A recent Neverwinter AMA revealed new details on new classes, dungeon modules, and more.
The AMA took place on Reddit with devs fielding several questions from the community. First up, the devs answered a question regarding the removal of feats:
“The removal of feats, the separation of powers, and the removal of player uniqueness has left a very sour taste in players mouths. Has the system team looked into the idea of adding more feats, and more powers at the players disposal? Maybe similar to how Neverwinter was, but actually improving on it?”
To which the devs responded,
“Let's get all of the feats and class features in a good state and class to class balance in a better state before diving into more powers/feats/choices/options, which will also need to be balanced with all that already exists.”
The devs also took the time to answer much longer detailed questions like this one,
“Thanks for answering our questions through this AMA:
- Will you release new classes in the future? D&D universe is vast yet it's been years since you released a new class.
We have popular threads on the forum asking for Druid & Bard, will we ever see them in Neverwinter?
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1191500/the-new-class-es-feedback-thread
2) Same question about races, popular threads on the forum but we get nothing, the community asks for Minotaurs, Tabaxi, Warforged, we get nothing...
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1191497/the-new-race-s-feedback-thread
3) About Barbarian and their 3 defenses slots and 1 offense slot, for a DPS. The community has begged more offense slots, even 2 offenses & 2 defenses would be fine. Do you guys have anything planned for barbarian? 3 defenses slots means tank, we can't perform well against 3 offenses slots classes.
4) Could you make old Epic Dungeons more rewarding? Right now clearing Malabog Castle takes almost as much time as Tomb of the Nine gods yet we get nothing serious from Malabog Castle, it's a waste of time for higher ilvl players.”
The team replied with,
- “A new class is certainly something we've talked a lot about, we've also talked a lot about the current balance and improving the classes in the game already. It is always tough to make one choice over the other but with limited resources there is only so much we can do. But yes, we would find it exciting to add a new class to Neverwinter and would like to do so at some point.
- It is certainly possible that we will add another, or more than that, races to Neverwinter in the future like we recently did with Gith. Making a race does come at the cost of not making other things and it is always a balance between what players want more and what is best for the project. We also did attempt to do Tabaxi prior to Gith, there were technical hurdles that couldn't be overcome at the time due to restrictions for how the race had to be portrayed. That isn't to say those hurdles couldn't be overcome in the future, but it is why Tabaxi is not a player race right now.
3 and 4 are very similar to another question I answered in the thread so far so I will skip repeating those here for sake of time.”
Dungeon modules were also touched on, with one question touching on the seemingly boring nature of these,
“Each module it's the same boring, 1 dungeon, heroic encounters, time gated blah blah boring. It was talked about before, about sacrificing heroic encounters for dungeons. Is this something that is considered now moving into M19, M20 M21? Because, honestly, the 1 dungeon, heroic encounter farm, is beyond not enjoyable. Even if it's a skirmish and a dungeon, but please, we need something new in the systems for dungeons.”
The devs responded,
“A lot of that comes down to time. We'd love to do more, but we only have so much time in a development cycle, and only so many development cycles that can be applied to a release. If we make releases bigger, then you see less of them, and we already hear a lot from players that we take too much time between modules
We are looking to try and innovate where possible when it comes to dungeons and their reward structures - but that is a much bigger question.”
Another dev followed up with,
“Creating 6 heroic encounters in a module typically takes less than 1/8th of the time to create a single dungeon and can also typically be done by one department where as a dungeon needs typically at least 3 departments. Cutting HEs would not allow for there to be a second dungeon in a module.”
