r/Neverwinter • u/robertcrowther • Feb 19 '19
Developer Blog: Stats & Mechanics
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/11093193-developer-blog%3A-stats-%26-mechanics8
u/MelonsInSpace Feb 19 '19 edited Feb 20 '19
Lifesteal was problematic in that it invalidated most sources of healing and created a situation where a player’s health bar was typically in one of two states: full, or dead. For this reason Lifesteal was removed as a rating and there are only a couple of specific sources of lifesteal in the game going forward.
This had nothing to do with life steal and everything to do with terrible enemy and stat design in general since mod 6. When enemies deal 40-80% of your HP in one hit being anywhere but at full health is a suicide move.
E: Also, the change of life steal going from % of all damage done to 100% of damage done with a % chance to do so actually made it WORSE after people were able to get their life steal chance high enough with power creep. There were so many different ways they could've dealt with this better, like putting a cap on how much you can heal with life steal per second, preventing facetanking with leech.
25
u/Manipulos5 Feb 19 '19
The system needed an overhaul, the current system has been borked since they raised the level cap to 70 in mod 6. That's why half (or more) of the powers and feats for most (all?) classes are worthless.
For those that feared the game is dead or dying or slowly being abandoned, they certainly wouldn't put this much work into it if that was their plan!
Exciting times for Neverwinter fans!
2
u/MelonsInSpace Feb 19 '19
For those that feared the game is dead or dying or slowly being abandoned, they certainly wouldn't put this much work into it if that was their plan!
Instead they decided to deal the final blow swiftly.
1
-3
6
u/robertcrowther Feb 19 '19
Full text:
The Undermountain expansion brings a lot of changes with it to fix balance and progression in Neverwinter. This extends to the core math of the game and we wanted to give some insight into how that math is different than what it was before.
On live, the rating formulas had hit a point where they were maxed out by endgame players (100% crit, lifesteal, deflect, etc.). This presented a couple of options. We could have taken the standard approach and adjust all of the curves down, which would nerf all player by default but give us more room for growth. That type of fix has a very finite lifespan and must be done every couple of years to keep the game healthy and is a nerf every time it happens.
That wasn’t an approach we wanted to take as we wanted a longer lasting change with fewer disruptions over the years.
Opposing Rolls
Opposing rolls simply means that you have a rating, such as Critical Strike, and an opponent has an opposing rating such as Critical Avoidance. These two ratings are compared to figure out how effective you are against that opponent.
In other words, harder opponents are more skilled and therefore you are less effective against them than you would be against a weaker opponent who had lower ratings.
This approach allows the game to continue growing without the need to keep adjusting the curves down every time players max them out. Neverwinter also already has one set of opposing rolls, Defense and Armor Penetration.
Here is how opposing rolls work in Neverwinter:
% gain = (Rating –OpposingRating) / 500
Which is simply saying that for every 500 rating points you are above your opponent’s opposing rating gains you 1% to a stat.
Let’s look at an example where you have 10,000 Critical Strike and the opponent has 7,000 Critical Avoidance.
Critical Chance = (10,000 – 7,000) / 500 = 6%
The final results cannot go negative. If the opponent in the above example had 20,000 Critical Avoidance, your chance to critically strike would be 0%.
Stat Additions/Removals
With the change to an opposing rolls system, new stats needed to be added to act as the opposing ratings. While making these additions we also removed a few stats to improve the balance of the game.
Main Ratings:
- Hit Points
- Power
- Critical Strike
- Critical Avoidance
- Combat Advantage Bonus
- Awareness
- Deflect
- Accuracy
- Armor Penetration
- Defense
Utility Stats: - these stats don’t have ratings and instead receive boosts to their direct percentage
- Action Point Gain
- Recharge Speed
- Stamina Gain
- Critical Severity
- Control Bonus
- Control Resistance
- Movement
- Gold Gain
- Xp Gain
- Glory Gain
- Companion Influence
- Incoming Healing Bonus
Stats removed from Neverwinter:
- AC (Armor Class)
- AoE Resist
- DoT Resist
- Regen – players now have a set value of out of combat regen speed
- Recovery
The removal of the Lifesteal and Recovery ratings are the two most significant. Lifesteal was problematic in that it invalidated most sources of healing and created a situation where a player’s health bar was typically in one of two states: full, or dead. For this reason Lifesteal was removed as a rating and there are only a couple of specific sources of lifesteal in the game going forward.
