A good thing, then, that hacking and slashing your way through Neverwinter and its
various environs tends to be fun, even though you’re limited to five classes (and two
of those are just variations on melee warriors). That’s partly because the combat’s
rather simple, relying on clicks of your left and right mouse button for core attacks
and a handful of hotkeys. Indeed, Neverwinter’s action combat and its limit of a mere
eight abilities owes far greater debts to Diablo III than to the rummage piles of
abilities in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft or Rift. Playing as a Great Weapon
Fighter, I was impressed by the viscerality and weight of my attacks, and by the fact
each ability has its own animation. By the time I hit level 20, I found myself
believing that the class captured the “Me smash’em” aspect of warrior combat better
than most other MMORPGs I’ve played. With a wide range of area-of-effect abilities,
I’d jump into piles of enemies and laugh as they fell beneath my blade.
Perhaps a little too easily, though. With its heavy emphasis on instanced solo
dungeons, Neverwinter isn’t an actively social game to begin with, and the inclusion
of NPC companions only enhances the drive toward self-reliance. As I hit level 16 on
my Fighter, I thought I’d need to pick up friends to progress further because I’d
taken to chugging health potions with every pull (there’s no passive health
regeneration). But that’s when I picked up my cleric companion. With her steady
stream of heals, I could just spring into a pile of enemies and slash away for the
rest of the journey, and be all but invincible as long as I remembered to keep them
off of her. Oddly enough, you can even take NPC buddies into five-man dungeons with a
full group of other players, allowing a little breathing room for your healers during
enemy swarms since almost everyone else brings along a NPC healer, too.
Indeed, Neverwinter relies excessively on those hordes. Almost every single boss
fight in the dungeons (single or five-man) relies on fighting a big baddie while
staving off waves of his or her cronies. It adheres so strongly to this template
that, as I write this a single day after my last login, I’m having trouble recalling
the specific strategies of any particular fights. That’s a shame, because the
dungeons are filled with stunning vistas and secret passageways that unlock for
class-specific professions like Dungeoneering, but as a result of the over reliance
on similar mechanics, they tend to drag on for far too long.
And that’s why the Foundry missions are so fun. The Foundry allows players to create
their own D&D-inspired content, leading to missions that, in many cases, are far more
enthralling than the ones Cryptic designed for us. Cryptic had already made a name
for itself using the same concept in Star Trek Online and Champions Online, but the
ability to create your own dungeons assumes a new vitality Neverwinter’s Dungeons &
Dragons’ fantasy settings. Some players use it to create episodic “real-life”
versions of pen-and-paper D&D scenarios they first thought up back in the ‘90s,
while others use it to develop memorable storylines or set up barroom brawls.