So Neverwinter.
Cryptic is probably one of my favorite developers right now, having made
2 really good games that I’ve played. I
like Star Trek Online and Champions Online, though I haven’t played much of
Champions recently (because the group I hang out with plays STO more). Neverwinter is Cryptic’s next MMO project,
and the first that’s being released as pure Free To Play (CO and STO were sub
conversions). It’s good, it’s very
good. And I think it owes a great deal
to the other two games. In essence,
Neverwinter is what happens when Cryptic learns all the lessons CO and STO
taught them about game mechanics, design and how to build a game. There are some bad elements to Neverwinter,
but we’ll get to those.
Many of these elements, before I begin, came out only the
last year, so the question is was CO and STO used as a kind of test bed for
Neverwinter? Probably, and that’s good,
to a point. Using an active player base
to “beta test” a new system is a bit iffy, but at the same time, those systems
did improve those games. With this in
mind, I’ll have to divide this up to talk about each element separately or else
even I will get confused.
Combat/Powers
The combat system is reticle based, as in all your
attacks are tied to a targeting device in the center of the screen and aimed via
the mouse movements. It’s very
reminiscent of STO’s “shooter mode,” which was an attempt to make ground combat
not suck. Didn’t help, but in
Neverwinter it works quite well. All
attack commands are tied either to the mouse buttons or in the immediate area
around the WASD keys (which handle movement).
It’s actually really efficient, to the point I have considered modifying
STO to use the same system (the interface controls would allow for it).
What it has that STO doesn’t though is a dodge/block mechanic
that actually works. Hold down the shift
key and an evade/block ability goes off based on how much stamina you
have. This comes mostly from CO, but a
little from Guild Wars 2 as well, and it makes combat MUCH more dynamic than
STO, and actually lets you CANCEL out of actions, some actions. Really need that in STO. The dynamic combat means you don’t stand
around waiting for cooldowns, you’re always fighting, dodging, repositioning
and triggering off the small handful of cooldown attacks.
Powers are much closer to how Champions is set up, with a
selection of abilities built into each class (get to character creation in a
bit). Given the limited number of attack
slots verses the high number of available powers, players will have to
carefully choose the abilities they want to slot and use, but can power them up
appropriately. The other element from
Champions is feats, which are basically the specialization system out of
Champions, which gives passive boosts to the character.
The combat system is really good. Maybe not groundbreaking (Guild Wars 2 did
something similar, probably a bit better), but certainly worth the effort.
Character Creation
There are only 5 classes in Neverwinter, but they
function more like Champions Archtypes than anything else. They have a set batch of powers and abilities
and the progression is mostly restricted to a few key roles within the overall
role of the character.
From STO comes the races, each one with its own traits
and story elements. The traits aren’t
nearly as complex as STO is now (or as it will be in the near future), but
they’re there and might make the difference for the Min/Max crowd. Each race, like the careers in STO, have
special story elements restricted to them that other races won’t see or
do. I like that element as it makes each
character a little unique.
And if you need a little extra help, there are
Companions, NPC helpers that can be called upon to even the odds a bit for a
single player. Playing a DPS melee Great
Weapon Fighter and need some healing?
Hire a Cleric companion. Playing
a Cleric and need a tank? Hire a Guardian. They can be trained up to level 15 currently,
but there will EVENTUALLY be a way to convert them to a new, higher level. Why it’s not out yet is beyond me. Still, every little big helps and my Cleric
companion has saved my bacon on more than one occasion.
What I’m disappointed with is the actual costume
design. I don’t expect it to be at
Champions level of customization, but it barely matches Star Trek’s level. And it’s all gear based. Yeah, that’s right, if you want to look a
certain way, it’s based on the gear you’re using. You can dye it, but unlike Guild Wars, where
the dyes are bound to you and usable whenever you want, you MUST have the dyes
to color the various items. Lame. Oh, and if you want to change ANYTHING on
your character, you will pay for it with real money.
Currency
The game has 3 major currencies. The more traditional Gold/Silver/Copper
system is pretty standard across most fantasy games, even Champions uses it
(though with different names). This is
the in game currency that’s used for most vendor transactions. But, it doesn’t buy as much as you would
think. It’s great for consumables (which
I’ve not really needed as I find more than enough) and some of the crafting
products, but that’s about it.
