weekend instead of NWO.

[Tamas]

I am not sure about all this completition talk. Why on earth would you want to PvP this game? There are countless PvP-focused options out there.

For PVE? What kind of competition is there? You don't need blue and purple itesm to defeat the mobs.