Tree of Savior Forum

11 aspects that can fix the game structural problems [2021]

I’ll try to make short, each point could be an individual thread long discussion. We need something at least as big as re:build to get this game growing. Many of these points are some of the reasons why new players quit.

1) Prioritize diversity
2) Reduce the importance of stats
3) Simplify equipment
4) Improve monster combat experience
5) Give monsters unique/memorable features
6) Slower combat
7) Change the relationship between basic attacks and skills
8) Update skill tree system
9) Reorganize class divisions and redesign classes to fit them
10) Give classes visible identities, strengths and weaknesses
11) Provide a restriction free route for every class

1) Prioritize diversity - The main selling point of the game is the class system and build combination, people come to the game to play with these in every content the game has to offer. Anything that prevents people from playing multiple characters or forces them to commit to single character is harming the game.

2) Reduce the importance of stats - Stat numbers just became too high, volatile and the defining factor for failure and success. High offensive stats should make your do content faster and high defensive stats should allow you to make more mistakes, but never determine if you can or not participate in any kind of content. Player performance, decision making, strategy and teamwork should always be higher on the list than raw stats and equipment.

3) Simplify equipment - There’s just too many equipment types and systems to engage with and these prevent players from using equipment once they obtain it. Just for classic equipment we have gems, anvil, awakening, transcendence, set effects, ichors and enchantment jewels, all that has to be done before changing equipment and set effects make that applied to 4 pieces instead of one. With a new equipment type being added on every new episode it makes too hard to be up to date and be allowed to participate on content, new and returning players are just overwhelmed by it. Equipments are meant to be tools you can change to better suit the task you will perform, they should be usable once you get them, be specialized and not require you to have all pieces to use them.

Seals were added as a new equipment that can be leveled and unlock new features, Arks were added as new equipment that can be leveled and unlock new features… Relics (or Res Sacrae) were added as new equipment that can be leveled and unlock new features… There’s no point in making slight different versions of a system when you can expand the current ones.

4) Improve monster combat experience - Monster combat is the most frequent interaction in the game and it has barely received any change aside monster nerfs and external system changes. The worst aspect of monster combat is the fact any player can dodge their attacks by walking alone yet you still have the ability to run and jump, which makes any non direct attacks miss the target. In addition, their damage capability is low and they can be obliterated by a single skill, except for some instances at high “difficulty”. Regardless of the content or map, monsters combat should have tension and this requires monsters in the character level range to be somewhat of a threat during fights.

5) Give monsters unique/memorable features - The only distinction from monsters is their stats, weaknesses and base aggression, you can always approach them and interact with them in the same way every single time. It is weird for a Hanaming, a petal rabbit monster, to fight (and be fought) rhe same way as a Living Armor, a golem axe knight, when these monsters have nothing in common aside being monsters. An easy way to address it is by adding conditional effects that makes monsters weaker or stronger depending on common player interactions such as dealing damage from a specific property, incapacitate enemies (stun, freeze, petrify, etc), reaching an HP threshold or the number of allies/enemies nearby. This kind of addition can make monsters feel like unique species.

6) Slower combat - The faster the combat is resolved the less room it has for control (hold and reposition enemies) and debuffs skills and effects, which leads to have damage dealing as the only important aspect. Demanding different actions and strategies from players is important to make combat engaging and diverse, and that can’t happen unless things are slowed down.

7) Change the relationship between basic attacks and skills - Functionally speaking Z and C attacks don’t exist, there is too huge of a power gap between basic attacks and skills. Some buffs and equipment try to address it but it only applies to a limited amount of classes and builds. Since skills can hit more enemies and deal more damage they just became the default damage option, basic attacks have no purpose once you reach second or third advancement. Skills are meant to be fixed tools you have on your disposal, they should have a limited use and contextual value, players should have to save skills as response to certain conditions and punished if they miss use them. The role of basic attacks is to be the constant all purpose damage resource.