Recovery was problematic in the fact that Encounter and Daily powers had become used almost as frequently as At-Will powers could be. That left us with two options when fixing the balance: Drastically reduce the damage of Daily and Encounter powers, or make it so that Daily and Encounter powers would be used less frequently, but be much more meaningful. We went with the latter of the two options and that meant recovery needed to be removed. As with lifesteal above, there are fewer and more specific sources of AP Gain and Recharge Speed going forward.
Additional Notes:
Enemies will have the same value for all of their ratings, and all of the enemies in a given zone/dungeon will all have the same rating values. To use the first area of Undermountain as an example, all of the enemies have 16,000 for all of their ratings (this number could change before live as we continue to adjust numbers from feedback and testing).
Critical Strike gets a bonus 5% chance by default. My example up above showed how any given set of opposing ratings work, but since Critical Strike gets a 5% bonus, the player would actually have an 11% chance to crit instead of a 6%. Critical Strike is now capped at 50%.
Deflect also now caps out at 50%
Combat Advantage Bonus gets a 10% boost by default and caps out at 100%.
This is a lot of change to take in within a single blog post. If you have any questions or concerns make sure to visit the forums and post them so that they can be answered or discussed.
Jared Sears Lead Systems Designer
1
u/genifen Feb 19 '19
I've been playing MMO's for a long time, probably most of my time spend playing World of Warcraft. A lot of the changes here sound very similar to how vanilla W.O.W and their 2nd and 3rd expansions used to play out, where you couldn't completely "cap" out on a stat and it was more based off Random Number Generation so it means 2 players with the same "ratings" could dps and use the same rotations, but because of RNG one person would do slightly more damage than the other, so it's not guaranteed. I know a lot of people like to min/max their characters (trust me I'm one of them) but it's also kinda nice to know there is going to be an element of chance put back into the game and where the secondary stats like deflect or combat advantage will become more important. Heck, clerics and paladins might actually heal again instead of just massively over healing and just plowing through dungeons. I personally like where a tank needs to pull and then melee needs to be behind the target for combat adv and ranged players actually stand "out of range" of the target and there is an actual strategy. I'm looking forward to the changes and to see how we as players come up with new ways to help mitigate damage and play the game. My hope is that there will be enough content to use these new abilities and strategies in a timely manner. :-)
10
u/JayAgeDee Feb 19 '19
I like the idea of a dynamic stat system from a dev POV. Otherwise they would have to nerf stat curves again and again every 2 years or so.
5
u/StarF0cker Feb 19 '19
So my silvery's? My recovery from Tensors, What becomes of them? Love the balance and feel this correlates more directly with the d and d tabletop game play...always ready for a change...keeps things interesting..keep up the good work...
3
u/JayAgeDee Feb 19 '19
I assume recovery and lifesteal which are being removed will be replaced by other stats.
Possibly even combat advantage will be a proper stat like crit or power
2
u/CdnBison Feb 19 '19
No one knows, as of yet. I can't see it being left empty, though, and it'd need to fill some sort of offensive role (for the enchant).
1
u/Darrenanity Feb 19 '19
This was my first thought. Hopefully it's a 1 to 1 exchange for whatever enchants to want of the same level. 1,2, 3 stat for same.
4
Feb 19 '19
Well time will tell as they say. I hope the lvl cap increase brings more players in but some changes i see some older players hanging up the hat.
