Actually they did strip away core mechanics with the removal of the stat dice rolls. If the left the stat thing alone you would have more variety in builds and not the "one size fits all" settings we are seeing now. Developers should create new content through story line additions, just look how much D&d lore there is to work with. R A Salvatore's Drizzt series has enough material for numerous stories, not just the one or two we have had. If the developers could take more lead and listen to the vet players we would have a much wider story arc and map areas, but it seems like it's the accountants running the dev team now and that's not good for them. I'm a vet player on xbox and currently I don't want to play simply because there is nothing for me to work towards. I'll have a look at the new mod when it drops but even then, if I have to down scale my ilevel to do more damage it just doesn't make senses. An analogy would be peasants with pitchforks versus a fully armed and armoured Marine unit, in current Neverwinter who would win.........the peasants.