Neverwinter : Beta Impressions from Total Biscuit

Well I got rolled back 3 levels, so that's hours of playing and a bunch of items lost. So I'll be taking a break from this game for a bit methinks.

Yea, same here, this freaking sucks. The only time i could play this weekend and i lost all the progress :(
 
Well at least we're getting goodies for that rollback:

http://nw.perfectworld.com/news/?p=894471

Update: All characters that have been created before 6:00 A.M. Tuesday, May 21, 2013, will receive the Caturday Survivor’s Pack, which will appear in your in-game mail as an attachment to the message, “You Survived!” The items within the Caturday Survivor’s Pack are bound to each character that receives it.
 
So expert dungeon runners out there, how are you handling leveling past the dungeon level? It's now happened twice with me, resulting in the inability to queue for it. Isn't that a little counter-intuitive? So far all i could do was going to the actual area, standing in front of the entrance and do the manual "LFG" in the zone channel.

I was hoping for something more elegant, especially considering that finding a group in any other area for a dungeon of lower level seems to be futile.

(So let that be a tip for others, do the dungeons while you're within its level range, even if you have to stop your Foundry mission to prevent leveling ;-) )

Also, on another topic regarding the classes. I read there are some very unhappy chappies with the classes, especially with Guardian Fighter and Great Weapon Fighter , seems they are seen as a "waste of a group slot" in the later dungeons, is this true? I've now leveled a Rogue and Wizard to about lvl 30, both relatively fun. The rogue is becoming a little stale to my taste, they do alot of DPS and all, but i'm missing some form of "tactics" other than spamming a routine. Wizard so far got some options with some type of tactics thrown in. I rolled a GF and went a few levels, but i could clearly see there is a bit of a problem here, the class is set up to be defensive but yet doesn't seem to get sufficient tools to be a tank, or at least he boss fights doesn't seem to warrant classic tanking.
 
Doing epic dungeons now (same dungeons as before, just harder mobs). So yes, outlevelling dungeons happens, but you get to revisit them later. I missed a few skirmish maps, those are lost forever ;-(.

GF and GWF are both "wasted" group slots in the power groups which all consist of 2 clerics, 2 wizards and rogue etc. Tanking does not happen due to the overpowered astral shield ability that clerics have, you can keep them up all the time and 2 clerics stack. So almost 60% damage reduction from 2 astral shields plus healing from the same ability. So its all about wizards controlling/dps and rogue dps for speed runs.

The average pug from a queue doesn't happen like that though.

Level your wizard, definately seems to be the best dungeon class next to clerics, until they nerf astral shield stacking.

A few minutes after hitting 60 I doubled my gear score with some cheap purchases. All the dungeon loot, epic items are BOE, you can literally skip tier 1 dungeons with about 200k AD. Yeay for P2W ;-)

Edit: yes, the tanking is really bad. One hit from a boss kills the tank shield, pointless really.
 
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My next character is going to be a CW and I will almost exclusively level her through the foundry. The downside there is that you cannot queue up for dungeons if you are doing foundry quests. As soon as you port into a dungeon group, the foundry quest is reset. Painful.
 
My next character is going to be a CW and I will almost exclusively level her through the foundry. The downside there is that you cannot queue up for dungeons if you are doing foundry quests. As soon as you port into a dungeon group, the foundry quest is reset. Painful.

So it would seem that all dungeons from the Mad Dragon onwards are going to feature the same stupid boss mechanics of overwhelming you with mobs and no actual interesting boss mechanics.

Seeing as how the dungeons are my main reason for playing this game, I think I'm going to stay away until they make some serious changes to these encounters, because right now there are far more interesting games to spend my free hours on... :(
 
Well my wizard seem well suited for that kind of boss mechanics. It is just aggro that becomes a problem, i pull aggro on adds particularly easy. It is probably no surprise, since i am throwing AOEs all over the a place. I'm even contemplating dropping a very powerful CC ability in favor of more AOE, simply because it doesn't work on bosses. That choke-in-the-air thing, does nothing on bosses, not even damage, not sure if it's a bug (the lack of damage) , but the inability to CC the bosses is pretty much something i've seen in all MMOs. So suddenly a wizards freeze and chokes/dazes become useless. It is good on minor bosses though.

I was also surprised with the Paragon stuff , i get there and then there isn't really a choice? CW only got the one Paragon "discipline" . I'm not talking about the Feat trees, i was expecting 3 "sub classes" at lvl 30, but instead i have to be this Stormchaser Wizard effect. It does say "coming soon" when you pick the only option there is , is this like that for all classes?

As for dungeons and skirmishes , i see alot of GWFs , not alot of Clerics and i suppose normal amount of Rogues and Wizards in a group (1 of each). Skirmishes seemed to have become mini dungeons or something, initially it was kind of like a stand-off where you fend of waves of enemies, the last 2 was full on dungeon runs that are just shorter (normally only 1 boss) . So not quite sure why they are called Skirmishes.

I am actually glad about the founder's pack, that dire wolf and mount is coming very much in handy. My wolf is now one of my best companions. Everyone is running around with that rather flimsy cleric companion, but my Wolf, at lvl 19 is not only tanking and keeping aggro (surprisingly) but does some crazy damage. Still trying to level the Phoera (fire phoenix) too, which is more of an AOE companion, but my wolf is just kicking arse.
 
