I’ve only played to level 10 so far, but I’m liking the Neverwinter MMO. It’s a free-to-play game with micro transactions, which I feel is a better model than GW2’s buy-to-play AND micro transactions. I’ve only spent $10 so far, on extra character slots as you only start with two (I thought it was 1/$5 but it’s actually 2/$5).
It feels like they took the best parts of Diablo, Guildwars 2, SWOTR (the story-telling), and TERA and mashed them together with some D&D. Most classes get some kind of active dodge, there’s no tab-targeting, and the combat feels visceral. I feel less like I’m using a rotation and more like I’m reacting to the positioning and attacks coming from the enemies. I also love that unless there’s a reason for things to be in a container, they actually just fall on the ground. There are also physics objects in the terrain (probably part of why the game is instanced as much as it is), this really brings the environments to life and I hope that TESO does something similar.
The world is heavily instanced, but it’s not as jarring and claustrophobic as Dragon Nest. I’m really interested in how they kept the game client’s size down to a couple of gigs. I’ve often wondered if it made sense to stream cinematics and one-time voice acted dialogue, on a game that requires a connection anyway. I’m also excited about the player-created content possibilities.
I think my main character is going to be my Halfing Guardian Fighter. I love games that let me actively defend with a shield, so that was a big selling point. And the tank should always be a tiny person with ridiculous Con.
I used the Tiefling race for both my Rogue and Great Weapon Fighter, I’m interested to see how +2 str or dex compares to “+5% damage to targets < 50% hp.” I believe that 2 Str is about +1% physical damage, but I was disappointed to see that there’s no Rogue build that exploits low hit points (I liked a Thief build in GW2 that did that).
The only thing I found interesting about the Half Elf was the +1% Gold find. I’m confused on whether or not the Human’s couple of extra feat points are good, I guess it depends on a class that has enough worthwhile lower level feats (as they don’t apply to the really good paragon feats). Oddly enough the Half-Orc looks to be near the top of the pile for Rogues, as he can take +2 Str AND Dex, and get extra Crit damage (to stack with other Rogue Crit damage bonuses).