Neverwinter new pics - OH GAWD ITZ HEAVAN

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Alright, tested out the Great Weapon Fighter a little. Seems much more enjoyable than the Shield Fighter, what with being faster (the general action is Sprint, not a defensive one) and having a Champions style charged AoE attack as the second unlocked power.

EDIT: Also for Agassi to know, Tieflings got more horns for both genders and the model was generally more refined this time around.

 

[Norfleet]

Everything I've heard so far about this game indicates that I don't want to touch it. For starters, it apparently lacks any effective way of getting more minerals. What's the point of a game without more minerals?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Don't worry, I won't be deserting STO anytime soon. Besides, the cross-game chat makes it impossible to escape!

 

[Zeriel]

This game has once again reminded me that I cannot into MMO combat systems where abilities root you while they're casting. That + the fact that abilities are queued in a list and dodges don't cancel out animations is really, really weird. At least in Tera if you had to dodge something and had abilities queued, you could.

 

[Jaesun]

UNSTOPPABLE!

NEVAR FORGET!

 

[Crispy]

Downloading...

 

[Excidium]

Game looks and plays like a fantasy mod for Champions, but without all the customization.

 

[Crispy]

Not sure I like it so far. It's extremely easy, like no challenge at all. Can't zoom the camera in at all, that sucks. Seems like this was designed for kids.

I'll keep playing but I'm a bit disappointed.

 

[Zeriel]

Not sure I like it so far. It's extremely easy, like no challenge at all. Can't zoom the camera in at all, that sucks. Seems like this was designed for kids.

I'll keep playing but I'm a bit disappointed.

Press B.

Agree otherwise though, I find that all these "action MMOs" which are the current fad and unfortunately the theme of all the new ones coming out inevitably boil down into simpler and less challenging gameplay than the WoW (i.e Everquest) derived systems.

 

[J1M]

This game has once again reminded me that I cannot into MMO combat systems where abilities root you while they're casting. That + the fact that abilities are queued in a list and dodges don't cancel out animations is really, really weird. At least in Tera if you had to dodge something and had abilities queued, you could.

But that type of controls is why everyone loves Dark Souls.

 

[Black]

Only console scum.

 

[Mangoose]

Locking you in place is not the problem - that's just a design choice. The problem is having action-based combat vs enemies who you don't have to aim at, don't avoid your attacks, and that neither do you have to actively avoid their attacks (via blocking, dodging, positioning, or juggling... so many choices yet none available) outside of the BIG OBVIOUS ONES. Having your special attacks on short cooldowns (instead of being situational but free to use whenever) is just ice on top of the shitty cake.

 

[LeStryfe79]

I'd recommend Dynasty Warriors over this garbage.

 

[Zeriel]

But that type of controls is why everyone loves Dark Souls.

(Mostly) Singleplayer game with limited abilities very different from genre with expectation of lots of abilities and different character specializations and so forth. Even so, I enjoyed this type of gameplay a lot more in Tera where characters seem to be built around those limitations and you can dodge/cancel out of a lot of animations. Neverwinter's system of queued up abilities (you can literally queue up 3 ranged attacks in a row and just wait for them to play out) that cannot be cancelled/dodged out of feels really sloppy and awkward. It's an action combat system that doesn't feel very action-y at all.

Also, yes, like Mangoose said. While you could argue "it's low levels, everything is supposed to be easy!" I remember plenty of attacks in Tera from the get-go would slaughter you if you just stood in them. Neverwinter is oozing its F2P hesitation to scare players off. Not only do all the red-circle attacks take forever to go off (probably to cope with said inability to cancel out of attacks with dodges), when they do go off they don't do that much damage. Tera threw world monsters at you that required dodging every attack for minutes at a time just to kill them. Neverwinter shrugs and doesn't care either way, as if to say, "Sure, you COULD dodge all these attacks if you _really_ feel like it, but it won't make much difference. Chug that potion on a 10 second cooldown. Actually, it'll be faster just to soak all that damage and spend your time doing damage."

TLDR: The oft-touted skill-based gameplay that action MMOs are supposed to bring to the table is often just not there. They end up being easier than the skillbar spam of Everquest and WoW 1.0. High-level Tera gameplay is the best I've seen in terms of difficulty, unfortunately a lot of these games are shying away from that in favor of holding the player's hand.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Tera threw world monsters at you that required dodging every attack for minutes at a time just to kill them.

This sounds like a SHIT thing to me.

 

[Zeriel]

Tera threw world monsters at you that required dodging every attack for minutes at a time just to kill them.

This sounds like a SHIT thing to me.