So it would seem that all dungeons from the Mad Dragon onwards are going to feature the same stupid boss mechanics of overwhelming you with mobs and no actual interesting boss mechanics.(

Exactly that. Many have complained about this. The only real variation between bosses are the looks, locations and mobs they throw at you. Sure the crap on the floor is different, but it is still something you must dodge while killing adds and then notching down the boss a few, rinse and repeat.

Only thing keeping me playing at the moment is my guild and the fact that I have not as yet actually played any foundry content. Got 2 more characters to experiment with.

Rest assured, as soon as TESO or Wildstar hits, I am looking for greener pastures.
 
I was also surprised with the Paragon stuff , i get there and then there isn't really a choice? CW only got the one Paragon "discipline" . I'm not talking about the Feat trees, i was expecting 3 "sub classes" at lvl 30, but instead i have to be this Stormchaser Wizard effect. It does say "coming soon" when you pick the only option there is , is this like that for all classes?

Yep every class only has one paragon tree. No variation as yet, I guess its still coming. You have some variation in your paragon tree, but thats it.

Agreed about the founders pack, having a fast horse at 20 is great and the wolf is also wonderful to have.
 
Rest assured, as soon as TESO or Wildstar hits, I am looking for greener pastures.

Well there is Marvel Heroes launching in a week ;-) . I played some Beta, and it plays like Diablo , but works like Neverwinter. In other words, there's open shared zones where everyone is fighting and doing quests and you go into these instances where it's just you / group . The main thing that was interesting was their take on this "superhero collecting" thing. You can have multiple heroes and each of them is basically a "class" with its own powers and own levels, but you can switch between any of them at any time. Kinda like Rift's Souls/Builds , but each build is a superhero. So from that angle i think it might be quite interesting , especially for those of us who tend to have alt-titus.

But yea, it's still just an actiony casual game. Here's to hoping TESO or Wildstar is more "technical" or "complex" .
 
So we tried Lair of the Mad Dragon last night, maaaaan, we couldn't finish it :( . So you roffelstomp the entire dungeon for like 30-40 minutes and then get nailed on the final boss? Sucks. So beware, you probably need a guild group or a very cooperative PUG or some extra levels (we were between lvl 32 and 35). The group i was in was pretty cooperative, we tried a few strats, but ultimately we kept getting overwhelmed by all the adds.

The boss itself isn't a big deal, just a lot of HP. It's all the adds that spawned. We had it under control, tank picking all of them up but in the last 30% these giant elite like devils started spawning and things kept going bad from there. I was also popping pots like a maniac, so i dunno, not a great fight. I was hoping there was a point to burning down the adds and focus on the boss, but it seemed the faster we burn down the adds, the faster they spawn!

The skirmish in the same level range , on the other hand, is alot of fun, especially if you're AOE orientated.
 
Hitting a "bleh" moment in Neverwinter, got a character to max level, did some "end game" content and as usual when I get there in an MMO, I don't see the point. Usually I "retire" an end game character and relegate them to a farmer role to kit out alts with crafting etc.

In neverwinter, there is no real point to that. Gear for alts are easy to get and don't make such a huge difference that you feel you need to.

Tried to run foundry quests, some are fun but some are really crap. When an NPC says things like "Sweet! Thanks for getting me this orb dude." I despair and I lose all ties to my "suspension of disbelief" and flake out after that.

Besides, not being able to really queue up for dungeons/skirmishes in foundry missions (you can, but you lose all progress if you take the summons to the skirmish/dungeon) makes it another "bleh" moment.

I am going to try and find some kind of review registry for foundry quests, trying to avoid the above mentioned scenario.

Not sure what other MMO I am going to play if not NWO.

Marvel? Seems a little silly that everyone has an iron man etc.

Hurry up TESO or Wildstar!
 
Yea, i am still way off from max level, but i can see NW hitting a "meh" point soon enough. It's not exactly breaking alot of new ground here. I think the biggest thing lacking right now is character development and complexity. There just ain't alot of choices and options.

As Sid Meier said , a game is all about making a series of interesting choices. NW, just don't have alot of choices to make, it's very much "on rails" . I've hoped the Paragon classes at lvl 30 would be one of those "interesting choices" , but alas, there isn't any to make. People might think putting points in the power system or feats are "choices" , but it isn't. DDO was much more interesting in this regard, even at a low level there were much much more complicated choices to make (which made a difference) .

I still like the general theme though, Forgotten Realms tend to have all kinds of weird magica and such. Although admittedly nothing in the main campaign has gripped me story wise, it is missing interesting plot characters or narratives .

Either way, i also don't have much of an alternative to play right now. I am definitely missing something atmospheric like The Secret World and more detailed character development like in Rift. Still keeping Rift, GW2 and Defiance updated. Will probably jump into Defiance for random shooter fun.

As for Marvel Heroes, so far people seems pretty negative about it on the MMO forums, but i think there might be some fun to be had, but not the MMO kind.It is F2P anyway, so i'll give it a shot next week. I do find it funny that people would complain about everyone being Ironman or rather being a pre-defined character model with different costumes (even for Ironman i've seen like 10 costumes or "suits" for him), yet no one moaned about Diablo 3's setup? I mean you only had what 4 choices? And everyone pretty much looked identical if you picked a specific class. At least Marvel Heroes have more than 4 superheroes.

Cryptic really need to step up their game with NW though, i believe they totally screwed up the Tanking/Holy Trinity in this game. Guardian Fighter (and i leveled one to 20) is a total disaster, it's like they simply did not know what to do with it. Great Weapon Fighter is not far behind. PvP is terrible with these 2 classes, and dungeon runs are terrible because it's a kite-feast (due to tank uselessness).
 
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