8) Update skill tree system - Every time a new player asks about builds they’re always confused why they can’t get a certain skill or why they can’t put more points into a skill. The current skill tree model is a legacy of the old class system and it made sense for that system, this was no longer the case once circles were removed. It would be easier to manage builds if all skills were maxed at level 10 and level requirements were reduced or even removed, skills with lower maximum level gain too much power per point spent while skills with those with higher maximum level gain less power per point spent and cannot have a good balancing point for additional characteristics that are improved with level. The best example was (OLD) Joint Penalty as a skill that added 0.5 target per skill level, requiring two skill levels to gain an extra target. It also doesn’t make sense for essential single point skills to cost skill points. It’s not even an option if 99% of the player that use said the class have it, just give it away for free.

9) Reorganize class divisions and redesign classes to fit them - Class are split among the following groups - Offensive (red), Defensive (blue), Support (green), Business (yellow), Summoner (purple) and Special/GvG (white). By listing every class in this division system we can see that the offensive division contains the majority of classes in every single tree, ignoring offensive classes that are have a green icon. It also doesn’t make sense to split classes in defensive and support groups as these two aspects can easily overlap, you can have support classes that focus on protection and defensive classes that use party buffs. Meanwhile, business classes have proven to not work as a standalone concept and special/gvg is limited to a single class, even summoners are at a weird spot since they are restricted to a single class tree.

A clearer way to split these is by sorting them into three groups - Offensive, Control (hold and reposition enemies) and Support - with intermediate groups as the combination of two of them (Ex: Support + Control), for a total of six groups. With more well defined groups classes can be redesigned to provide an almost equal number of options for each group.


Non-labeled colors mean the combination of two groups. Yellow means Offensive + Support


Squire was added to represent a new class added for the minimum quota of 4 options for Support only build, it should never have left Sworsman tree though

10) Give classes visible identities, strengths and weaknesses - Classes have become more and more versatile over time, the natural result of this is to have one class or build to be dominant as it is overall better than everything else. For classes to be interesting they have to be really good at something, average at other things and bad at everything else. The ability to combine classes should further amplify these strengths or mitigate some of the weaknesses, and this leads character building to be interesting. It’s also important that classes that are bad at something aren’t excluded from any kind of content due it, a skill that only works on PvP or doesn’t work against bosses is the kind of thing that doesn’t make a class or skill bad, it makes it worthless.

11) Provide a restriction free route for every class - This is mostly exclusive to Swordsmen, Archers and Scouts. There are multiple classes in game that cannot work without a specific weapon type and this kills any build possibility with a different weapon, that is important to keep the fantasy and it can never be truly solved. What could be done instead is to have some of these skills available for every weapon and mount state, in a way that it has at least one route that doesn’t have leftover points for weapon and/or mount exclusive skills. A spear user with Fencer should still be able to use all skill points effectively without needing a rapier, even if limited to only a specific combination (similar to Retiarii).


Will gladly discuss about these (even go in depth) and other things that could also be done and weren’t in here.

19 Likes

Good list!

I created a few threads of my own in the last few months that tackle quite a few of these topics as well.

To me it seems like the game has a Men in Black issue where someone is using a device on the developers and they forget everything about the game and just add new stuff trying to keep the players happy without addressing the actual core issues. This is especially highlighted with every new equipment piece introduced thus making gear progression even more convoluted than it already is and even more un-fun.

It has been quite evident to me in the last few months that the current class system is not sustainable anymore, especially with IMC trying to streamline every class making them feel to similar and forcing everyone to play the same builds thus completely ignoring the big strength of this game, it’s huge amount of classes thus allowing for build variety, which is practically an illusion right now.

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Agree on all points.

Another thing that bothers me is how Imc removes class synergies (even weak ones), forcing you to go an specific route if you want to play X class. I guess Imc’s logic on this is “less viable builds means easier balancing”. The ep13 wizard changes made this specially clear.

At this point, why even give players the choice to choose 3 classes? It’s clear that unless you play specific pre-determined builds, your character is going to have no synergies, will be very weak and will most likely be kicked from parties etc.