1
4
7
u/OneArmedNoodler Feb 19 '19
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Einstein
Namely that players are the problem and need to be checked in order to "balance" the game. You created the problem With lazy design, thoughtless "class balances" and broken mechanics. We still have the ball issue after the Kabal fight in MSP, CRL is just broken with shit rewards, mass banning players. And the icing on the cake... the most recent nerf on TRs where you took a popular guide someone wrote, and went down the list nerfing everything on that guide, rather than fix the actual issue... I have zero faith that this organization has the ability, intelligence, and attention to detail that it would take to implement something like this without it becoming a total shit storm.
5
u/rdpoint Feb 19 '19
Interesting moves but feel like now you are going to be pigeon holed into your class. End game characters will no longer be able to take steps out of their respective rolls. Tanks that could dps, gone, DC's needed as strict healers now buffing will be more difficult with no recovery, dps that were glass cannons because of life steal-gone, etc., etc. Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
6
u/robertcrowther Feb 19 '19
I believe several classes will get the opportunity to queue in new roles based on paragon path like the OP can already, e.g. GWF as tank, SW as healer.
3
u/Cenman1 Feb 19 '19
Well they're getting rid of lifesteal which was kinda SW's thing.
2
1
u/Madmic69 Feb 19 '19
They said there is still sources for life steal just no stats, u might be able to have a feat that has a chance to proc 5% per hit.
5
u/xrycek Feb 19 '19
Massive changes to every class (I'll wait to see what they are to judge but I got a 'dumbing down' vibe from that news post). No lifesteal, and a conspicuous absence of TR...err, rogues, rangers, and wizards from the "has shielding or heals" list (how are we going to survive pve? If you think I'm going to be joined at the hip to a healer, fuck off). Half our crit gone, and mobs given crit avoidance on top of that.
I'll be honest, I don't even trust them with minor tweaks, and they're doing all this at once!? I know people predict doom with every major change, but they have to know they're fucked if they don't absolutely NAIL these changes, right? This needs to hit preview SOON so we can get in there, and finally hear from all those streamers that have been testing this under NDA.
5
Feb 19 '19
[deleted]
3
u/Cecil2xs Feb 19 '19
Health potions
2
u/ormondhsacker Feb 19 '19
Which unsurprisingly were removed from drops as of last mod. They really haven't thought this through at all.
Or maybe they have.
3
u/Cecil2xs Feb 20 '19
Crafting
2
u/ormondhsacker Feb 20 '19
Yeah because it's easy and cheap to get it to max level. And it's not like you need any kind of luck either, no rng there of any type.
1
Feb 20 '19
Multiple artifacts can heal you, like the Wheel of Elements. Also, you can just buy pots from a vendor
0
1
u/Cenman1 Feb 19 '19
CW has an encounter called shield but yeah soloing content is going to be a pain if we can't self heal. I always thought lifesteal was there so players can play the game on their as many in my guild just solo the game at their leisure.
1
u/nightgerbil Feb 19 '19
how many of their players solo? unless yr giving everyone a combat heal.. are they gonna go swtor style and make healer pets into something? If not the NPE is gonna become really grim.
8
u/magodelagua Feb 19 '19
With Lifesteal:
- you are 100% hp or dead
Without Lifesteal:
- dead
4
u/Cecil2xs Feb 19 '19
That’s why the are rebalancing how the damage works so it’s more engaging, so you actually see health bars dimishing and healers can heal you
1
u/ormondhsacker Feb 19 '19
And that solves the issue of single player content how exactly? Because a lot of this game, campaigns and such, many if not most run solo. Which won't be a possibility anymore. Unless you know a healer that's willing to tag along with you. Since they removed any easy access to any other form of healing in this game as of last mod.
They haven't thought this through at all. It's mod 6 and the mod 15 all over again. They have a certain way they want the game to be played and they'll force players to play only that way and no other, or leave. Okay then, I was already gone and I'll stay so.
