Nah, I went onto Eve Online. I'm looking at ESO and Wildstar however I'm worried that they'll fall into the same category.
wouldnt be surprised if they will be.
Wildstar is personally looking more promising that ESO in my opinion. However, if the fast leveling trend continues we could easily see both of those games going F2P shortly after their releases (if they don't already start with F2P).
Fast leveling is the standard now,it has been for years.So,Im not expecting anything different from ESO and Wildstar.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
As I see it an MMO is something to be enjoyed like a plate of nachos with guacamole, bacon, sour creme and melted cheddar from a restaurant not wolfed down like plain bag of Lays chips.
So you raced to the max level, now what? The game is still in open beta with its first module (expac) still in development. You're basically sitting on your hands in terms of advancement at this point.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
How can you say "I beat the game there's nothing else to do...except all this other stuff but I don't actually want to do it."
You should say, "I finished all the content in the game that I wanted to play."
Because I've essentially beat the game. I did all the dungeons I've played through most of the zones. I dabbled in the last two but didn't fully explore. I participated in PvP from level 40-60. I've obtained my T2 dungeon set (currently the best). I've obtained my epic horse and I have level 5-6 enchants in my gear. I did every skrimish that was available for each level range and I experienced many of the good foundry missions. I think it's safe to say that I've beaten the game.
yea that guy is just some fanboy trolling prolly butthurt from buying founders & seeing ppl hate on the game
I did it... it took me 3 days and 3 hours to play through the game from 1-60 and then fully obtain my characters T2 set. I've essentially beaten the game and there's really not much else to do in it. While the Foundry is a nice side feature it truly does not appeal to me as for additional content.
The combat gameplay within Neverwinter Online is fun and fast paced. As a tank I had a great experience constantly knocking down and knocking back my opponents in PvE and PvP however. Once You get to 60 and do the dungeons (again) there's really not much else to do. The progression is too fast for someone to experience all of the content. I essentially finished the game without even experiencing the 2 final zones. I believe that there will need to be a large addition to the current level cap for the game or drastically reduce the amount of experience you gain while playing.
The gear within the game is very bland and typically you'll have a mix between greens and blues. By the time you get to 40-50 you'll be completely decked out in full blues and if you were lucky enough to find an epic weapon around 38 you'll find that the weapon you found will never be replaced until you're level 60. I'm not joking either. If you run the Gray Wolf Den for example; there are epic pieces of equipment equal to T1 gear at level 60. This greatly hurts the gear progression in the game drastically. Cosmetic appeal for equipment is some what bland. The variety just isn't there. There's about 3-4 different types of armor that you'll see as you progress through the levels and they're all quite similar.
The dungeons are enjoyable. They're not too long and usually run anywhere from 30-45 minutes with a decent team. However, I highly recommend completely skipping the Den of the Mad Dragon in the level range of 30-34. This is due to serious balancing issues with the final boss fight being almost impossible for a well prepared team to tackle. We ended bringing very high level players into the dungeon just to take down the over grown lizard and it was not worth the effort. You'll occasionally have a group that'll struggle with the dungeons however you'll easily be able to complete any other dungeon.
The PvP within Neverwinter with my experience as a Guardian Fighter is quite enjoyable. I built my Guardian with full tank and knockdowns and knock backs. It's like playing an epic ping pong match within these matches. There are some balancing issues and I've occasionally have fallen victim to a rogue dealing almost 30,000 damage to me (my entire life bar). However, for the most part I think many of the classes are some what balanced and only need minor tweaks in their damage. Something I might point out. That if you're an avid PvP Player you'll find that the two arenas do get quite boring after repeating them many times over. By the time I had hit 40 I leveled strictly off of PvP from there on out. This allowed me to completely purchase my entire set of gear by the time I was 60 and instantly equip it. This made me quite unhappy that they'd allow this to be so easily farmed as this gear is essentially on equal terms with T1 Dungeon gear.
