They Know Who We Are?!? – a Reaction to the Dev Interaction in Mod 16 Preview

Shout out to the devs…
That we, the players, exist!

In all honesty that’s a bit tongue in cheek since the devs do communicate on the preview forums ahead of any mod release. However, for mod 16 they’ve kicked their normal level of interaction into overdrive…
So what does that mean for those who are not familiar with the preview forums? Basically, ahead of any mod, the devs will open up threads to have feedback given. This is where players on the test shard will share their own feedback, opinions and overall sense of the mod itself.

As you can guess, not all feedback is created equal. Many players take a great deal of time to test out different builds across classes (or in their main class), check out the new zones to see what bugs may be seen, etc. Other players may just chime in randomly w/o really testing just to dog pile on a specific aspect/bug that they may have heard about from others, etc. Mostly the good feedback outweighs the ‘shoot from the hip’ reaction type posts. The devs job is to sort through this and pick out data/opinions that they deem relevant to improving the overall mod experience for all players.
In normal mods the communication, while significantly higher then on any non-preview forum, is still fairly sparse. Not that the devs aren’t reading everything, just that actual responses are sometimes given and sometimes not. It can feel, in some threads, somewhat of a crap shoot if you’re feedback is acknowledged at all. With that established history the level of dev interaction on many, if not all, threads in the preview forum for mod 16 has blown my mind.
Asterdahl and the rest of the dev team have gone above and beyond anything we’ve ever seen in Neverwinter concerning direct communication. It is a breath of fresh air to see the devs directly engaging the feedback on all threads across the entirety of the preview forums. Sure, some threads are getting more attention than others…

For example, the Barbarian thread has seen a great deal of discussion between devs and players, based mostly on the fact that Barbarians were in a very bad place at the start of the mod 16 testing and needed a lot of TLC to find their way back to the light. Whereas the Warlock thread has seen significantly less (comparatively to other class threads) dev interaction, though I’d generally consider it higher than a normal mod so that’s saying something!

Basically, this post is to give props and respect where it’s due…
Well done dev team, and thank you! Please keep up the good work and open lines of communication, as it is greatly appreciated by your player base!


What’s your take on this topic? Do you feel the same way about the new level of dev interaction? Share your thoughts and experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or visit our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 75,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

NWO_Unblogged

We are always looking for people that contribute to this blog. For more information contact us via blog@nwo-uncensored.com or check the forum.

9 thoughts on “They Know Who We Are?!? – a Reaction to the Dev Interaction in Mod 16 Preview

  • March 9, 2019 at 10:05 am
    Permalink

    FFS, I would hope that they are engaged (finally) – they should be fighting tooth and nail to keep their job, and company alive at this point. Anything less would be lackadaisical and incompetent. After all, resume is going to look pretty shitty with a big old failed history period on it – “Oh, I see you’re part of the crew that ran Neverwinter into the ground, next!”

  • March 9, 2019 at 3:34 pm
    Permalink

    The forced, single stat set is retarded and not DnD of any sort. The Barbie will still be broken.

    Just as they had a +6 AC for absolutely no reason, 18, 14, 14, 08, 10, 10 is not a legal roll for any DnD Point-Buy system from 1E to 4E, nor in DnD-based cRPGs. This would cost 36 points from the 32 available.

    The correct roll before 5E would be 18, 13, 13, 08, 10, 10, as it is in NW pre-Mod 16. This is the Max 32 points from the Point-Buy Pool, with only ONE stat below 10, as per DnD rules.

    In DnD 5E, however, we CAN have more than one stat below 08. But we cannot raise a stat above 15 and the Point-Buy Pool has only 27 points in it.

    So, if they are making NW based on DnD 5E, the Barbies would get

    15, 15, 15, 08, 08, 08, or some other combination with fewer 08s and lower CON and DEX.

    Them’s the Rules, for all classes, in DnD 5E. Racial bonuses, level up points and gear bonuses go on top, but a 5E Barbie starts with 15+2 STR. Max.

    The ONLY legit stat array up to 4E for Barbie starting with CON and DEX at 14 is

    17 14 14 08 10 10

    This is legit, but was never available pre-Mod 16.

    And as for the Paladin, I have four.

    With the Human I picked

    10 16 10 10 12 16+2

    gave her a Belt of CHA +4 and stacked CON and CHA, so she has CHA 30 as I wanted an old school Paladin for her and I like variety and choice with my class/race combinations. With Mod Shitsteen removing Combat Advantage Bonus, APG and Crit Strike (with the Heroic feat) from the OP’s CHA, what will she become?