Then there’s Zen, the pay currency, which is for buying
the more cosmetic stuff as in STO and Champions (though the selection is very
narrow right now). Zen is used for a lot
of stuff, including buying more bank slots, inventory slots, character changes
and other stuff.
And then, there Astral Diamonds. In Star Trek Online, they introduced
Dilithium as a major currency in the game.
It can be collected by doing various missions, has to be refined to be
used, and is generally used for most of the high end equipment. There’s even a special exchange set up to
trade Dilithium for Zen, the pay currency. In Neverwinter, Astral Diamonds does
all that, and more. It’s a Super
Currency, used for nearly everything.
Want to dye that piece of armor?
Costs Diamonds. Want to remove
those runestones from your armor? Costs
Diamonds. Want to sell anything on the auction
house? Not only will it cost Diamonds to
sell, but the entire exchange is done in Diamonds.
That’s a major change between the games, the auction
house uses Astral Diamonds and ONLY Astral Diamonds. In STO and CO, it’s reliant on the common currency
(EC and Globals), but not here. Also,
the auction house is an actual auction house, something akin to Ebay rather
than just a market where the prices are set by the players and you either pay
their price or you don’t get it. I’m not
sure how that will fly as the game continues to grow, but it’s intriguing at
least.
Astral Diamonds are used so much in the game, one of my
guild mates believes THIS is the major currency of the game, and everything
else is essentially unnecessary. I buy
that, especially given the refining rates.
In STO and CO you can only refine 8000 and 6000 per day. In Neverwinter, you can refine 24,000 a
day. They really, REALLY want you to
earn Diamonds and spend Diamonds. I
worry that this will be the primary mover for most actions in this game. I don’t mind playing for Diamonds or
Dilithium or Questionite (CO’s version), but I want to play to have FUN
too. If it becomes all about farming
these Diamonds, I doubt it’ll hold my attention especially as we reach end
game.
Crafting
The crafting system in this game is a wild mix between
systems in Champions and STO. Out of STO
comes the professions, which is actually the Duty Officer system though
simplified. This is the main way to
craft, assigning a worker to a particular task which eventually results in
equipment. This function can actually
be done through the remote Gateway system for Neverwinter, so you don’t have to
log into the game to do the crafting, which is nifty. STO was SUPPOSED to have something similar
for its Gateway and the Duty Officer system, but that has yet to be
implemented, I suspect because the Duty Officer system is very complex.
But that’s not all!
From Champions comes the Mod/Fusion system for upgrading gear. Most of the equipment will eventually start
coming with a slot that can be filled with a runestone. Those runestones are found in drops, boxes,
from skill items throughout, and can be fused together to make more powerful
versions of themselves. This is both a
nice way to adjust the powers of equipment to enhance what you’re looking for
in a weapon or armor piece, and a horrible lesson in how much inventory/bank
space you actually have.
Those runestones take up a LOT of room. You need at least 4 to perform any fusion, so
if you want a high level runestone, you need a LOT of little ones fused
together. Thankfully the resources for
the profession system are stored in a separate bag in your inventory so you don’t
have to try to store it in the bank and your common inventory will be BULDGING
with these runestones if you’re not careful.
Even the wiki suggests selling the little buggers off. There are only 9 different stones (4 for you,
5 for your companion) but considering all the grades they come in, you’ll be
stuff to the gills with them. Add on all
the extra gear, consumables, and special emblems you get throughout the game,
you’ll run out of space VERY fast, not just in your inventory but your 20 slot
bank too. Prepare to spend real money to
expand out these in the near future.
Questing and the
Foundry
The quests seem mostly to come from the Champions line of
missions rather than STOs, though honestly Champions is more like a standard
MMO than STO, so that’s not saying much.
Each region in and around Neverwinter has its own batch of missions,
typically telling a story of each region and capping it off with either a fight
with the boss of the area or a big multiperson dungeon. The missions are pretty standard ranging from
go kill X number of bad guys to doing mini-dungeon crawls and finding loot at
the end. That’s actually an odd bit, you
get your gear reward WITHIN the mission, not from the quest giver. The quest giver only gives out experience and
cash. That makes sense for the Foundry.