The Cash shop is really not worth your time. I played through the entire game in 3 days and was able to obtain enough astral diamonds to afford upgrading my mount completely. I spent 0 dollars on the game and do not see any Pay-to-Win aspects as far as PvE or PvP in this game.
In the end I did enjoy my time playing Neverwinter and it's a good filler while playing the game. However, in my opinion I don't believe there's any longevity that'll come from this game at its current rate. The level grind is too fast and there's truly not much to achieve when you're at max level. The foundry missions are fun even with people putting out some really bad maps. But there's just not enough content within the game to keep the player coming back.
Go head and comment telling me what your experiences with the game were like and I hoped you enjoyed my "little" write up on the game.
Thanks for the post, I was almost going to try this out just in case. Typical modern disposable junk from the sound of it.
Sad thing is, most games seem to be going this route. Now don't get me wrong, nwo was fun, from 1-60, and even at the end like the OP, gearing up... but once u got there, what else is there except to grind for better gear... oh.. nvm i already got that...
Well I GUESS farming AD to buy stuff is left? LOL
Truth is, yes, the first few days (or lets say, first 2 weeks if u play slow and grind out 2 toons) are fun.. a LOT of fun... but after that.. ugh.. nothing left. Endgame just plain sucks, and the only 'drive' left is to get shit off the zen store for free...
I'm quite sad really, nwo has AWESOME combat, and when u get a good group together, dungeons are a blast(pvp can be fun too, if it wasn't for the CW's owning with 3 skills and only 3 skills.. lol I have yet to see a single CW NOT cycle the same 3 skills over and over, and rogs while 'balanced' can be annoying with their ability to evade and do stupid damage very quick) - but after that.. theres nothing. Even crafting is a joke, since the time to even raise a single crafting profession to lv 4-6, which is about when you can 'craft' lv 10 gear, your already sitting at 60 and fully decked out.
Seems the game was designed as a multiplayer lobby style adventure hack and slash u can jump into with some friends, then the zen store was stapled on, AH and crafting tossedd in as an afterthought, then further 'tweaked' to require constant zen buys / AD grind to get anywhere.. If the game itself was longer with 'more' to do after 60, I could almost forgive the horrible push to sell cash shop junk(Almost, not quite forgive, since the zen store just stinks the game up so bad with its greed...)
But i suggest anyone who likes quick paced action games, give nwo a shot for a week or so. Get one or two toons to 60 then park it. DON'T spend a single dime though, trust me, not even 10 bucks would be worth it.
To be fair, you really shouldn't be surprised. Everyone is and has been saying that the game is a pick me up MMO. One you will play in between other larger more indepth games(hopefully some are coming, hopefully). For that fact it's a great game. Also don't forget there are modules coming that will grow the game and give you more to do on a capped character, I assume.
But yeah, this game is not a tried and true deep MMORPG or immersive world. More an action MMO than anything. Thing is, I never expected a FFXI experience from it( I mention FFXI because that is the biggest and deepest MMO I've ever experienced to date. Even bigger than Eve for the sheer amount of systems and content. Eve is all about social gameplay anyway, totally different beast so don't get all upset, you Eve fans ;P)
To all the people saying this is the sign of a bad game, outside of tiered raiding there hasn't been a single MMO release since Vanguard and Everquest that I haven't seen all the content in the game within the first month.
Once you've seen everything the game is about the grind to get the best gear. Getting T2s is easy (although Castle Never drops better gear, tier 2.5 if you will, so depends on what the OP is referring to). The main grind is getting your runes up to max level, which he has already stated that he hasn't.
Anyway, if that doesn't suit you, move on to the next MMO that you will 'beat' in 2 weeks.
To all the people saying this is the sign of a bad game, outside of tiered raiding there hasn't been a single MMO release since Vanguard and Everquest that I haven't seen all the content in the game within the first month.
Once you've seen everything the game is about the grind to get the best gear. Getting T2s is easy (although Castle Never drops better gear, tier 2.5 if you will, so depends on what the OP is referring to). The main grind is getting your runes up to max level, which he has already stated that he hasn't.
