The MMORPG Neverwinter is receiving a complete overhaul of the leveling process with the upcoming update Mod 21. Experience points will be completely removed, and some old content will end up in the “Vault” to be recycled later. However, many players find the changes suboptimal and express criticism.
What is happening in Neverwinter? With Module 21, drastic changes will be made to the leveling process:
- The max level is being reduced from 80 to 20 to align more closely with Dungeons & Dragons.
- The time until the max level is expected to be about 12 hours of gameplay.
- Experience points will be completely removed from the game. Moving forward, you will level up by completing story milestones.
- Story milestones will prevent you from being at too high or too low a level for your narrative and quests.
- Some old zones and content will be “outsourced”. They will be removed from the leveling process and are expected to return later in an updated form.
- A new training area will be introduced where players can test their builds.
What happens to existing characters? They will be set to level 20, regardless of what level they were at before. Additionally, they will receive a free equipment pack to ensure they have the correct item level for maximum content. They can optionally play through the entire leveling experience and the new tutorial or jump straight into the max level content.
The changes have already been released on the test server and can be tried out by all players. In the meantime, some players have shared their thoughts on the changes, and many of them are not enthusiastic.
Linear leveling and missing experience points take away the fun
What are the players criticizing? In the official forum and on YouTube, there are mainly 4 major points of criticism regarding the changes:
- The linear story during leveling
- The missing experience points
- The little experience players have at max level
- The removal of old content
Due to the new entry method, levels are firmly tied to the story. This particularly disturbs players who enjoy leveling multiple characters – they now have to go through the always linear story instead of leveling up with side quests, in other areas, or simply by grinding.
The user bpstuart misses the sense of adventure in the new leveling process:
You know, I preferred leveling when it was based on XP rather than milestones. I felt a rush of joy when I found a lore book in the open world and suddenly got a level up. It felt like a reward for exploring and engaging with the world. It gave me the feeling of living an adventure and not just jumping through a hoop.
When the next levels are tied to a quest, it now feels so meaningless. Milestones are fine for pen and paper, but here they are meh.
Also, the forum user arieswytch has summarized his problems with the leveling process. He is less bothered by the linear experience and more about how players quickly reach max level and have little experience with the classes:
There is already a significant amount of toxicity in dungeons when someone doesn’t know the mechanics in a dungeon they’ve never been to or have only rarely visited. Throwing some of these twinks into cold water by making them max level could frustrate some of these players and also anger veterans who have put in the effort to reach level 80.
The fact that old content is being removed from the game is not well received by many. Even if a return has already been promised, they fear that the content will be lost forever or will only return in a shortened form.
Are there any positive voices? Yes, because many adjustments are fundamentally viewed positively, including:
- A better-structured story and better leveling experience
- Skippable cutscenes
- The new quest hub and training area
- It’s quicker to bring twinks to max level
However, almost every forum post that lists positive aspects also has a “but” in its text. So the new leveling experience doesn’t seem perfect.
What happens with over-leveling? In Neverwinter, it has been the case that you can continue to collect experience points even after reaching max level. For each new level up, there are a few rewards.
As there are no longer any experience points in the game, these rewards will now be tied to specific tasks, such as killing certain enemies or completing quests.
New Class Bard
What else changes with Mod 21? In addition to the new leveling experience, there is another major change: the new class Bard. This is the first new class in 5 years and the Bard can already be tried out on the test server.
There won’t be any additional changes to the combat system, as has usually been done with new updates. The focus is on leveling and the Bard. A first look at the class is given in the reveal trailer on YouTube:
When does Mod 21 come out? There is no concrete release date yet. However, tomorrow, June 16, at 11 PM our time, an AMA with the developers regarding the new update will take place. More details may be revealed there.
What do you think about the changes in Neverwinter? Will you take another look at the MMORPG because of this? Feel free to share in the comments!
In April, we conducted an interesting interview with the developers of Neverwinter at MeinMMO. It was about the topic of boss design: This is how bosses in the MMORPG Neverwinter are designed: “Everything gets thrown out, even if it sounds too crazy”.
