Neverwinter : Beta Impressions from Total Biscuit

Diabolus....thank you for the write up. i am so wanting to jump into this game. i was hesitant on paying for the founders packs but just might do that. rumor is that they might launch officially in April. what have you heard?
 
DurbanMonkey said:
Diabolus....thank you for the write up. i am so wanting to jump into this game. i was hesitant on paying for the founders packs but just might do that. rumor is that they might launch officially in April. what have you heard?
Click to expand...

Yea havent seen any mention of a date yet. So far pvp is disabled and crafting is disabled. I don't know if that means it is still not complete or just being tweaked. The last beta weekend being 22 march tells me open beta would be in april, with possible launch end of april if the pvp and crafting is not still being designed.

So i hope it is launched in april, because they don't want to end up delaying too much and launching with other big titles.

I mean Defiance and Marvel Heroes are launching soon too. Marvel Heroes will definitely take a bite, it being a action mmo rpg too.
 
Damn, hoped I would get into this beta. Never had a beta invite now that I think about it :P plain bad bloody luck it is.

I am very interested in trying this game, but I have developed a very fussy and picky taste for MMO's. I bought and tried GW2 and absolutely hated it, then bought Mortal Online and been playing it ever since (and finding it awesome).

Wonder if this one will get me fancy, but will see.. I hope they have an anti gold farmer spam system in mind for launch, seeing as it's all free.

That reminds me, if this is P2W I'm not bothering, I'd rather pay a sub :(
 
Regarding "builds" . Basically similar to Secret World or Guild Wars 1 , you got an "action bar" where you can slot abilities. So far i can slot 2 passives, 3 encounter abilities, 2 At-Will , and 2 Daily abilities. So even though you have a lot more abilities , that's what you get to work with in actual combat. You can however, change what is slotted anytime, there is a 10 second cooldown if you switch abilities in the slot, so you most likely won't be doing it in combat.

In other words, you will most likely build a "deck" for a specific role, the Encounter powers seems to be the most diverse, so it looks to be primarily those 3 slots that you'd manage the most. The At-Will so far for me is 2 abilities only which gets upgraded every few levels.

After going further with my cleric, the mechanics definitely get more interesting. Cleric got a whole "divinity" mechanic which kinda give you another set of skills with in turn boost your encounter abilities. However you need to use your At-Will abilities to "charge" your divinity, and when it's charged to your liking you switch to this divinity mode (which will in turn discharge as you use its powers). So at least it's not straight forward.



The other classes have the same action bar, so i expect it will work in the same way. Instead of the "divinity" mechanic they will have something else there.

gimaru said:
That reminds me, if this is P2W I'm not bothering, I'd rather pay a sub
Click to expand...


As for pay to win, yea, so far, the currency is this "Astral Diamonds" , which works the same as GW2 Gems. So , you get gold to do minor things, and then you need the Astral Diamonds to do bigger things. At the moment the auction house runs on these Diamonds (not gold), so that's not too great right now. There's also seemingly two merchants for everything, 1 merchant dealing in gold, and 1 dealing in astral diamonds (the even have a icon on top of their heads indicating in what currency they deal). So you will see like 2 Armor Merchants next to each other and well, you know what this means.

I assume there will also be an actual "diamond store" too, on top of these merchants.

No idea if this is how it will go into release, but i would not hold my breath on the "pay 2 win" thing, as so far you can buy all kinds of gear with the astral diamonds.

I must add, you CAN earn astral diamonds inside the game, without paying $$$ . They have this feature where you pray to your deity, once an hour and you get a reward (random), and i already got a bunch of Astral Diamonds from that. Not sure where else you earn them.
 
Last edited:
Images of what i'm talking about the Stores/Currencies. The diamond icon vs. gold icon on the 2 merchants. In that area there's also Armor/Jewelry/etc merchants, all being this "Duo" setup.

Also looking at the prices of the items, the 128k/500k astral diamonds you get with the Founders packs suddenly does not seem all that much, unless a "Longsword +5" is extremely rare and expensive in this game. Maybe they will adjust the pricing, don't know.

Untitledstore1.jpg
Untitledstore2.jpg
Untitledstore3.jpg
Untitledstore4.jpg
 
Last edited:
Diabolus, uncertain if you would be able to answer me this early in the beta, but I am obsessed with defense in mmo's.

Is it possible to stack passive blocking and/or parrying stats in the game? My play style is usually pure defense, and counter striking if applicable. Or is blocking/parrying an active skill only without need of stats?
 
Gimaru said:
Diabolus, uncertain if you would be able to answer me this early in the beta, but I am obsessed with defense in mmo's.

Is it possible to stack passive blocking and/or parrying stats in the game? My play style is usually pure defense, and counter striking if applicable. Or is blocking/parrying an active skill only without need of stats?
Click to expand...

Well there is a Defense and Deflect stat. The fighter's block seem to linked to a "guard meter" which absorbs damage up to a point, this you can improve with feats and such.

See screens below, there is a specific "paragon tree" for being more defensive, and it improves things like mitigation/defence/deflect/threat.

Also if i look at the stats on the gear, it's also defense/deflecting and AC (armor class) etc.

All the classes can improve those stats, either via feats or gear. A few minutes with my Fighter, can say it's not all that bad, you definitely won't be doing any active dodging like the other classes, but you need to time your blocks instead. You also get a nice charge ability right at the start, making it more fun to move towards targets.

See screenies :
Untitledc1.jpg
Untitledc2.jpg
Untitledc3.jpg
 
Thank you for the into. Well interesting.

I love to make near invincible shield tanks :P I hope it be possible.
 
Last edited:
Not too sure if they are following DnD rules to the letter. +5 weapons are the best you can get, they might move beyond that. So from an old timer DnD player, a +5 weapon is well within the realm of expense there.