Anyway, if that doesn't suit you, move on to the next MMO that you will 'beat' in 2 weeks.
No offense, but if the developers thought that people would WANT to sit and grind out (at either 10% chance for success each stage, or 10 bucks per tier) the runes to 'max out' a toon, being that there is NOTHING else to 'grind' out, then those developers are pretty freaking braindead...
Without something 'else' to attract and hold customers, only someone who WANTS to throw money away would stay for that. I mean the game is fun, but then u hit the 'endgame' and if thats ALL endgame is(Cuz trust me, once u run castle never 2 or 3 times, challenging and fun as it might be, without something else to do, you get bored quick)
I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in pouring cash out my wallet just to gain 3-4% more stat/chance per rune(multiplied by 7-10 runes per toon, and being that a SINGLE rune would cost you upwards of 160 bucks to get to rank 9 from rank 6, which by itself is STILL quite tough - 40% chance from 4 rank 5 runes)
Idk it seems like the marketing department at cryptic(or perfect world, whichever of the morons in charge of 'prices' and shit over there) are pretty freaking stupid, and their greed alone kinda kills anyones desire to spend anything...
if they were to charge MUCH less for their stuff, even if ONLY that, I can see more people playing just to socialize with friends.
Yes, I am saying that regardless of how 'shallow' the game is at endgame, I would keep it around as my secondary mmo if only the prices were cheaper.
Originally posted by ThumbtackJ How many hours per day did you put into this?
I put a lot of time into the game. I don't quite know how much per day. However, I did not play the game on the first day due to signification rubberbanding issues. So the "release date" for myself was on the day after the release.
Ahh to be young, kidless and unemployed! (Okay, that was snarky!)
I did want to ask you your opinion on an survivable AOE class for leveling. Can cleave work for an aoe leveling tank or is a CW only way to go? I hear the GWF is too squishy for aoe grinding...
Originally posted by ThumbtackJ How many hours per day did you put into this?
I put a lot of time into the game. I don't quite know how much per day. However, I did not play the game on the first day due to signification rubberbanding issues. So the "release date" for myself was on the day after the release.
Ahh to be young, kidless and unemployed! (Okay, that was snarky!)
I did want to ask you your opinion on an survivable AOE class for leveling. Can cleave work for an aoe leveling tank or is a CW only way to go? I hear the GWF is too squishy for aoe grinding...
grats again
why aoe leveling?
Casually running a devoted cleric i reached 60 in.. i think a week or so, give or take, being that I prob played maybe 15-20 min per sitdown(3-4 times a day while 'on break')
A DC don't do a crapton of dmg, and by casual, as u can see, I pretty much just did a little, turned in quests, moved on, and so on.
If u wanted to 'grind' out xp to 60 as fast as possible, u can do that on ANY character(possibly ANY build) just by clever use of the foundry system, within a few hours of solid play.
Its not like other games where u want to mob up giant groups of enemies, kill with a big spell, then sit down to recover mana, just to repeat the process 10,000 more times to get a level.
Trust me, NWO is very casual that way. Like he said, most of the grind is geting your gear at 60.(And thats not grind really, can do that with a few hours in pvp, then take THAT gear and do 3-4 runs of the lower epic dungeons, then 3-4 more of neverwinter castle, then take proceeds form all items u don't use sold on AH to get the stuff u DO want/need.)
Honestly think, casual players(IE, those your NOT referring to = employed with kids who got an hour or two a night) a month MAX to cap out AND gear up.
But as all before have said, the true meat of the game is the run from 1-60 following the story(there is one lol)
To all the people saying this is the sign of a bad game, outside of tiered raiding there hasn't been a single MMO release since Vanguard and Everquest that I haven't seen all the content in the game within the first month.
Once you've seen everything the game is about the grind to get the best gear. Getting T2s is easy (although Castle Never drops better gear, tier 2.5 if you will, so depends on what the OP is referring to). The main grind is getting your runes up to max level, which he has already stated that he hasn't.
Anyway, if that doesn't suit you, move on to the next MMO that you will 'beat' in 2 weeks.