If you embrace the "action combat requires actual skill" line, it should be what these games are about. You know, actual challenge, where a player can solo "boss tier" monsters by using dodges and special abilities. Said monsters were not normal, they were specific, gigantic monsters that players could fight as a sort of challenge. Personally I still prefer a well-done execution of World of Warcraft style combat (worth noting here that no one other than Blizzard has actually done this), but of the action MMO breed, Tera has done it the best. Too bad it got buried under an avalanche of "oh look another weeabo korean bullshit grindfest" backlash. Or maybe the cynics are right, and people don't really want skill-based combat, they want to pretend they're skilled while fighting trivial encounters.

 

[J1M]

My limited time with this thing taught me a few things. Since their idea of a good level is to send packs of 4 guys at you over and over, any class with the ability to hit more than one target is going to be a lot more fun.

I tried a wizard and a 2h weapon fighter. For some reason the sprint option on the fighter was vastly better, especially at movement outside of combat. Additionally, he had a move that acted as a second sprint that I could use for movement too.

Seeing how useful the stamina gauge is, it would be nice to purposefully bump up that stat during character creation.

Even when my "control wizard" could blast one guy and CC another in the air, my fighter still felt like he had more control over a fight by simply charging into a group of enemies, with sprint and hitting his damaging charge to go through them. That plus a sword swing or two did enough damage to kill things. For solo play, they really need to give every class an option to do something other than "run backwards while killing one thing at a time".

Looking at the dodge mechanic, I really wonder how they will create any kind of challenging end-game content. Maybe they can force people to dodge in a certain direction or something.

It is nice to see an mmo go with a different control mapping though. Something other than the WoW 1-9 keys. That works well.

EDIT: Ahahaha, they made it so the tank character blocks and moves slowly instead of dashing or dodging like the other classes. Good job making the least attractive job in an mmo even more of a chore. They should increase the guardian fighter's normal run speed by 20% or something. Even the cleric has a dash move.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I do agree that the Shield Fighter is a pretty crap class that will need a lot of work to be anything but mind-numbingly boring and weak. It didn't really feel like it had any function of its own.

 

[J1M]

I do agree that the Shield Fighter is a pretty crap class that will need a lot of work to be anything but mind-numbingly boring and weak. It didn't really feel like it had any function of its own.

I liked how the block mechanic was a "perfect defence" move, completely negating damage, but ironically it didn't affect the big red circles you are supposed to dodge and it leaves the class without a dash move, lol.

I can see it working for a group situation while fighting a boss. Perhaps also useful so the group doesn't need to constantly run backwards. But who knows if that would even be fun, given how floaty and loose the combat/movement feels right now.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea, I would think they'd go for something like that. Damn, right now I don't remember is if blocking used stamina gauge, or if it just used it a lot less than other classes. That could be a big thing going for it in higher difficulty endgame bossfights, since sooner or later you will run out of stamina and be in a tight jam if you can't get the time to recover it.

 

[J1M]

Yea, I would think they'd go for something like that. Damn, right now I don't remember is if blocking used stamina gauge, or if it just used it a lot less than other classes. That could be a big thing going for it in higher difficulty endgame bossfights, since sooner or later you will run out of stamina and be in a tight jam if you can't get the time to recover it.

There was a block gauge too. It refilled by using the right-click move which also weakened an enemy.

Ironically I tried playing one of these guys cuz their primary stat was constitution, which gives more stamina that I intended to sprint with, and unless there was another use for it, I don't think the guardian fighter uses the stamina gauge.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I'd also expect that the game will get both a lot quicker in the "red circle window" to dodge, and the damage of said attacks. There's no shortage of enemies with instant kill attacks that happen really fast in STO (there are several Ground bosses that can instantly kill the entire party if they stand close together; heck even standard Borg on Elite can instantly kill non-tanks on Ground). Personally I think it's a much better approach to save the difficulty to group content at the endgame (and even there to a reasonable limit), or just give a difficulty slider for masochists.

 

[J1M]

I'd also expect that the game will get both a lot quicker in the "red circle window" to dodge, and the damage of said attacks. There's no shortage of enemies with instant kill attacks that happen really fast in STO (there are several Ground bosses that can instantly kill the entire party if they stand close together; heck even standard Borg on Elite can instantly kill non-tanks on Ground). Personally I think it's a much better approach to save the difficulty to group content at the endgame (and even there to a reasonable limit), or just give a difficulty slider for masochists.

Well, I don't think instant-kill is the right way to go. But they certainly need more compelling gameplay at endgame than what I saw for the lvl 6 quests. I suppose that is a common problem for MMOs, I remember people complaining that farming Scarlet Monastery in the WoW beta was a shitty endgame. It is hard to provide a demo when the game you are playing changes drastically based on group size.

 

[Mangoose]

The Guardian Fighter was the only fun I had in the game. Being able to actually avoid damage from almost every attack (not red circles of course...) actually made it more fun than endlessly clicking left mouse button + using a special ability whenever it's off cooldown.

Every other class is shit, not sure how you guys can even like them.

 

[Crispy]

Good. You'll be the tank for our group once this game goes live then.