So you are saying that there are 2 player markets, one trading diamonds and one gold? So you can sell and buy player placed AH items from either? Or is the player market only diamond driven?
 
Shrike said:
Not too sure if they are following DnD rules to the letter. +5 weapons are the best you can get, they might move beyond that. So from an old timer DnD player, a +5 weapon is well within the realm of expense there.

So you are saying that there are 2 player markets, one trading diamonds and one gold? So you can sell and buy player placed AH items from either? Or is the player market only diamond driven?
Click to expand...

I only saw an AH dealing in diamonds, didn't see a gold AH. There are all kinds of diamond merchants standing around in the game and the usual gold merchants also. Instead of having a "cash shop" like with LOTRO, they seemed to have opted for a more "in game" approach with the different merchants actually having their shops right there. I'm not sure if there's a mechanism to exchange gold for astral diamonds .

I also noticed other "currencies" called "seals" (and merchants dealing in those currencies) . This looks like the equivalent of "reputation" , which i assume you get from doing certain dungeons or events or PvP. Not sure if there is specific factions or deities which you need to gain reputation with, i didn't see anything in the interface like that though.

And yes, i also recall even +4 weapons was top of the crop.
 
Last edited:
From the one gaming video I watched, the commentator stated that seals are dungeon boss drops that you use to buy gear with. They seem to have gone with both random boss drops AND "tokens" at the same time. Got a beta key which should work for next time too. I am dead set against playing demos of MMOs but I might just take a look at this and see if my latency will handle the action play, before I spend R500 buying the guard pack. The dollar exchange rate SUCKS for gamers right now.
 
Also, it seems you can "tip" authors of Foundry content (as you complete it) , so i assume they can make money that way too.

The moment you complete the foundry mission, you are presented with a screen where you can review + rate + tip the content.

The few missions that were there ranged from 5 minute "kill 10 mobs in the street for me quickly" to a whopping 125 minute dungeon crawler. So options are endless i suppose.
 
Shrike said:
From the one gaming video I watched, the commentator stated that seals are dungeon boss drops that you use to buy gear with. They seem to have gone with both random boss drops AND "tokens" at the same time. Got a beta key which should work for next time too. I am dead set against playing demos of MMOs but I might just take a look at this and see if my latency will handle the action play, before I spend R500 buying the guard pack. The dollar exchange rate SUCKS for gamers right now.
Click to expand...

Aah cool, wasn't sure where one got the seals, i assumed it was something like that. So far i haven' had any issues with latency, there are a few animation glitches , but seems alot of people have that, not sure if it has to do with lag or rendering. I had alot more latency issues in DCUO to make a comparison, and i felt DCUO was still more "twitchy" . Neverwinter's combat is actiony, but i wouldn't say it's extremely twitchy.
 
Here's a nice intro gameplay video with commentary made this weekend , guy is playing the Control Wizard. So if you are wondering about Beta, this is basically it. The guy is playing as complete noob, so he is discovering things as he goes along too.


Also notice what that magic missile is doing on the 3rd click, like TERA you also have a type of combo thing.
 
Last edited:
Sheesh, they are sure aiming at milking people who want to pay them money, makes sense I suppose. I ran around in the beta for a few minutes, hit the big city. A normal horse works at 60% speed, costs a few gold. A cash shop horse works at 200% and can cost you up to $20 worth. Eina.

From what I see the cash shop is the usual: convenience and fashion, no P2W straight up.

Not very impressed with the graphics. I can see how it is only 3 gigs of data. On the other hand, if the game manages to deliver a true DnD experience with player made quests and dungeons, the graphics are not the most important part. We used to play this with nothing but paper, pencils and our imagination.

Definitely give this a go and see how much the end game keeps me playing and how much the player made content keeps me going.
 
Yea, the graphics does feel a bit of a let down initially, but after awhile it didn't really bother me. I think it's sufficient to get the story/content across and enough for foundry to create good looking campaigns.

And yes, the game being free to play, without any up front costs at all, it has to get money somewhere. So i'm expecting alot more "unlocks" than even in GuildWars 2 , requiring money. In the end, i don't really care whether you can buy uber gear with $$$ , i see this game as PvE first with a PvP second, so you're not exactly "winning" anyone but yourself here. Besides, with my limited time, i am quite guilty of buying myself out of a grind :)
 
Last edited:
Been thinking about the Foundry component of the game. The idea has been growing on me. Depending on how accessible it is and how it works, you can easily build your own "housing".

I wonder if they are going to sell Foundry content in the cash shop.
 
Shrike said:
Been thinking about the Foundry component of the game. The idea has been growing on me. Depending on how accessible it is and how it works, you can easily build your own "housing".

I wonder if they are going to sell Foundry content in the cash shop.
Click to expand...

Well i do know the foundry will be a game for the creators in itself. Looks like you will also get levels / upgrades the better and more popular your content is. These upgrades probably implies more assets/maps/npcs to work with. I imagine there will be a cash shop for creators too...

And i suppose creators will make money too, not sure if they will make 'premium' content which costs money, but you can already donate via the tips as you complete a mission (if i remember correctly)
 
Last edited:
Guess i'll be playing this beta, i see they are activating PvP, so will check that out.

I just came out the Defiance Beta, irony is, Defiance is launching 2 April, Neverwinter doesn't even have a date. Neverwinter is by far more polished than Defiance. Sometimes you just need to be in a real beta to get perspective, Neverwinter is pretty solid for something that doesn't have a launch date yet.

And while i wait for it to start, Trickster Rogue in action.

I think alot of people is going to play rogue here, especially since they are the only ones that can disarm traps. I believe the Guardian can -see- traps though, but can't disarm, the rest, well they can't see or disarm.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top