No offense, but if the developers thought that people would WANT to sit and grind out (at either 10% chance for success each stage, or 10 bucks per tier) the runes to 'max out' a toon, being that there is NOTHING else to 'grind' out, then those developers are pretty freaking braindead...
Without something 'else' to attract and hold customers, only someone who WANTS to throw money away would stay for that. I mean the game is fun, but then u hit the 'endgame' and if thats ALL endgame is(Cuz trust me, once u run castle never 2 or 3 times, challenging and fun as it might be, without something else to do, you get bored quick)
I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in pouring cash out my wallet just to gain 3-4% more stat/chance per rune(multiplied by 7-10 runes per toon, and being that a SINGLE rune would cost you upwards of 160 bucks to get to rank 9 from rank 6, which by itself is STILL quite tough - 40% chance from 4 rank 5 runes)
Idk it seems like the marketing department at cryptic(or perfect world, whichever of the morons in charge of 'prices' and shit over there) are pretty freaking stupid, and their greed alone kinda kills anyones desire to spend anything...
if they were to charge MUCH less for their stuff, even if ONLY that, I can see more people playing just to socialize with friends.
Yes, I am saying that regardless of how 'shallow' the game is at endgame, I would keep it around as my secondary mmo if only the prices were cheaper.
The coalescent wards just speed it up. 1% chance seems low, until you realise how much these runes drop, and that you only lose 1 rune in a failed fusion, not all 4.
I have gotten most of my Tier 7s already without buying a single coalescent ward. I got 2 from the daily worship thing. This whole $160 dollars per rune argument that is going around these forums is just incredibly stupid and completely untrue. I think it is just people who have never made it to the actual endgame and just found some piece of misinformation to latch onto. If drop rates were low, the 1% would be a problem, right now its just a minor time sink.
The game is two weeks old, and they are going to be patching Gauntylgrym soon, which is going to be the real endgame for both PvE and PvP. You should probably hold off on the doom and gloom until we get a good look at that. Right now I am having plenty of fun doing dungeons, PvP, Foundry and working towards my Rank 7s.
Originally posted by ThumbtackJ How many hours per day did you put into this?
I put a lot of time into the game. I don't quite know how much per day. However, I did not play the game on the first day due to signification rubberbanding issues. So the "release date" for myself was on the day after the release.
Ahh to be young, kidless and unemployed! (Okay, that was snarky!)
I did want to ask you your opinion on an survivable AOE class for leveling. Can cleave work for an aoe leveling tank or is a CW only way to go? I hear the GWF is too squishy for aoe grinding...
grats again
Guardian Fighter is better for AE grinding for most of the content. Great Weapon Fighter is a pain to level to 40, but really takes off after that due to skills and traits. GWF is the better AE at max level. Although if you want to level fast, grinding mobs is not the way to go (with the exception of ogre grinding which is now gone). You are better off doing PvP or questing if fast leveling is your goal.
Wizards do good AE damage, but you wont be using those abilities while solo because it pretty much negates any survivability and control you have. The last 15ish levels solo questing or foundry as a wizard can be painful, as large groups of mobs will chew through your health quickly. You need to be prepared for each fight, and you will use a lot of potions.
well ya, the time sink thing: I have been there, am there, etc
The runes drop.. sure.. theres lets think... 30ish types of runes.. u get rank 3, 4, 5's and 6. think about how much bag space that alone takes?
now lets say u only collect the ones u want and toss the rest, thats STILL alot of dedicated space.
Only to lose 1 rune each time at 1, 10, 20% chance at success.
Sorry, but its too much of a time sink. All for a few more %, when really, its just not needed. (My chars are all full of rnk 5 and 6's and i ran never without many problems, rank 7+'s are just not needed unless all you care about are higher numbers
In the end, a shitty player in awesome tiered gear is just a shitty player. I'll take the 8000 tier player who plays well over the 12k player whos shit. Really, though, like i said, if that was their 'plan' to keep the interest of their player base, they really must not think of those they want to 'sell' the game to, do they?
