I initially picked this up on their launcher back in 2017.

So Neverwinter has really nice combat and if you like the system of D&D you'll likely enjoy Neverwinter's system as well as it is very similar. The game plays really well and it is enjoyable. It is definitely not the questline or lore that would capture you right off the bat, but rather the mechanical aspects of the game.

Leveling (after the change to lvl 20 being max lvl) felt incredibly fast which can be good or bad all depending on what you want. We'd complete a quest and ding (wow yay new abilities), then five minutes later they would let us ding again.. Sometimes combat felt way too easy; there wasn't much of a challenge. Oh, that's a boss? Okay, he's dead. Alright, I suppose. Then later on it starts to feel a little more challenging.

While I will say it is not necessary to pay for anything to progress as far as I know (leveling process), running in to the Real Money Shop (RMS), where you buy items with Zen (the in game real money stand-in) is unavoidable. Your likely first run-in with it is literally part of the main leveling quests which makes you buy something off of it (you get a 100% off token for said item). This sort of thing is incredibly predatory. It "teaches" you how to use the shop - making you use it - which then makes purchasing items with actual money much easier for you later on since you have already technically done it before. In addition to that the Real money to Zen ratio is incredibly steep and don't you love it when the packs that are available to you always seem to be too small for what you can get and then you have get the one that's more expensive which leaves you juuuust short left-over for another item? Yeah.
Both of those things are common practice for greedy "item shop"-based games..

So you thought Zen and in-game gold is all you need to worry about? Nuh-uh. It can get really confusing figuring out all the currencies and what they are for and ohh no I guess you need Astral Diamonds for this... Which by the way is the main other currency in the game among the others. How do you get those, you wonder? Well, the main way of getting these is by turning Zen into Astral Diamonds (AD) on the trade market. You also get AD by questing and refining AD shards. This process is signiiiificantly slower as you might've expected.

Overall I think Neverwinter is pretty enjoyable. I don't play for the story as there really isn't very much to speak of.. but the combat is great. I have found it incredibly frustrating, annoying and confusing to have all these run-ins with things gated behind Astral Diamonds. Or events that are especially tedious, but hey if you buy this thing from the Zen shop it will be super easy! I really don't like that sort of practice.. I want the game to make me want to play it all based on what it can offer, and not for all the things I can buy and unlock or how powerful I will feel if I get this powerup thing from the shop.

My suggestion would be to play this game casually; to ignore the prompts towards the RMS and just pick a class you enjoy because it is still worth playing for the gameplay in itself.

I initially picked this up on their launcher back in 2017. So Neverwinter has really nice combat and if you like the system of D&D you'll likely enjoy Neverwinter's system as well as it is very similar. The game plays really well and it is enjoyable. It is definitely not the questline or lore that would capture you right off the bat, but rather the mechanical aspects of the game. Leveling (after the change to lvl 20 being max lvl) felt incredibly fast which can be good or bad all depending on what you want. We'd complete a quest and ding (wow yay new abilities), then five minutes later they would let us ding again.. Sometimes combat felt way too easy; there wasn't much of a challenge. Oh, that's a boss? Okay, he's dead. Alright, I suppose. Then later on it starts to feel a little more challenging. While I will say it is not necessary to pay for anything to progress as far as I know (leveling process), running in to the Real Money Shop (RMS), where you buy items with Zen (the in game real money stand-in) is unavoidable. Your likely first run-in with it is literally part of the main leveling quests which makes you buy something off of it (you get a 100% off token for said item). This sort of thing is incredibly predatory. It "teaches" you how to use the shop - making you use it - which then makes purchasing items with actual money much easier for you later on since you have already technically done it before. In addition to that the Real money to Zen ratio is incredibly steep and don't you love it when the packs that are available to you always seem to be too small for what you can get and then you have get the one that's more expensive which leaves you juuuust short left-over for another item? Yeah. Both of those things are common practice for greedy "item shop"-based games.. So you thought Zen and in-game gold is all you need to worry about? Nuh-uh. It can get really confusing figuring out all the currencies and what they are for and ohh no I guess you need Astral Diamonds for this... Which by the way is the main other currency in the game among the others. How do you get those, you wonder? Well, the main way of getting these is by turning Zen into Astral Diamonds (AD) on the trade market. You also get AD by questing and refining AD shards. This process is signiiiificantly slower as you might've expected. Overall I think Neverwinter is pretty enjoyable. I don't play for the story as there really isn't very much to speak of.. but the combat is great. I have found it incredibly frustrating, annoying and confusing to have all these run-ins with things gated behind Astral Diamonds. Or events that are especially tedious, but hey if you buy this thing from the Zen shop it will be super easy! I really don't like that sort of practice.. I want the game to make me want to play it all based on what it can offer, and not for all the things I can buy and unlock or how powerful I will feel if I get this powerup thing from the shop. My suggestion would be to play this game casually; to ignore the prompts towards the RMS and just pick a class you enjoy because it is still worth playing for the gameplay in itself.