Instead of giving more choices, each patch reduces more and more the viable options.
Arts, which were meant to change the way certain skills work, do not improve synergies between classes, Vaivoras limit what weapons you can use, etc etc.
:tired:

Also the balancing is a nightmate on its own. For example, lets take 2 skills in the same class: Kundela Slash and Kurdaitcha.

  1. Kundela Slash: 552%, 9 hits (3x 3 overheats), 20s cooldown, gets 100% additive dmg on cursed targets.
  2. Kurdaitcha: 362%, 150 hits, 15s cooldown (reduced to 12s with Dahlia set), gets 400% additive damage from Dahlia set.

Both skills are 10 points to max and are in the same class, yet there is this huge disparity between them. Instead of buffing Kundela (or removing it entirely even), Imc just left it there as a relic of the past which no one ever uses anymore…

And just for fun, my opinion on what wizard(ep13) would be like on your 6-group system:


I don’t think any class can fit in the Control+Support group… Though Linker would fit perfectly were it still was a wizard class.

Of course, were something similar to be implemented into the game, I think many classes would need reworks, possibly changing how they play completely.

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At this point i wouldn’t be shocked if they killed the current class system in favor of a direct class progression.

Seems pretty accurate, depending on the criteria it can look a bit different, i’d say Cryomancer is closer to a pure control than Sage.

Absolutely, even to the point some classes may lose any kind of resemblance to their current iterations, but that’s the kind of commitment IMC needs to make class diversity work, it could be even a reason for them to not do it but they already butchered Sadhu so… that’s not a reasonable excuse. Wizard could even be the poster child, it is the only tree that has thematics flexible enough to fill the whole model evenly without any compromise.

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The lower level maps really let you play around with classes a lot more because of how weak everything is, so balance doesn’t matter. Really gives you a feeling of freedom to play around or do roleplay/gimmick builds without being restricted by gearcheck+metacheck content.
Aside from the lack of well, non-field content, earlygame feels a lot more playable than the endgame.
In your 5th point you also mention giving monsters memorable features, which is funny cause i keep cursing the ice pike mobs in Kalejimas (all floors), which can actually get you almost killed with bad timing, or the various Caltrops mobs that slow you down.

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You can’t say they weren’t memorable. :distinguished:

Now being serious, they haven’t ever allowed freeze spam to be a thing but now that we got nothing i cannot say which is worse… We do need form of monster interaction that makes you rethink how (maybe even when) to interact with monsters. Caltrops could work if the monster that did it had a coward nature (flee instead of fighting) and the map was open/wide enough.

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the ideas are great, on point, but the main problem is imc seemingly definitely not into this kind of sophisticated thing ever again.

they wouldve rather pick option that require less effort, less issue, less rebalance, less revisit like making choices more linear, or making content where they can farm money just easy by releasing premium vouchers or high-end material.

for example instead of making maps filled with main quests, sub quests, monster drops variety, collectible, treasure, puzzles, and so on they simply just release maps for us to create same instance, with same global drops.

the reason the content we got felt so repetitive is because they made it that way because repetitive contents is cheaper, and with just little to no tweak, they can still generate money with lesser development cost.

i wouldnt blame imc either given how small their team and how the current state of the game.

the game will never be fixed unless imc get something like angel investor who is into the game, see the game opportunity, and demand imc to actually improve it. thats or the game acquired by giant developer, or simply better developer make same kind of mmorpg that most importantly provide build diversity and same graphic/art style and this time around no bs.

even so nowadays investors of gaming software sector would rather invest their money on game developer who can creates multiple titles of simplistic game, or old/existed games that tweaked with little changes here and there, in fast development cycle, and most recently in mobile platform, that can generates more money than tos that may require more development cost because damn mobile microtransactions are hot.

if this game was about to developed 1-2 years ago they may have cancel the development and reuse all the assets and turn it into some mobile game with lesser development to create tos 1, tos 2, tos 3 and so on and eventually generate more money

its interesting to see old/new players sophistication towards the game, to make it better, but tbh its better to expect nothing at all.