Congrats I guess. I never understand people powering through games (I have a level 36 cleric and 18 rogue), but whatever. Enjoy your time off waiting for the next new thing to come along to blow through.
well ya, the time sink thing: I have been there, am there, etc
The runes drop.. sure.. theres lets think... 30ish types of runes.. u get rank 3, 4, 5's and 6. think about how much bag space that alone takes?
now lets say u only collect the ones u want and toss the rest, thats STILL alot of dedicated space.
Only to lose 1 rune each time at 1, 10, 20% chance at success.
Sorry, but its too much of a time sink. All for a few more %, when really, its just not needed. (My chars are all full of rnk 5 and 6's and i ran never without many problems, rank 7+'s are just not needed unless all you care about are higher numbers
In the end, a shitty player in awesome tiered gear is just a shitty player. I'll take the 8000 tier player who plays well over the 12k player whos shit. Really, though, like i said, if that was their 'plan' to keep the interest of their player base, they really must not think of those they want to 'sell' the game to, do they?
What are MMOs but a time sink? Like you said, the difference in power is negligible, but its still progression for those who care to work on it. Its easy to deck yourself out in Tier 6s. And you'll only be a few % behind in stats. Then you can work on getting to higher tiers, which isnt even that much of a time sink compared to some of the drops I have hunted in other games.
EQ and EQ2 had raid drops (which you could only do once a week) with lower chance of dropping than fusing these enchants that drop like crazy. I spent a whole expansion trying to get the Hood of Dark Dealings. If you cant invest 1-2 months in gearing up a character you probably shouldn't be playing MMOs.
I mean the game cant win, if it made it easy to get max level itemisation, then its a fail game. I mean, this whole thread is about a guy who thinks he beat the game because he has full T2s. Yet if it adds in a bit of a grind, suddenly its too grindy, and P2W for speeding it up. I mean, newsflash, thats how F2P games make money... through convenience and selling time savers. The main point being that Neverwinter isnt that much of a grind in the first place, and the difference between tiers isnt that great, making it a pretty reasonable deal between RL money and time investment. It is pretty much the best you can hope for from a fully F2P offering.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Comments
Fast leveling is the standard now,it has been for years.So,Im not expecting anything different from ESO and Wildstar.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
How can you say "I beat the game there's nothing else to do...except all this other stuff but I don't actually want to do it."
You should say, "I finished all the content in the game that I wanted to play."
hallo ~_~
As I see it an MMO is something to be enjoyed like a plate of nachos with guacamole, bacon, sour creme and melted cheddar from a restaurant not wolfed down like plain bag of Lays chips.
So you raced to the max level, now what? The game is still in open beta with its first module (expac) still in development. You're basically sitting on your hands in terms of advancement at this point.
What alts, your only given one character slot!
hallo ~_~
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
yea that guy is just some fanboy trolling prolly butthurt from buying founders & seeing ppl hate on the game
it really is unfortunate PWE got this game.
hallo ~_~
Thanks for the post, I was almost going to try this out just in case. Typical modern disposable junk from the sound of it.
Sad thing is, most games seem to be going this route. Now don't get me wrong, nwo was fun, from 1-60, and even at the end like the OP, gearing up... but once u got there, what else is there except to grind for better gear... oh.. nvm i already got that...
Well I GUESS farming AD to buy stuff is left? LOL
Truth is, yes, the first few days (or lets say, first 2 weeks if u play slow and grind out 2 toons) are fun.. a LOT of fun... but after that.. ugh.. nothing left. Endgame just plain sucks, and the only 'drive' left is to get shit off the zen store for free...
I'm quite sad really, nwo has AWESOME combat, and when u get a good group together, dungeons are a blast(pvp can be fun too, if it wasn't for the CW's owning with 3 skills and only 3 skills.. lol I have yet to see a single CW NOT cycle the same 3 skills over and over, and rogs while 'balanced' can be annoying with their ability to evade and do stupid damage very quick) - but after that.. theres nothing. Even crafting is a joke, since the time to even raise a single crafting profession to lv 4-6, which is about when you can 'craft' lv 10 gear, your already sitting at 60 and fully decked out.
