Done with BNW after 30 hours

[slauki]

Hey guys,

the euphoria vanished, the first playthrough rewards were taken and now the truth comes to light. BNW is really okay and a nice feature, i do think the devs did a very good job creating it (aside the year of development ofc), but the concept behind BNW is clearly flawed.

Well i could really write an essay, but i will try to focus on the main problem:

After 30hours I have samples of approx 30-35 rounds of all kind of level X BNW dungeons and all we have is a vampiric talisman. The rest are evo runes and xp runes. Sparton already said that some talismans will be hard to get, but if this trend continues this is far out of line.

Well let's think about it for a while and let's make the following assumptions:

1. level x can be done within 6 minutes (i need 8 atm some need 15+)
2. you will get a random talisman 5% of the time (every 20 runs seems realistic)
3. casual players have time to play 5 levels per day on average in addition with the 50 troopers

20 runs of BNW will take exactly 120 minutes or 2 hours to play, if you play it optimal. 3-4 hours are far more realistic for the most of us. In addition to this 300 SOT are needed (approx 113 ironite). So it's a decent investment ironitewise and an extraordinary investment timewise just to get one random talisman.

can you imagine now, how long it will take to get another 4set of echoes (non skilled)?
A casual player will need to play several weeks to get a full set at all. and the hardcore refiller will also have a hard time, getting this since it's not possible at the moment to autoplay the hardest stages. so we have to use out manpower and do every single click on our own, spend a ton of stuff to get very little in exchange. this will get old really soon, and it will be a 6-8 minute pain every time. not sure how many are going for this, but i'm sure i won't.

One of the biggest complains since pvp is that the player need too much time to fulfill the daily obligations of the game. 50 troopers are a ton and now we have BNW which is another huge time sink. But investing time and ironite for very little in exchange is a bad deal, and this whole concept is flawed. what do you guys expect, should we really play this game all day long and spend ironite every day just to equip our team with the necessary talismans and skillshards? That's not the way to go for me. If you expect big investments in time and in game currency the rewards should be worth it. right now the ROI is more than horrible.

Don't get me wrong i love the new challange and the new bosses. The feature is pretty good but it's a pain for farming it all day long, especially with these reward structures.

I'm sure more of these complains will come very soon. So let me know, what do you think about this. And more important, let the devs know, what to do better.


BTW: suggestions for a better BNW:

- reduce the sot costs
- increase the total sot to 100
- let us use several troopers in BNW
- implement skillshards in BNW 5% of the time
- implement g/a souls there another 5% of the time
- improve the droprate for talismans by a fair margin
- improve the xp rune drops too
- improve the ironite and sot drops there
- let more rewards drop there (range 4-7 rewards)

If you guys implement some of this suggestions, BNW will be worth the time and the ironite. Until then, i'm back playing powerslave and GOD again.

[DaveMurray]

Thanks slauki for that, you wrote exactly what i was thinking. No point to add anything.
So after many rounds i got to admit that i lost a lot of ironite, my day and i gained a headache and 1 talisman.
Totally not worth it atm. I am only going to play a few rounds when LoL is not available and when we have a BNW based event.

[mjmxiii]

Damn Slauki,

You nail it every time man! I agree 100% with you on this. I was just thinking today that NF should really give us the option to go 5 troopers deep! All this SoT and time and then PvP on top of it, now BNW? Why is it that if we don't like it we can just not play? That is basically the option, the only one.They invest a year of their time making this really cool dungeon and we can barely play it because they put a governor on the feature to regulate how often we play. It is pretty weak to stick with them through the ups and downs over the past year only to get hosed again with another P2P.

I would really like to see the impossible:

1. Skull Quests - Same drop rates, cheaper SoT cost. No level should cost more than 8 SoT! Change Talisman Cache and Horde levels to something more useful!
2. BNW - Better drop rates for new Talismans and evo runes. Hard to believe it took a year and still feels like it needs some fine tuning. At this point, after you get the achievement rewards, it's just a waste of time and resources.
3. Troopers - 5 allowed per level! C'mon NF, you know we love the game and helping out other players, but why make us prove it everyday with the 50 runs? Multiples of 5 would bring the GoD runs to 10 max! That would save us a little ironite for LoL, BNW and Skull quests.
4. It should really cost 10 ironite across the board to revive your team! 40 ironite? Really?

I know I'm asking for a million dollars here, so I won't ask again for a while. The work you guys do is great but it really is whale fishing as opposed to hooking up the people the right way for all the right reasons.

Open the game up NF... just a little bit would go so far! I get where you're coming from... We're all shooting for the stars, some are just aiming for different quadrants!
Cheers

[Aristo4]

As usual not much to add after Slauki

I'm at around 10 runs on all kinds of levels X with zero talisman drops (first runs aside). While BNW looks cool, its a challenge to get it right etc....why should I farm it with such low expectations/so high cost/time needed?

Noone saying BNW should be easy and give you exactly what you need in 1 run guaranteed......but things so far seem to be extremely non-rewarding

[Hypnos]

Spot on mate, would like to see skull quests SoT costs reduced as well. With up to three troopers playable at one time.

We shouldn't be expected to continue spending a large chunk of our day playing the skull quests, all troopers and on top of that farming the dungeons now. I'm beginning to see this for what it truly is: a full-time job with no benefits.