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i think you have given a insight and brief explanation of what could be made better in depth.
the reality is that for TOS, its too late,too far beyond to be fixed in the Official TOS server because there are basic FUNDAMENTAL things that needs to be fixed first. thinking from the highest perspective possible, i would suggest

  1. CLASS BALANCE - out of 80+ classes and 1000s of combinations, about 80% class/jobs are useless and 20% are OP. this must be fixed… i cant believe they are still fixing the class that was released 4 YEARS AGO!! so yea, the they are wrong is basic fundamental characteristics of an MMORPG itself.

  2. USE YOUR WORLD MAPS -
    rather than instance based 1 portal battle. with all 200+ beautiful maps. its not been used to its potential…make monsters stronger and more populated with rare drops in it. so it makes EXPLORING more fun.

  3. FOCUS ON PVP & OPEN PVP 24/7 - how many players want to do same raids like 1000 times?? the success of most MMO and it lasts for years also lie in its Balanced /great PVP. give more focus and PVP with tournaments/rewards much better similiar to RAIDS/World boss.but yea, this need lots of balancing in the equips /classes.Instead of 90% PVE/10% PVP . better weight 50% PVE/50% PVP.

  4. REDUCE ENDLESS POWERCREEP /POWER UPGRADING.
    Enchancement,Transendence,Fixed+random Ichor,Vaivora lvling,Seal,Arks,Sockets, CArds, Pet Cards, LEgend CArd…Arts lv 100+ ARts enhance lv 30…and many more

    with 80+ classes and 1000s of combinations, normally u would want players to try as many classes as possible… BUT RATHER u choose players to GET LOCKED to 1 specific OP Class with upgrading Everything over the period of 2+ Years and still there more Power Upgrading left or getting RELEASED with every update/episode. making a living hell for new/returning players and WHALE only players or players who sell their soul to do 15 Hrs of CM grind evrey day for 2+ YRS.
    Remove the +40 impossible to reach Enh. , Remove the lv 100 Arts lv of skills+ lv 30 Arts Enchance , make it simple putting SFR increase in the skill itself or in the base Equip itself.

    4) REMOVE WIN-ALL OR LOSE EVERYHING GACHAS(RAGE QUITTING GACHAS).
    a player who saved many months of silver or gearing for raid, in the end it depends on some 0.001% success Rate Gacha only to get the item he didnt want.
    do u know how many players rage Quit over the years trying to make +16 or +21 Equips grinding for months to save silver and do raids only to get BUSTED at +6.

    4) A BETTER CASH CHOP(TP SHOP)
    if a player is spending $30 or $60 for a Wings/Cosmetics/Mount/Pet. Please give him/her that item instead of making them gacha for with a 1% Chance. not sure why there is gacha for cosmetics.
    Also no PAY-2 WIN items or maybe a overall balanced package.
    the Steam 30% commission is making packs more expensive for normal players. and TOS failed to get benfits from Steam playerbase (from 25k active players to 1.5 k Active players) . so there no use being in Steam now.

in the end, i m afraid The only way to FIX TOS is in the private servers (like Ragnarok Online).Even though the Good memories were in Offical Servers. the legacy of RO live till today due to its P.Servers. a highly customized Server with regular Balancing. a good mix of PVE & 24/7 PVP a best of both worlds for all players. and a cosmetics TP shop with innovative Custumes and Cosmetics.

but there 's highly unlikely very little chance thats gonna happen.
nobody wants to a make one for a “Failed Game”

so your only HOPE is this Offical TOS.

And the Unique Artsytle and Cute graphics can only be best for attracting players but its effect fade away very soon.

