Strake wrote on Apr 27
th, 2023 at 4:44pm:
Whew... I dunno if there's enough space for even a tl;dr. I'll just give a couple of highlights:
1) Not enough new content. Content drips out at a terrible pace.
This might not itself be a problem if the resource gathering/crafting/sandbox elements of the game are strong enough. This is explicitly the problem with DDO: the ONLY thing there is to do is run dungeons. But it sounds like NW didn't have a strong enough lateral game either.
Strake wrote on Apr 27
th, 2023 at 4:44pm:
2) Adopting the idea that "grind == content." No, replaying the same content over and over and over does not count as new content.
Again it kinda depends on what else there is to do. Again, sounds like "not much".
Strake wrote on Apr 27
th, 2023 at 4:44pm:
3) They did something similar to epic dungeons in DDO, but didn't actually do any mechanics changes - they just added annoying things like puddles that harm you or limitations on how many times you can dodge (in addition to the standard HP/dmg upscaling). And, again, this was just repeating the same content we'd been playing forever, but now with acid puddles!
Oof. That sucks. Even SSG did better with fucking retarded "reaper mode". The truly sad part is its just not hard to mix it up with these things. All you need is a tiny iota of ingenuity and some creativity.
Strake wrote on Apr 27
th, 2023 at 4:44pm:
4) Lack of separation of PvP and PvE. PvP players tend to be a very vocal group of whiners, always wanting everything but their preferred weapon/mode of play to be nerfed. But when there is no separation between PvP and PvE, nerfing with an eye towards PvP can have very bad effects on PvE, and vice versa.
This is, aside from giving the bad guys paladins, why I quit DDO. I strictly play PvE and the game was FUCKING CONSTANTLY being nerfed for PvP balance issues. Reason 1 why I will never again set foot in a PvP-focused MMO ever again.
Strake wrote on Apr 27
th, 2023 at 4:44pm:
5) Lack of care regarding QoL. This game doesn't allow for alts - you get one character per server, that's it. But, it's a "classless" game, where every character can be every class. So, that's cool, but it means your character needs a full set of gear for every class you play. Okay, that makes sense... but it gets worse. You need specific gear for each dungeon. You're familiar with monster bane effects, but here they also have monster ward effects (the same as bane, but in reverse - take x% less damage from monster type X). So you need a full set of gear for every dungeon x every class. Plus a full set of gear for each type of crafting. And each type of gathering. And for PvP for each class.
It's nothing short of insane. We're talking something like 30 sets of gear, and that's if you're only playing one class. But I didn't even get to the best part: gearsets didn't exist. At all. You had to search through your inventory (or the 30 different bank inventories) to find every single piece of gear in your set and apply them individually.
An MMO that doesn't do anything for player QoL, you say? Gosh, I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing before. /sarcasm.
Strake wrote on Apr 27
th, 2023 at 4:44pm:
6) Stupid decisions. A while back, a vocal group of idiots on the forum started calling for "fresh start" servers, saying they or their friends really wanted to play NW but were turned off by reports of past exploits and duping. They wanted new servers that could not be transferred into. Which kinda sounded like a good idea, except it would have the effect of further splintering a dwindling player population (that was already a critical issue, because of the next bullet).
But did they acquiesce to this request? If so the game deserves to fail.
Strake wrote on Apr 27
th, 2023 at 4:44pm:
7) Server population. This game is incredibly dependent on having just the right population on a server. Too much population results in severe resource competition, making it difficult to play large portions of the game. Not enough population and a large portion of the content (PvE and PvP) became unplayable/unattainable. And this window was pretty small - 500-1500 active daily players seemed to be the good range.
That's something I actually know about - apparently this was a key feature of NW's design and so server mergers and server transfers were heavily tested before the game went live, with the plan being to balance the population dynamically. Smart idea really, but becomes and issue with the aforementioned fractured player bases.
Strake wrote on Apr 27
th, 2023 at 4:44pm:
8) Poor balancing. Some metas have stuck around for a long time, mostly because their advantage was so far ahead of the nearest alternate option that there really was no option at all. For example, armor. Heavy armor would absorb more damage, but light armor gave you 20% more dps and the ability to dodge out of harm's way. Then there were damage mitigation effects related to dodging that were better than heavy armor in their own right.
In other words, light armor had better damage, armor, and mobility. For more than a year. They recently nerfed it pretty hard, but it's still the meta.
Meta will happen. But it should never be that far ahead of alternate options... and certainly not for that long.
Metas become a much bigger problem in PvP-focused games. I tried Archeage while back, that game had it BAD. Like "fuck your mother and your sister" bad.
Honestly, the only time a properly-built game needs a nerf is when 90% of the player base are playing the same thing. It doesn't matter how much objectively "better" one is as long as the player base is still spread around.
Strake wrote on Apr 27
th, 2023 at 4:44pm:
9) Poor random grouping. "Outpost Rush", or OPR, is a 20-30 vs 20-30 PvP match. You can sign up as a group or solo. The problem is that OPR basically comes down to "whomever has a pocket healer wins." And premade groups tend to have a healer in their group.
Maybe it's just a (common) (mis-)perception, but it seems premade groups always end up on the same side. Even if that's just a feeling and not real, it is definitely the case that there is often severe imbalance between healers on either side. The long and short of it is that if you are joining as a solo player (or a group without a healer), you will most likely lose.
Same goes for their 3v3 random arenas. Any group without a healer automatically loses, and premades almost always win over solo queuers.
Well duh. If you have a group of friends you play with, defined roles, and good communication, you're going to do better than a bunch of random puggers.
But, at the end of the day, this is why PvP in MMOs is just fucking retarded. If you balance it to the point where its fair, you end up with a glorified FPS. If you allow the mechanics that make RPGs fun, you can't balance it enough to where one specific build will have an advantage over others. And if you are creating a game with deep enough build mechanics to actually be INTERESTING, then balance becomes some even harder thing than impossible.
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