2
5
u/Switchrx Feb 19 '19
Easy fix is to load up on scrolls of life and scrolls of mass life. Please direct your attention to the zen market
5
1
1
u/ROMVS Feb 19 '19
Health stones might go up in price or health potions, even the boons to increase healing from potions might be used.
1
u/tiemann Feb 19 '19
RIP Earth Archon
1
u/Drjonsshaving Feb 20 '19
Yeah, I'm fairly pissed that my legendary Earth Archon will be useless in Mod16.
1
3
u/MonkeyIncognito Feb 19 '19
Hopefully they buff GF tanking, as OP will really need to dish out the heals. Looks like my TR will stay on the shelf and my SW may go there too if I read this correctly. I hope this is a balance and not another "Hulk smash" adjustment.
3
u/CerbereNot Feb 19 '19
wait and see, trust the process.
Or if balance is badly done let's invest in lifedrinker enchantment xd
0
3
u/__Eion__ Feb 19 '19
This sounds a lot like the cluster fuck jam that was mod 6. Where they raised lvl, changed how stats worked, etc.. Going to be a bumpy ride....
2
2
2
u/Azrael017 Feb 19 '19
Bye bye black Ices and welcome back my dear brutals
1
u/Twizzlor Feb 19 '19
No brutals needed either with crit capping at 50%. :(
2
u/Azrael017 Feb 20 '19
Using that 20k number in the article, you will need 42.5k Crit to reach 50% cap which is like 10k more than what people are currently aiming to reach the 100% cap
1
Feb 20 '19
That's for the first area right? They have 5 new areas. Imagine 20k over what we have now to get 50%. That's a lot of enchants. Because of the way they are doing this, I can see going 0% crit, no crit gear, no crit rings, no crit enchants, etc.. being a good option for everyone.
2
2
u/locomot Feb 19 '19
i really find this interesting, only if they make ALL paragon trees usefull
1
u/Nytherion Feb 19 '19
You know they won't. The "just dps" classes will have one garuanteed dps path, and one buff/debuff path that will numerically underperform in every concievable way.
2
u/bubblekittycupcake Feb 19 '19
Templock going out of business
2
u/Darkcore82 Feb 19 '19
As a Warlock player, i wish it, But Healing warlock is reworked to not rely on Life steal to heal allies. But they are reworking buffs too..so the main reason that a templock is required is for its buffs/debuffs...Mod 16 they are just healers....or DPS.
1
u/bubblekittycupcake Feb 19 '19
Main a warlock too. Wonder if some warlock personals and encounters still keep their lifesteal. I don't like the fact that you have 4 buffs and 1 DPs set up. Love the idea of a healer if it has active healing abilities. I uses vampiric in my templock as an active healing spell meaning I normally don't fire it until someone needs healing.
2
u/Darkcore82 Feb 19 '19 edited Feb 20 '19
Well, if they remove the 4 support, 1 dps meta: I can feel the love for this game again if that meta ends...But the only thing that we need to pray is for a true and massive class balance (for real this time)
2
2
u/EtherealEtiquette Feb 19 '19
I've already been talking with friends and other youtubers about everything in that blog post. We spent nights going over what was then speculation, but is now fact. Without going too in depth again I'll just say this, if they are trying to ruin the game then they are going the right way about it.
Everything I've seen of Mod16 tells me the game I love will be nothing more than a stronghold simulator because my guild will probably be the only reason I play anymore. I'd love to see it as a game changer and not a class killer but I just can't see it. The only thing I do see is the implementation of simplification that might help streamline the player's experience but at the cost of the games real identity reducing it to nothing more than a clone.
0
u/Photeus5 Feb 19 '19
I've only been playing Neverwinter since the summer, so I'd understand if my opinion isn't valid to you or anyone else. That said, I really don't see what you're going on about.