Seems the game was designed as a multiplayer lobby style adventure hack and slash u can jump into with some friends, then the zen store was stapled on, AH and crafting tossedd in as an afterthought, then further 'tweaked' to require constant zen buys / AD grind to get anywhere.. If the game itself was longer with 'more' to do after 60, I could almost forgive the horrible push to sell cash shop junk(Almost, not quite forgive, since the zen store just stinks the game up so bad with its greed...)
But i suggest anyone who likes quick paced action games, give nwo a shot for a week or so. Get one or two toons to 60 then park it. DON'T spend a single dime though, trust me, not even 10 bucks would be worth it.
To be fair, you really shouldn't be surprised. Everyone is and has been saying that the game is a pick me up MMO. One you will play in between other larger more indepth games(hopefully some are coming, hopefully). For that fact it's a great game. Also don't forget there are modules coming that will grow the game and give you more to do on a capped character, I assume.
But yeah, this game is not a tried and true deep MMORPG or immersive world. More an action MMO than anything. Thing is, I never expected a FFXI experience from it( I mention FFXI because that is the biggest and deepest MMO I've ever experienced to date. Even bigger than Eve for the sheer amount of systems and content. Eve is all about social gameplay anyway, totally different beast so don't get all upset, you Eve fans ;P)
To all the people saying this is the sign of a bad game, outside of tiered raiding there hasn't been a single MMO release since Vanguard and Everquest that I haven't seen all the content in the game within the first month.
Once you've seen everything the game is about the grind to get the best gear. Getting T2s is easy (although Castle Never drops better gear, tier 2.5 if you will, so depends on what the OP is referring to). The main grind is getting your runes up to max level, which he has already stated that he hasn't.
Anyway, if that doesn't suit you, move on to the next MMO that you will 'beat' in 2 weeks.
No offense, but if the developers thought that people would WANT to sit and grind out (at either 10% chance for success each stage, or 10 bucks per tier) the runes to 'max out' a toon, being that there is NOTHING else to 'grind' out, then those developers are pretty freaking braindead...
Without something 'else' to attract and hold customers, only someone who WANTS to throw money away would stay for that. I mean the game is fun, but then u hit the 'endgame' and if thats ALL endgame is(Cuz trust me, once u run castle never 2 or 3 times, challenging and fun as it might be, without something else to do, you get bored quick)
I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in pouring cash out my wallet just to gain 3-4% more stat/chance per rune(multiplied by 7-10 runes per toon, and being that a SINGLE rune would cost you upwards of 160 bucks to get to rank 9 from rank 6, which by itself is STILL quite tough - 40% chance from 4 rank 5 runes)
Idk it seems like the marketing department at cryptic(or perfect world, whichever of the morons in charge of 'prices' and shit over there) are pretty freaking stupid, and their greed alone kinda kills anyones desire to spend anything...
if they were to charge MUCH less for their stuff, even if ONLY that, I can see more people playing just to socialize with friends.
Yes, I am saying that regardless of how 'shallow' the game is at endgame, I would keep it around as my secondary mmo if only the prices were cheaper.
Ahh to be young, kidless and unemployed! (Okay, that was snarky!)
I did want to ask you your opinion on an survivable AOE class for leveling. Can cleave work for an aoe leveling tank or is a CW only way to go? I hear the GWF is too squishy for aoe grinding...
grats again
why aoe leveling?
Casually running a devoted cleric i reached 60 in.. i think a week or so, give or take, being that I prob played maybe 15-20 min per sitdown(3-4 times a day while 'on break')
A DC don't do a crapton of dmg, and by casual, as u can see, I pretty much just did a little, turned in quests, moved on, and so on.
If u wanted to 'grind' out xp to 60 as fast as possible, u can do that on ANY character(possibly ANY build) just by clever use of the foundry system, within a few hours of solid play.
