Gotta Go Fast!

 

At this rate I'm going to hit the new level cap in Neverwinter in less than twenty four hours /played.

When the Neverwinter devs announced the level squish and revamp of the levelling experience, my first thought was that this game's levelling was already just about the fastest in the genre.

(It was about on par with Guild Wars 2, though in the end I hit 80 in that game slightly faster than I did last time around in Neverwinter, due to the massive XP from the adventure guide. Star Trek Online might come in quicker, but if it does it'll be because my last run of that game took place during a double XP event. I may also hit max level in Star Wars The Old Republic sooner than I might reasonably expect, but that's only because the levelling in that game is wildly out of sync with the story.)

One of the stated goals for Neverwinter was to improve the new player experience, and I'm not sure how well this has been accomplished. Now obviously I'm very much not a new player so I can't say for sure how all this comes across to someone who is, but I'd always admired the way that the first 20 levels or so of Neverwinter walked the player through every aspect of the game up to and including the campaign system, introducing each one in turn. Now, while I was quickly sent off to Neverdeath after just a couple of tutorial sequences, upon returning from the zone I did get hit with a fairly hefty info dump, followed by another after I'd finished the next zone, Vellosk.

This included the introduction to the crafting system, which is just as cumbersome as I remember it, and very much at odds with the fast pace of the rest of the game. I can sort of seeing it fitting in once I'm into the campaigns, but at this point it's just irrelevant.

Still no mention of enchantments or refining though, or the campaigns...

As I mentioned in my last post, part of the revamp involved removing several zones from the game. This isn't something that would usually go down well with me but for now I'm willing to give Neverwinter the benefit of the doubt, for a couple of reasons.

One of those reasons is that in Neverwinter that dreadful phrase "the game begins at endgame" is actually quite true. As good as some of the levelling zones are, this game's best content is undoubtedly the campaigns that come afterward. Of course it remains to be seen how those play now.

The other reason is that most of the zones that got the axe are ones that I didn't much care for anyway. I'll miss Blacklake and Tower District, but not Blackdagger Ruins or Helm's Hold. Pirates Skyhold was never as fun as it should have been, but I would have liked to do Mount Hotenow again, mostly for the boss fights which were particularly frantic even for this game, seeing as the boss would usually set the entire arena on fire at some point.

So yes, I get why most of these zones were dropped. No idea why they kept Vellosk though.