October 2020 Review: Level 14

Been awhile since I talked about my guild / alliance in Neverwinter Online, and despite DL's best recruiting efforts the going is still pretty slow. Fortunately our guild (now  on level 14) has advanced to taking a sword position in the alliance, which means more discounts in building construction and if talks of us taking the helm spot hold through, the discounts would even be larger! We're lucky that our alliance is happy to keep shuffling around to give everyone a turn at stuff. :)

Our castle isn't quite as fancy as Strahd's though...

Meanwhile because Epic is such a shit launcher that only has free games going for it, I'm struggling to balance when to download the bigger games. A slow download speed plus losing any progress should your PC shut down midway really blows. This really makes me appreciate Steam even more. As such I'm going to stop putting a backlog list with these month end posts as it's really not important anyway as I'll eventually write about whatever game I finish (or am done with).

Just to push that point, it's almost like any game over 20GB is not worth it due to the amount in increased electricity I would pay to keep the computer on to download for such an extended period. Instead if I really like a game that big, I'll just ask someone to gift it to me on steam. Much simpler.

I'll finish off with some random tips like always also use a secondary search engine when looking for stuff on the internet as your primary is likely hiding and/or shuffling results (for example google + bing) and if you want to save stories from instagram you can use storysaver.net. Oh and for those who enjoyed Civilization VI, here's an epic cover of the theme song by Peter Hollens and the OSU Chamber Choir.

   End 2020 with less weight (dropping this for the more specific goal below)
   +Lose 1kg this month (last month result: success!)
   Web comic (even more world building... too much world building?)

BLOG STATS

One Year Ago

Wow, has it already been a year since Blizzard stepped in the China vs Hong Kong poop? Let's go check how things are going with that... ah, I see Hong Kong is still f*cked and Blizzard hasn't really taken any increased damage, just the usual self-inflicted version from their own releases. Status quo restored?

Five Years Ago

I was running about in A Tale in the Desert, tale six - an interesting MMORPG that features zero combat and a whole lot of player interaction. It seems this game is still going and is now in tale nine! Good on them!

Most Viewed Posts last Month

Waterdeep: The Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Eschalon: Gramuk!?
R3B1 - Theshold (Part II)

That's a nice grouping - a review of a board game with a popular name, a story post that uses name dropping, and a GTFO tutorial that includes a minor bug exploit. :P

Neverwinter Online: Infernal Descent

Hell introduces the Hangry Meter.

With the Vallenhas Stronghold pulled down to Avernus, the first layer of Hell, it has become the staging site of great battles between man-lings and demon kind as well as the best place to hunt a giant gorilla with a mace for a hand. Most importantly it now holds one of the best vendors in the game, Juma, who you will find conveniently locked away in the courtyard, instead of on the jumping puzzle rooftop where he was initially.

For new comers this place is tough! Special attention has to be given to the little pips/dots on enemies too which is their new difficulty rating - what I like to call their Hangry Meter. The more dots, the tougher the fight. As an example well fed Hell Hounds have 1 while ravenous hell hounds have 4. Juma's surprise bags will eventually drop the gear you need to thrive.

Even the blue dragon wants a piece of the ape!

I also quite like that there are a lot of evadable patrolling groups which adds some life to the place and the teleport glyphs save lots of travel time to the heavily modified stronghold map. For squishy characters, remember to use cover as there are a lot of ranged enemies - they won't shoot if they can't see you and they like turning corners blindly. In addition, try keep all fights in a small area to avoid extras from joining in.

Infernal Descent is a tough mod but one that gets my tick of approval.

Insight: If you are under geared, chase the +ape for a bit for the currency to buy Juma's bags. With luck, you'll get the stuff you need in short order. Also, don't be afraid to use zone chat to let people know an ape is on your channel to get reinforcements.

Meanwhile in Neverwinter Online

The Siege of Neverwinter is back on, which is arguably the best for Stronghold progression! You can also get the purple level Siege breaker Griffon if you missed it last time, or just hang onto the currencies for future rewards when it next comes back. It seems to be one of the more frequent events.

Our guild is currently the lowest ranked now of the Greycloak Alliance, which is expected given our active player numbers. Still, with their help we are now at Guild Hall level 10 which is great - halfway there! Well, not quite but I like to dream. :)

Neverwinter Online: The Cloaked Ascendancy

Late review, I was stuck in the Far Realm with these guys...

Given that Tomb of Annihilation (the next module) is just around the corner, this is a very late review for the Cloaked Ascendancy which comes after the terribly grindy Storm King's Thunder. Yes, it was so bad I actually quit Neverwinter for awhile and am now playing catch up.

Fortunately the rag-tag band of mages who have returned from the Far Realm make for interesting adversaries not just mechanically but story wise too. It helps that you get to interact with each of them at least a little bit while going through the story chapters, instead of just having some "bad dude" that you never see waiting at the end of a dungeon that you need to take a deus ex machina from or just murder in general.

Nothing very cloaked about them though.