[MrFreeze]

I ran fear VII on auto for a while last night hoping for runes more than anything. For 15 SOT, it didn't seem like the drops where much better than underworld madness. The quantities they drop in are very low compared to the shard drops in LOL. I don't know why the devs like to starve us, but they do. I think there must be some unwritten philosophy on mobile games that says giving too much is bad. It's ok for us to give too much time though.


Edit: This is what I'm talking about. It's probably considered a good drop for VII. Not in my opinion. The quantities need to be higher for 15 SoT.

[Ian]

I'd have no issue with the time and SoT requirements for BNW only if we could use play 2 troopers per level. As it stands, I really like the new level - I'll happily repeat myself here, the artistry is superb - but yesterday I didn't have time to actually play it - the highest levels are not exactly quick blasts like LoL or any regular levels; didn't even have time to get through my SoW in the Arena after playing all my troopers, just like most days. I'm not even too bothered by how often the talismans drop, but the time taken to play troopers every day is becoming very wearisome.

[Zapathusara]

Agree with all you said.
BNW is a f**king awesome addition, really challanging. But there is no point if there is no long term rewards.

I like how they increased the challange by adding talis and Modifiers in the late levels, this is a long term solution to make PvE fun even for late gamers.

All that (re)said, lets take a look in the possible solutions:

BTW: suggestions for a better BNW:

- reduce the sot costs
- increase the total sot to 100

I'm okay with the costs, if they change drop rates (see below). One run takes to much time, so the SoT spend match the real time exp.

That said, raise the SoT to 100. I dont think it will impact farm in a bad way, and we have too much to do between troopers amd dungeons, to say just SoT modes. Add PvP and we are talking about lots of real life time.

- let us use several troopers in BNW

the issue is that we know they in develop wit a Coop game mode. Maybe something like raids in Marvel Avengers Allience was.

But mult trooper in dungeons can be a temporally solution (and let more players get high rank talis using late game troopers)

- implement skillshards in BNW 5% of the time
- implement g/a souls there another 5% of the time

BNW is about talis. Souls and fragments should be the Silent Planet theme (see "demons of creation" in the coming never popup). Skillshards could be LoL, but to be fair, they'll be something apart ever.

- improve the droprate for talismans by a fair margin
- improve the xp rune drops too
- improve the ironite and sot drops there
- let more rewards drop there (range 4-7 rewards)

THIS. The flaw with BNW is the reward. There is none (besides the first run). In my mind, there should be a progression in drops. Lets take Garden of Life. If Shell/Imune starts to drop at lvl VII, they should drop more in later levels. When I do a lvl IX, I expect to see good amounts of Chance and Advantage ones, a fair amount of Shell/Imune or Guard, and if Im luck, Quake and Zone.

I expect to get one (and sometimes two) talis per run. If Im unluckly, none of them but a good amount of xp material, Im ok with that. In a luckly day, I'd get what I want. The rest of time, just fair drops instead of this nothing we have now.

*************

So, after this big wall of text (sorry), I advocate that the solution is increase talis drop rates, with the progression on the quality of them (few late talis, more of the middle ones).

Spend 15 SoT plus 7min in manual and get nothing should never be the rule.

[Patrice-1201]

I think you said it all.

I love the feature but now that I completed it, I won't spend 15 ironites on another run for almost no reward.

Another thing is that with all the crashes this has already cost me around 500 ironite... so i might occasionally ply a level or to just because it is awesome and challenging but that's it.

The thing though is that PVP is all about Talismans not souls so maybe they have us by the b@!!$...

[Nicko]

I think you said it all.

I love the feature but now that I completed it, I won't spend 15 ironites on another run for almost no reward.

Another thing is that with all the crashes this has already cost me around 500 ironite... so i might occasionally ply a level or to just because it is awesome and challenging but that's it.

The thing though is that PVP is all about Talismans not souls so maybe they have us by the b@!!$...

I don't think they have us by the balls Patrice - and go back to the Jofer analogy. He was winning with a relatively small roster and only key toons sharded - PvP is more about your strategy and fortitude - the willingness to commit yourself to a fairly grueling competition on the last day. Talismans may give you an edge in defense - but I think on offense they'll be icing on the cake. Will we want them? Of course - like a kid wants a toy in the toy store - but if mom says no and distracts the kid - they'll be fine.

The thing about a thread like this is I don't think anyone wants to come off as ungrateful - I think everyone is excited BNW is here and the actual implementation is really cool. But there's no way to sugarcoat it - the rewards suck.

I'm not wasting my time farming Lvl 10 - too much time - so I did about ten rounds of Dismay level 8 last night. The talisman reward? One Vampiric...

I will continue to explore this simply because it's new - but honestly - no way that will last. It's just not worth it. Challenge is good with an evolving story - and the fact that this is challenging bodes really well for Night City - but to have to manually play a level ten times - an hours worth of work - for one talisman? I don't think many people have the time. And from what I'm seeing - most of the comments in this thread are coming from people who play a lot - so I can only imagine what the casual player thinks...

I do disagree with Osiris a bit though - a talisman every run might be TOO much (at least for the highly desirable ones). I don't want every Assassin I face to be loaded with immortality - then the gripes they've ruined PvP will come - so I think balance is in order.

This will get adjusted - it has to. No one will play it otherwise - and that's a lot of work they've put in only for the feature to collect dust. And no playing = no spending - so they'll get it after the initial excitement wears off. It's new and we're all glad it's here - but an adjustment is needed. Thanks for starting this thread Slauki - cause I can't imagine anyone playing BNW right now thinks anything else