Maze Engine Campaign & Dungeons Fix More Mid Game Gaps

There has rightfully been a lot of talk about how the upcoming Maze Engine Dungeons, or generally the content additions, do not add enough endgame content for the hungry community. As far as we know it’s pretty much only the revamped CN for PVE, which received a lot of skepticism by itself as well, and the new mount system for PVE and PVP. And of course the campaign, which looks horribly boring and long so far though (we’ll have a full preview in a later post).

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Not enough talk however has emerged about the intended goal of the reintroduction of the dungeons, which are set to fix the early and mid game progression gaps that still exist. We have repeatedly stated how Elemental Evil messed with the progression in multiple areas. Most namely the campaign ending at level 67 and the inability to get into the first tier of epic dungeons and skirmishes for fresh 70s, which would be required to get the next batch of gear to comfortably run, well, the first tier of dungeons and skirmishes.

Strongholds has to some degree brought another gearing path, Underdark did quite well in introducing more and easier ways of earning Seals as well as XP through the Dwarven King quest line and now the Maze Engine might be able to finally put this mess to sleep.

It’s a little bit unfortunate that the changes also affect pre-60 play because the original campaign is actually quite balanced in terms of XP and progression and adding more dungeons to the mix only makes it more difficult to not outlevel content. More variety in dungeon delving however can’t hurt.

Reaching 60 though is where the changes really start to help out. In top of the Dwarven King you now also have the Maze Engine campaign to complete, which nets decent amount of XPs. Add a few dungeon runs with enhanced XP gain here and there and it might do it to actually get to 70 without having to repeat any Vigilance Tasks. If they added another batch of Seal gear to the new Adventurer vendor for level 61-69, it would be perfect.

[su_quote cite=”asterdahl” url=”http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/comment/12783792/#Comment_12783792″]That being said, those dungeons, along with all other dungeons will be getting an significant EXP bonus that is granted upon completion. Making them excellent ways to level new characters or earn power points. In addition we’re overhauling how seals work before endgame, unifying and simplifying them and adding more useful repeatable purchases to make with those seals.[/su_quote]

And as Asterdahl stated all leveling dungeons extend their usefulness beyond 70 as they might be the best way to earn XP and with that, overflow rewards. Ever since the XP changes these are mightily hard to get and involve RNG, which divides the playerbase into those that were lucky enough to get their additional power points before Module 6 and those that are currently not able to even get close to the cap. I missed to keep track of the XP you get for Karrundax at 70, but if this puts the overflow reward on a reasonable grind, hell yes. Of course this also works a bit against the variety, because players will simply run the dungeon that is the fastest completion and right now Karrundax doesn’t seem to challenge ToS in that regard.

This doesn’t make the endgame any more exciting short-term, but it’s not that the dungeons as installed do not make sense at all. It’s quite the contrary to be honest. With the supposedly final fix of the Elemental Evil progression chaos the devs might also be able to shift their focus to more endgame related content again in the future, which then indeed would be good news for all those 3.5k and above.

What do you think about the mid game fixes the new dungeons bring to the table? Share it in the comments below or visit our forum!

j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.