There is only one new area, the River District, which is not just pretty but very functional in terms of dailies. This cuts down travel time from the last modules grind by a metric ton, since there you were required to venture into 4 zones towards the end. Daily.

Of course the grind is still here too, but at least you have a bit of variety on how you want to fill your "daily bar" in this campaign. It's a mix and match of heroics, dungeons, or capturing and upgrading guard posts. Don't worry, all options still include a copious amount of murder. You can choose to just kill 1000 each day too, but that's a real slog.

If that was brought down to 100, like the stronghold daily, it would be much better (10 times!). The guard posts I mentioned before are a great addition too, unfortunately the logic on them is the reverse on what it should be where players actually benefit -more- if they fall to enemy forces.

Shroud of Souls, the short "finale" of the campaign, holds a few really good adventure segments which I wish there was much more of. Evernight in particular is a faaaaantastic place. A world full of undead where everything is messed up? Now I know where Dark Souls takes place. :P

I have a feeling the Cryptic guys took some inspiration from it.

Definitely one of the better modules for me. Hopefully this continues with the Tomb of Annihilation. We won't have long to find out!

NWO: Cryptic Abortion

It's too late in the evening to post one of my current running stories, so I thought I'd instead talk about how Cryptic is continuing to "Abort" it's baby Neverwinter Online. They certainly love taking things out of the game.

A: Foundry is too hard to support, lets get rid of that.
B: I know, lets remove some dungeons! Yeah less content is awesome!
C: Oh, and the Sword Coast Adventures! Yeah, no one plays that.
D: What the game will be if this continues: Broken and Dead.

To me, Cryptic has more than a few problems as of this posting which I feel like listing out right here and now.

1) Serious connection flaws on their end prevent me from playing when I want to play. If I could connect right now I would but instead, here I am listing their failures.

2) Greed. More and more things that help players progress either keep getting removed, or put behind a paywall or an incredible grind. Also comparing their real world money conversion into ZAX to say, Mabinogi's Nexon cash is a real eye opener on how much of a premium they put on their pixels.

3) They like lying. Often blaming the slow abortion due to bots, or reclassification of bugs or whatever else. It would probably better if they just went "We need more money". At least that would be honest. There are those also still waiting on the promised reduction of stronghold influence since... last year?

4) They don't listen to their player base. If you saw that 48+ page post I linked to of people raging against that change, or the numerous calls to reduce the required amount of influence (or add methods to gain influence) for Strongholds, I think we're out of luck.

5) There is a disconnect between content designers and D&D. This is one that really pisses me off. A repeatable fishing quest in a level 70 zone and more fishing in a level 70+ zone? So you are sending characters who have likely defeated Baphomet, Orcus, Tiamat, a number of Balors and armies of who knows what else off to catch (regular) fish? If this was a table top session how would you swing that and keep people interested?

6) There is obviously a disconnect / lack of communication within their own company too. The latest module features Frost Giants who seem to enjoy throwing boulders that they pick up from the ground. That's cool and looks neat. But then you fight around 33% of said Frost giants ON WOODEN SHIPS. Of course they retain the boulder throwing attack which is idiotic.

7) They abandoned the one thing that made them stand apart: the Foundry. As a foundry author myself, that really upsets me.

8) Cryptic encourages Elitism. Those new dungeons / zones require some pretty high levels of gear to participate in. I'd personally always favor inclusion over exclusion but I have to let it slide because people asked for it and apparently the few metrics I can see also make it valid in the "majority rules" sense.

Anyway, enough venting for tonight. More regular content will continue tomorrow.

Photo Story: Anti-Demon (Part 1)

[Part of my photo story folder.]

Suddenly, demons appeared in the Underdark!

And the greatest Drow hero, Drizzt, went on a quest to find help!

He's as heroic as Lassie.

And he asked his old buddy Minsc where he could find me.

Meanwhile, I was at the keep looking at our new dragon mascot...

And telling our workers that maces obviously would work just as good as hammers!

Suddenly beholders attacked!

Erm, REAL Beholders! Though they didn't fare any better than the pinata.

That's when Drizzt arrived and asked if I could join his merry band on his anti-demon crusade. Of course I said yes!

NWO: Stronghold Four Baphomet

The Beholder Tank is a lie.

Neverwinter Online update time and while the above statement about the Beholder Tank, the most sought after reward from the currently running Day of the Dungeon Master event, is not entirely true - the odds of actually getting one are close to non-existent.

Those are actually better odds than the first two weeks of the event where -no one- was getting it. Anyway, on a more positive note - my guild's stronghold has just reached rank four thanks to the efforts of a handful new members. Ultimately this is just an aesthetic change though, as the first boon structure plot is only unlocked at rank 5, which is MILES away (given the requirement to upgrade 4-5 other buildings).

Is that a spirit bomb?

I've also just finished the Maze Engine campaign which is actually pretty fun. The parts that you go on actual quests and not the ones that just randomly send you up a mountain to kill an imp or two anyway. The final confrontation with Baphomet is really cool too, and I'm glad a version of it is replayable as a weekly.