Its not like other games where u want to mob up giant groups of enemies, kill with a big spell, then sit down to recover mana, just to repeat the process 10,000 more times to get a level.
Trust me, NWO is very casual that way. Like he said, most of the grind is geting your gear at 60.(And thats not grind really, can do that with a few hours in pvp, then take THAT gear and do 3-4 runs of the lower epic dungeons, then 3-4 more of neverwinter castle, then take proceeds form all items u don't use sold on AH to get the stuff u DO want/need.)
Honestly think, casual players(IE, those your NOT referring to = employed with kids who got an hour or two a night) a month MAX to cap out AND gear up.
But as all before have said, the true meat of the game is the run from 1-60 following the story(there is one lol)
The coalescent wards just speed it up. 1% chance seems low, until you realise how much these runes drop, and that you only lose 1 rune in a failed fusion, not all 4.
I have gotten most of my Tier 7s already without buying a single coalescent ward. I got 2 from the daily worship thing. This whole $160 dollars per rune argument that is going around these forums is just incredibly stupid and completely untrue. I think it is just people who have never made it to the actual endgame and just found some piece of misinformation to latch onto. If drop rates were low, the 1% would be a problem, right now its just a minor time sink.
The game is two weeks old, and they are going to be patching Gauntylgrym soon, which is going to be the real endgame for both PvE and PvP. You should probably hold off on the doom and gloom until we get a good look at that. Right now I am having plenty of fun doing dungeons, PvP, Foundry and working towards my Rank 7s.
Guardian Fighter is better for AE grinding for most of the content. Great Weapon Fighter is a pain to level to 40, but really takes off after that due to skills and traits. GWF is the better AE at max level. Although if you want to level fast, grinding mobs is not the way to go (with the exception of ogre grinding which is now gone). You are better off doing PvP or questing if fast leveling is your goal.
Wizards do good AE damage, but you wont be using those abilities while solo because it pretty much negates any survivability and control you have. The last 15ish levels solo questing or foundry as a wizard can be painful, as large groups of mobs will chew through your health quickly. You need to be prepared for each fight, and you will use a lot of potions.
well ya, the time sink thing: I have been there, am there, etc
The runes drop.. sure.. theres lets think... 30ish types of runes.. u get rank 3, 4, 5's and 6. think about how much bag space that alone takes?
now lets say u only collect the ones u want and toss the rest, thats STILL alot of dedicated space.
Only to lose 1 rune each time at 1, 10, 20% chance at success.
Sorry, but its too much of a time sink. All for a few more %, when really, its just not needed. (My chars are all full of rnk 5 and 6's and i ran never without many problems, rank 7+'s are just not needed unless all you care about are higher numbers
In the end, a shitty player in awesome tiered gear is just a shitty player. I'll take the 8000 tier player who plays well over the 12k player whos shit. Really, though, like i said, if that was their 'plan' to keep the interest of their player base, they really must not think of those they want to 'sell' the game to, do they?
What are MMOs but a time sink? Like you said, the difference in power is negligible, but its still progression for those who care to work on it. Its easy to deck yourself out in Tier 6s. And you'll only be a few % behind in stats. Then you can work on getting to higher tiers, which isnt even that much of a time sink compared to some of the drops I have hunted in other games.
EQ and EQ2 had raid drops (which you could only do once a week) with lower chance of dropping than fusing these enchants that drop like crazy. I spent a whole expansion trying to get the Hood of Dark Dealings. If you cant invest 1-2 months in gearing up a character you probably shouldn't be playing MMOs.
I mean the game cant win, if it made it easy to get max level itemisation, then its a fail game. I mean, this whole thread is about a guy who thinks he beat the game because he has full T2s. Yet if it adds in a bit of a grind, suddenly its too grindy, and P2W for speeding it up. I mean, newsflash, thats how F2P games make money... through convenience and selling time savers. The main point being that Neverwinter isnt that much of a grind in the first place, and the difference between tiers isnt that great, making it a pretty reasonable deal between RL money and time investment. It is pretty much the best you can hope for from a fully F2P offering.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.