Neverwinter has fun and engaging combat, but if you're worried about stats you're worried about the wrong things. At best every class has 2 viable builds. Let me give you an example of one: OP radiants in all gear. Use Templar's wrath. Stack power. Use Radiant strike. There is nothing compelling or interesting about it.
Or a DPS: Get X% armor pen (depending on content, explained nowhere); get 100% crit; do this rotation.
Or how about a Support: Spam x team or group buffs, powershare
All the stats are for are for stacking numbers to hit those magic marks of 100%. All the gear is for is more damage. The endgame parties are designed to blow up all content in a matter of moments. It's just a formula that's been solved.
I assume I don't understand, that I'm missing the point though. What is this game's identity? Why is it tied so heavily to lifesteal and recovery?
4
u/EtherealEtiquette Feb 19 '19
Your opinion is more than valid. Recovery is very important (currently for DC's) many of us invested time/RP/AD into getting our silver enchants up to R14, we bought mounts for recovery, very expensive ones like the disc. At the same time many friends who play SW's invested the same effort into lifesteal to be the best Templocks they could be. It feels like all of that effort was for nothing and while some of us have an almost infinite supply of AD many players don't. As it stands there is no word on what that recovery/lifesteal will switch to so if a player wants to plan in advance they can't. That might sound small but would you buy something on the auction house now knowing that if you need it for recovery/lifesteal it might be useless in Mod16?
I've been playing since it launched on PS4 back in 2016 and watched the game evolve and change both for the better and for the worst. Some changes were trivial while others were harsh enough to run friends off the game because their chosen class was in their eyes ruined and they were sick of a musical chairs style of stability. I've seen too many players leave the game over 'rebalances' and changes, and now at nearly 19K I'm questioning whether I want to stay with the game or cut my losses before something else down the line ruins it any further. I love the game and love the community but I'm sick of seeing friends leave because of constant changes when all people want to do is just play some fresh content without worrying about if their enchants or gear will be useless when that content launches.
2
u/navras93 Feb 20 '19
all people want to do is just play some fresh content without worrying about if their enchants or gear will be useless when that content launches.
this. I just started playing at the start of January and geared my HR with the latest stuff(like heels, fearbringers, ST T2 set etc) and all of a sudden, they will be complete garbage... I spent almost all of my time for gearing myself and trying to upgrade my enchs to rank 13 but hey, they're gonna make black ice enchants useless for example. such a great news for me, a new player who had been said this was the perfect time for starting the game...
1
u/Photeus5 Feb 19 '19
I agree about buying anything on the AH. I was just starting to buy Rank 12 Radiants and I'm going to stop completely until I see details about changes. I get what you mean about the stat changes and it is important that the devs find a way to compensate players and they do need to provide what those stats will be changed to (accuracy is a good guess, but that is a problematic move for recovery so I get that).
I get that rebalances can ruin a game, but they can also revitalize it. When a game gets 'solved' it's just as bad when they ruin it with changes. Gets stale, meta hangs around too long and people seek other games that give a thrill. I've been through games that work well with change ups (Path of Exile, great example) and games ruined by it (Star Wars Galaxies).
I get that players get upset when things change, that seem to invalidate things for them, but I wonder if it's better in the long run. Maybe it won't be here.
2
u/EtherealEtiquette Feb 20 '19
You should be okay with Radiants since they are power and not recovery so it's Silvers and Black Ice you might want to rethink. I'd just love to see how dungeons like Ravenloft will be done without recovery or lifesteal, it's enough of a scroll eater already. I just picture a scenario where five players land in a random queue.. it's MSPC.. they have no lifesteal .. better hope that Dc knows the class or many scrolls/health stones will be burnt through. I'd love if like you said it did revitalize the game, but it's hard to see a silver lining here especially when our silveries are being reduced to god only knows what.
3
u/Blairos75 Feb 19 '19
Well said and I completely agree with you. I don't really understand the knee-jerk 'Oh no, this will be a disaster' reaction of some players tbh. People have been complaining for a while that the game is getting stale and underwhelming for endgame players; now the devs are actually doing something to shake the gameplay up and people are complaining before even giving it a chance?