And so the wheel keeps spinning, and the grind continues.

Neverwinter Online: Slow Improvements of January

Been awhile since I blogged about Neverwinter and that's mainly because progress in it these days is measured in millimeters. Still, since it is my "active" MMO I'm going to try put up news about it once a month at least: hopefully something other than "grinded the month away".

My guild has just built a quarry for the stronghold and is now focusing all efforts towards the rank 4 guild hall. From the listed cost I can see that is still many months away, despite our slowly growing number of members. At least character growth (strength) is a little better (even for people like me who refuse to pay to win), and just last weekend I got an indication of how strong some of us are becoming.

It's fun to smash stuff that once was a challenge.

From what I've seen so far there are three boss encounters in the stronghold area, and all come in pairs: beholders, pit fiends and undead giants. Our first few encounters with each when we first "arrived" didn't go so well (multiple encounter fails), but as of last weekend all three pairs have been downed convincingly, by just three of us.

It will be interesting to see if eventually, just a pair of us can do the same and eventually - if I can solo all of them. Mind you, that is probably a much farther goal than the rank 4 guild hall. :P

NWO: Cryptic of Kelemvor [Foundry Review]

[Part of Odd Jobs of Neverwinter.]

Been a long while since I reviewed anything from Neverwinter Online, but with my recent promotion to Foundry Artifex (Rank 6), I got inspired again not only to play more foundries but to create more! This mission was quite helpful in inspiring that, and was made as a comedy during the many changes Cryptic put in during the Stronghold module.

In it, not only do you have to find Rhix the now job-less merchant, but you also have to travel through the gateway to kill leadership armies, acquire a nerf hammer to smash a new class, fight the soulless armies of bots and find a path through the "new content dungeon".

That last bit was the most impressive for me as the design is really cool despite being simple. You can "grind" your way to the top via the large ramps, use the "pay" method and climb the green pillar in the center or simply "bug abuse" and use the clearly visible teleporter to skip to the top, despite the NPC GM telling you not too. All up a pretty fun and funny quest and one definitely deserving of as many stars as it can get. Highly recommended!

Alas, since I didn't take screenshots inside - enjoy this picture of my guildies and I taking down a pair of beholders in our Stronghold instead. :P

Photo Story: Never Adventures (Part 2) - #IntPiPoMo2015

[Part of my photo story folder and part of IntPiPoMo2015!]

My guild has setup base in a run down stronghold.

It feels bad evicting the resident elks and fawns within.

Fortunately there's an NPC team who look after the mundane affairs.

There are worse things nearby though.

Like a pair of bickering beholders...

The threat of dragon attack...

And my current nemeses the demon twins.

Sometimes I wonder why we even bother grinding to improve the place.

Current #IntPiPoMo2015 Count - 18 / 50

NWO: The Cryptic Method

With the release of the latest module "Grindfest" "Strongholds", Cryptic certainly designed a great way to encourage people to grind in all the end game campaigns to acquire various doohickeys to help construct their stronghold. In addition to this (or I only realized recently) that they also placed some item level "barriers to entry" on some content which I am not a big fan of - mainly epic level dungeons.

Needs a lot of work!

Not that I have a burning desire to do that content, but just so I have the choice for if ever I want to participate - I can. Thus began my quest to improve my gear, and I quickly found there were two paths: farming a PvE instance or farming PvP matches. The fastest method to my goal was simply to do both. It probably also helped keep me sane, giving some variety in game style.

Anywho, as a non PvPer, you can imagine how that went for me in the various PvP Domination matches (fancy name for "Hold this Location" which is standard in many other games). Fortunately you still gain currency to buy those higher level items even if you lose, though at a much slower rate than the victors obviously. What it did make me see though is how people use their various characters, and what combos were most effective since I was usually at the receiving end of them.

Using my ultra-narutard Kakashi skills I obviously then respecced my guys to be more inline with what I would encounter there and wow, taking those builds back out into the PvE environment I'm now showing much better performance than before. My alt ranger character in particular, who was pretty rotten compared to my main rogue, I now slightly favor more because of the combat techniques learned from fighting other rangers: I had no idea he could perma root and stun enemy groups with fast enough rotations.

So now, not only do I have the bare minimum to pass all the gear wall levels but I also have the player skill for my two characters to play better. I think that is pretty awesome. Still doesn't mean I like PvP though, and that's a bad thing since it feels like Cryptic is trying to push it to the forefront with the recently released Stronghold Siege patch, which also happened to remove a major source of Astral Diamonds from the game.

See with Cryptic, "fix" is the same as "hack it off with an axe". Usually as MMO's progress there are more and more patches that release ever increasing content. Neverwinter Online is one of the few where future patches actually take away things from the game like dungeons, profession rewards, the foundry, and who knows what else is to come, and unlike the Living Story in Guildwars 2 there's absolutely no lore reason for it happening here.