Before we get to that, however, the dungeons have me a
bit annoyed. Not in their structure or difficulty,
those are fine. No, the issue is the
queuing system. Like STO, there is a way
to queue up for a particular dungeon or skirmish, which are the STFs and Fleet
Actions of STO respectfully. However, they
are level locked. This means that the
first dungeon, the Cloak Tower, will only be available for queuing until you
hit level 20, then you cannot queue for it any more. You can still do it, by going through the
front door, but considering these things need at least a couple player to even
attempt, let alone complete, you’ll need a team. You can use the zone chat to find one, but if
you’re too high, you can’t be queued with the team and have to drag them all
through the front door. And again, the
dungeon is locked to its level, so all of the baddies are going to be below
your level even if the entire team is 10 levels higher.
Two reasons this is annoying, beyond the obvious having
to go through the door instead of the queue.
First is that there aren’t level appropriate versions of the dungeons,
which is something even STO could do with it’s actually missions. This is sad because it means doing older
dungeons is pointless since the drops won’t be any better thanks to the baddies
not being at your level. On top of that,
there’s no way to “sidekick” down or up to the levels to make the mission appropriate
for everyone. In fact, if the leader of
at team is, say, level 24 and the rest of the team is in the mid teens and you
start a Foundry mission, all the baddies will be level 24, and the rest of the
team will have to hide and hope the bad guys don’t see them. That was an annoying lesson to learn.
The other major reason?
It looks like there will be very few dungeons available as you level
up. Maybe I’m wrong on this, after all I’m
only level 26 at this point and the cap is at 60, but if the pattern holds, most
of these dungeons will completely drop off the map and never be seen again. I WANT to do the Cloak Tower and have it be a
challenge, but with the current system, it won’t be. Wonderful content is going to be lost to high
level players, and it could cause the problem that continues to plague STO and
Champions: Lack of end game content. But then, they might be relying on the
Foundry to make up for it.
Ah, the mighty Foundry.
If you’ve heard anything about Neverwinter, you’ve probably heard about
the Foundry, a system that allows players to create their own quests and
stories within the game. This comes from
STO, which has had the Foundry pretty much since the beginning. I haven’t played many Foundry missions in
either game, but the few I have are pretty good. They tell interesting stories and rarely have
game breaking bugs or whatnot. That
said, it is also easily abused for gold/item farming and separating quality
from crap has always been an issue. I suspect
this is why the auction house in Neverwinter has been switched to Astral
Diamonds, to try to keep these quests from being used to farm beyond a certain
point, but the potential is still there.
It’s really hard to tell what the Foundry will be like in Neverwinter at
this point, but it’s already easier to explore and search than in STO, where it’s
kind of miserable at the moment (an interface revamp is planned for the next
major release, so we’ll see how that goes).
There’s a daily that rewards players for doing a Foundry quest, so that
will keep people playing, but if it’s anything like STO, people will find ways
to create simple “push the button” quests that will complete the daily easily.
I haven’t attempted to build my own Foundry mission yet,
so I can’t give you any information on how easy or hard it is. However, given the history of the Neverwinter
franchise, I expect a lot of great quests to come out of it in the near
future. I’ll try to keep an open mind
for it.
Overall
I like it so far.
I like it quite a bit. Will it
eat into STO like STO ate into Champions?
Possibly. STO is kind of stagnant
at the moment, though they do have a major released planned for later this
month. I am worried about the level
progression in Neverwinter, as it feels quite fast, just like STO. Maybe they want you to get to the endgame
content quickly, like STO does, or maybe I’ve just played too damn much. Hard to say on that end. The game looks nice, sounds nice, has a great
deal of decent voice acting, has challenge, is creative in the universe and
seems to have learned the lessons CO and STO learned the hard way. I’d like a bit more customizability for looks
(not skills, I’m fine with that) that doesn’t break my bank (either in game or
my actual wallet) and a little better accessibility to below level content. Officially, Neverwinter is still in Beta, so
maybe they will fix all that, but I’m not so sure they plan to.
It’s worth playing though, so go out there and play it
already. Hey, it’s free, can’t go wrong
there. Unless the servers crash, again.
. .
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