Stronghold Siege

Sticking with the theme of trying new things, I joined members of my guild's alliance for a stronghold siege for the first time the other day. Apparently this is a feature that has been in game for years, since shortly after strongholds were introduced in fact, but I had never actually tried it.

Basically it's 20v20 PvPvE on a modified stronghold map, with the basic premise being that two guilds are trying to take down each other's guild hall. In the vaguest sense it reminded me a bit of WoW's Alterac Valley: a large scale PvP match where you can score points for your side not so much by killing other people but by capturing objectives and completing certain tasks.

It struck me as something that was clearly meant to be quite involved and epic but never really seems to have taken off. The alliance just does it for the rewards from the weekly quest but doesn't take the competition very seriously: one guy just takes on the role of the enemy guild while everyone else smashes his guild hall for an easy win. Seems like a shame really; I could imagine this being pretty epic when played "properly".

PvP Sucks

I don't know why I keep trying my hand at Neverwinter's PvP even though I know I don't like it. I think it's because I really enjoy PvP in other MMOs and keep hoping that maybe Neverwinter's will grow on me if I just give it another chance. Note to my future self whenever I may harbour similar thoughts again: No! It sucks; get over it.

My pally found herself in the 60-69 bracket again this week, but this time, instead of bots, she ran into what looked like a premade or at least some very seriously geared up alts. Even if I managed to land my most powerful offensive daily on one of their heads, it barely moved anyone's health bar. The only times I lived for more than a few seconds after exiting the spawn point was when they stopped hitting us altogether, to observe us with the detached sort of amusement with which one might watch a kitten attacking their shoe. I desperately wanted to quit before the match was over but decided to stick it out for the reward at the end... just to not get any. I guess only winners get AD now?

Another scene from Icewind Dale this week: My great weapon fighter joining in at the end of a Black Ice Domination. My team had comfortably won the main fight and I joined in to mine the black ice. Suddenly I'm dead, and I barely have time to make out what I think was a rogue before I respawn at the nearest campfire. Gear differences or not, no max-level character should ever be able to simply one-shot another max-level character; that's just terrible balance. And to think that people complain about the time-to-kill in SWTOR. Seriously.

Battling Bots

I don't really like Neverwinter's PvP, mostly for balance reasons, but after having a fairly good time in the 10-19 bracket with Traitine the other day, I decided to give it another try on my level 62 pally tonight. Imagine my surprise when I was joined by nothing but bots on both teams...



I had some silly fun with that for a couple of matches, as shown above. (I didn't intend to record my voice actually, but I used it for the video in the end because both the confusion and the insane cackling seem naturally appropriate.) Then I got into a match where there was an actual player on the enemy team, a trickster rogue who kept perma-dazing and two-shotting me. That reminded me of why I don't like Neverwinter's PvP to begin with and I quit.

No More AD From Leadership

General chat caught my eye today because people were arguing about a change that had been announced on the forums but nowhere else so far: the removal of astral diamond rewards from the leadership profession (and the foundry).

The driving force behind this is an unbalanced economy caused by "AFK-playing" and botting. Leadership rewards astral diamonds just for logging in and pressing some buttons, and Cryptic wants to stop that. In fairness, some players have taken this to pretty insane levels, farming leadership on fifty alts or even multiple accounts. Cryptic wants people to gain AD by actually playing the game, and I can't blame them for that.

However, I still think that the proposed changes are terrible, because after this the only ways of gaining astral diamonds will be dungeons, skirmishes and PvP (plus the pittance you get from invoking these days). But that's only a small part of the content! In practice this means that a lot of players will effectively have no source of AD anymore.

Take me as an example. I've found dungeons and skirmishes at max level to either be extremely dull or unforgivingly hard to the point that they are a pain to do in pugs. And PvP in this game is terrible in my opinion. Nonetheless I rack up a considerable amount of hours playing each week: I do dailies in the campaign areas and work on my guild's stronghold. None of this awards astral diamonds. If anything, things like unlocking campaign boons and upgrading your stronghold cost AD. Where is that currency supposed to come from in the future?

This seems like another one of those changes that hasn't really been thought through at all, or is simply driven by blind greed. ("If we minimise the ways of gaining currency in game, people will spend more money, right?")

PvP in Icewind Dale

There are no factions or world PvP in Neverwinter... except in Icewind Dale. You have to sign up with one of two competing factions to quest there (though you can switch between the factions every day if you want), and in a dedicated PvP area you can then fight people of the other faction if you so desire. Occasionally said area will also transform into an objective-based PvP game, resulting in a heroic encounter that rewards you with a lot of Black Ice if you win.

The whole thing bears remarkable similarities to SWTOR's Gree event on Ilum, and not just because the place is snowy.

- It's a daily area with a smaller, dedicated PvP zone inside it.
- You get quests that don't actually require you to PvP but can only be done in the PvP area.
- Said quests give worse rewards than the regular dailies, so as not to feel mandatory for progression.
- However, you can also do at least one pure PvE daily in the PvP area and finish it more easily/quickly that way.

I like the way SWTOR handles PvP during the Gree event and I like this implementation in Neverwinter too. Unlike in SWTOR, I'm useless at Neverwinter PvP however and always die if I actually get attacked.