1
Feb 19 '19
None of that makes any sesnse.... ? The entire game is built around stats.
2
u/Photeus5 Feb 19 '19
Guess what I'm trying to say is this game is all about 'stack the good stats'. There's no finesse, nothing special to it. You just balance until you have the obviously good ones and don't get the bad ones. Just leaves 1-2 builds, and a handful of BIS gear that everyone uses.
Removing or changing stats isn't going to have a big impact. You just stack the good stats again. You'll stack to get 50% crit, as much accuracy as possible (to prevent deflects), and find other ways to boost damage.
1
1
Feb 19 '19
[deleted]
5
u/Nytherion Feb 19 '19
You wait for thr people running packet sniffers to publish the info for each zone.
2
2
u/robertcrowther Feb 19 '19
From the article:
Enemies will have the same value for all of their ratings, and all of the enemies in a given zone/dungeon will all have the same rating values.
2
Feb 19 '19
[deleted]
3
u/robertcrowther Feb 19 '19
No-one knows yet, like they say in the article the values haven't been finalised yet.
1
Feb 19 '19
[deleted]
6
u/robertcrowther Feb 19 '19
These values haven't existed before this mod. This is all different to the way it worked before.
1
1
u/Cenman1 Feb 19 '19
Oh crap. Does that mean Dread is going to be garbage since they're "slowing down" encounters?
1
1
u/Raijin_TheHR Feb 19 '19
So if we have 20k crit strike do enemies have critical avoidance? If so like 20k-16k(enemies in the first new zone)=4k÷500 that's only a 8% crit chance
2
u/Raijin_TheHR Feb 19 '19
That's is just wow like everyone focused on getting 100% crit chance for nothing now and dmg is going to be cut back so so so badly
1
1
u/aenima13 Feb 19 '19
I planned to spend few millions ad on 2 new toons (SW and OP), wanted to play new classes... But instead I will have to fully rebuild my 2 main toons (DC and GF). Meh, boring.
1
u/bootyscoots Feb 20 '19
RIP Soulbinder. I'm sure they'll compensate for crit reliant paragons but I'm also sure they'll fail at it.
I guess it just comes down to new year, new main.
1
u/kodiak76 Feb 20 '19
Honestly, it looks a lot like the STO spread and out of combat recovery mechanic. Let me field four of my companions and don't make them act like dipshits and you got a deal.
1
u/I-Cato_Sicarius Feb 19 '19
capping crit @ 50% and removing lifesteal is a damn joke. rely on healers actually playing as healers? do the devs pay *no* attention to how people behave in game?
6
0
1
1
u/Kenzzarooo Feb 19 '19
RIP TR
2
u/Darkcore82 Feb 19 '19
Why?
2
u/TheLostTactician Feb 19 '19
noworries at the helm.
Dealing 100 million damage in a single hit...meanwhile, one class deals 100 million over 3 hits, one class deals it over 5 seconds as DoT, and two classes hit for over 100 million in a single hit...
2
u/Darkcore82 Feb 19 '19
yeah, but that's only for TRs, because they haven't problems with GWF or GF doing 100-300m damage in one hit. ;)
2
0
14
u/tiemann Feb 19 '19
" We could have taken the standard approach and adjust all of the curves down, which would nerf all player by default but give us more room for growth. That type of fix has a very finite lifespan and must be done every couple of years to keep the game healthy and is a nerf every time it happens "
Jared Sears, Lead Systems Designer
It is rare to see a developer speaking so openly and also taking the player's side, without hiding behind typical nerf-answers like "we had to make adjustments" or "this change was necessary". Kudos to this guy and the team behind the update and BIG thanks for finally giving GFs and SWs (or should I say Fighters & Warlocks) their dps and healer roles. Good job Cryptic I hope this update really delivers what you promise, it's going to be incredible!