    My Tiefling, I rolled

    08 18+2 10 10 13 13+2

    got her a belt of CON +4 and stacked CON and CHA. What will happen to her, with no Aura of Courage or Power Share?

    The OP stat array is nothing short of retarded.

    12 18 08 12 14 08

    Are they serious? This not only breaks all the Point-Buy Rules of every single edition of AD&D and DnD ever published, it is not even internally consistent with their own, made up garbage.

    But then, the Point-Buy should be a Point-Buy, not picking an array where all the stats add up to the same number (which the OP does not). It is the *Points Spent* to buy ATTRIBUTE POINT INCREASES that should have the same total. Not the total number of points of the final starting rolls.

    So the Tiefling will be force re-rolled to gain STR +4, INT +2, WIS +1 and lose DEX -2 and CHA -5?

    The Human will be force re-rolled to gain STR +2, CON +2, INT+2, WIS +2 and lose DEX -2 and CHA -8?

    And that is without Racial Bonuses.

    What the Actual Fuck? And my SWs, TRs, HRs, GFs and DCs! I dread to look!

    I will never spend a penny again. They just lost £360 to £720 per year, depending on how often I want to use the 25% Zen Promos.

    Point-Buy Sytem
    Every class starts with 08 points in every Attribute, S, C, D, I, W, Ch, and 32 Point-Buy points to spend (27 in 5E)

    To increase an Attribute score from 08, it costs 1 point per point up to 13
    To increase an Attribute score from 13, it costs 2 points per point up to 16
    To increase an Attribute score from 16 to 17 costs 3 points
    To increase an Attribute score from 17 to 18 costs 4 points

    So to rise from 08 to 18 costs 18 Point-Buy points
    from 08 to14 costs 7 Point-Buy Points
    from 08 to 15 costs 9 Point-Buy Points. This is the Max allowed in 5E. All other editions allow 18.

    (This table will probably fall apart)

    Attr Cost Tot
    08 0 00
    09 1 01
    10 1 02
    11 1 03
    12 1 04
    13 1 05
    14 2 07
    15 2 09 ← Max in 5E
    16 2 11
    17 3 14
    18 4 18

    Have they EVER played the game or read AD&D manual?

    If they REALLY want to make Neverwinter based on D&D 5E, then Base it on D&D 5E!

    Give us an actual Point-Buy system where we can spend the points as we wish.

    But the Max base score in any one stat would be 15, with only 27 points to spend

    Better yet, give us the 4E Point-Buy System, with 32 points to spend, as Neverwinter has always been, but let us spend them as we wish, not choose from an array. That way, we could have starting rolls that were legit but not previously available.

    Many, many D&D-based cRPGs have such a system.

    😡

  • March 9, 2019 at 3:49 pm
    Permalink

    Oh, Kolat, will the Uncensored forum ever be back up? We are sorely missing it.

  • March 9, 2019 at 6:35 pm
    Permalink

    This website is no longer.

  • March 10, 2019 at 11:50 am
    Permalink

    To all people blinded by gifs, use gif blocker addon (on firefox, chrome will surely have something similar).
    Granted, there are so many that sometimes it doesn’t manage to block all of them but it does the job.

  • March 10, 2019 at 2:38 pm
    Permalink

    Meh.. they’ve always claimed to interact ‘a lot’ but this is the same. Asterdahl himself has made a big effort to appear in many threads, but his posts are for the most part dismissive, corporate speak for ‘nothing will be done’, or claiming to report things up the chain of command.

    All in all nothing substantive has changed.. and likely nothing will as far as what people are largely complaining about. That being the greatly slowed playstyle, and the dumbing down of character creation. The tweaking of a few DPS stats is all thats being done and is just introducing their line of porcine lip emolients.

  • March 15, 2019 at 4:38 am
    Permalink

    interaction with the devs for me was give 10 pointers/question.
    8 important ones gets ignored, 1 not very important gets disagreed with, 1 semi important ” will be looked into”
    and thx for the feedback, go play some more…
    yea sure, currently doing chores around the house is more fun then the current preview, he can go and test himself this crap.

  • March 16, 2019 at 11:31 am
    Permalink

    The Devs are only replying to regular discussion, the moderators are deleting any comments on the Feedback forums that don’t praise the new changes. If you complain about it or point out things you don’t like, your comment or thread will last about 3 minutes before it’s gone.

  • March 16, 2019 at 7:51 pm
    Permalink

    i don’t want code monkeys reading forums, i want them writing code. there should be a lower wage resource to read through the forums and pull out the useful stuff for the devs

Comments are closed.