Also the golden days of PC MMORPG(2004-2014) , its long over, TOS came in 2016, Good to see its alive for all these Years.
most players are happy and hope that official TOS lives for many years to come but its just that “most players dont feel like playing it anymore”…due to way its heading right now.
oh well
LET the NEVER ENDING GACHAS in the ocean of ENDLESS GRIND CARRYON.
NEXT STOP: EP13

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Make Hillgarm an IMC dev. image

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ideas not enough to bring justice to the game.
money will do.
cause money can even buy ideas, and also pay more people to work for the game

the game felt so limited (and lately so boring.i dont even feel the excitement of new episodes) because they also got limited workforce and resource

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Im gonna be realistic here.

This ideas are too costy for imc.

To bring all this ideas, or even just some of them, it will add more tasks for the dev.
More tasks means more money and time. Its even worse with lack of imc human resource and their due-date “homework” like endless rebalancing and bug fixes.

The game profit also doesnt seem to do well enough. Not enough to develop the “fun” aspect of the game.

In the end improvement ideas like this maybe left on the floor, untouched.

Because the very core of online game is business. its money.
why choose path that will only cost them more with small probability of new p2w players/new revenue increase?

Players satisfaction definitely increase. but satisfaction cant pay the server up.

The ideas are great, but not for a game in life-support state.

How to save ToS:

  • Save Monk from eternal suffering, let it reject Inquisitor and return to Monke

Jokes aside, it always pains my heart to see serious threads like these popping up every now and then that discusses such issues so extensively … as the general player base and its veterans know that IMC won’t even read these forums, let alone consider such ideas from these threads.

Even tos.neet has stopped updating for 2 weeks (or more) already for unknown reasons if that’s not ominous enough, what will it take for them to actually attempt engaging with the IToS player base as well on such things, really …

IMC never goes back on past systems to improve them, only keeps adding more as bandaids, until there are so many bandaids that the game is completely broken. I could list countless past systems that need to be overhauled or improved upon.

They also only balance a couple classes at a time, causing those to be super strong for several months while other classes can suffer for years.

The number one biggest problem right now, which drives new players away, is the complexity of gearing. Hands down. If IMC could fix any one thing today to improve the game’s population, it is this. Class balance is a close second.

4 Likes

That one mob in that one dungeon that keeps healing when you use fire skills. hahaha

But I do agree with a lot of your points. I wish gearing wasn’t such a pain. They should remove archstone, or at least make it more attainable to everyone, give it a reasonable drop rate. Nobody should go through so much pain only to realize their effort hasn’t paid off because RNG wasn’t in their favor.

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Before commenting on anything, a while ago I deleted this game from my hard drive (it was on an SDD; 25gb seems excessive for a product with these characteristics) because it no longer even served me to kill time and pass the time. At some point it became, not to repeat myself, into a casino with many tables and bets. Like other video games, ToS has lost what (perhaps) made it attractive … Except in the group of gamblers and submissive people who have lost the capacity for criticism, self-criticism and self-reflection, sadly every day bigger, which worsens when it contaminates other more serious matters outside of leisure.

From time to time I go to the forum to see what good news there is (bad news, better said) and rarely do I find a topic like this, which, yes, they are useless because it does not reach the VIP people who have power or are They are in charge of managing this video game … It reminds me of others not necessarily massive, online or (supposed) RPG, even paid, like Stellaris from Paradox, a game that I bought in its day and that I deleted, I had my money returned after certain updates and company policy (it was horrible, not just gameplay anymore).

I have abandoned other massive RPGs like Black Desert Online, it literally takes the same path as this … And that, like here (the “preorder” that I paid before being a mere horrible F2P more), I bought at the time . I am not talking about other online games, I will continue to say that the payment in monthly installments is a scam, just like the purchase of video games online (the day they close you will run out of money, without games, and what is worse, without time you’ll never get back). Simply, so that you understand my point (my tastes?), It is sad that the most fun, uncensored (politically correct is somewhat pathetic) and open games are indies from companies and people with not as many resources as the great ones we know.

Now, entering the topic that is discussed here. As a reader of this sad and forgotten forum of a video game in a zombie state, I like the messages that Hillgram leaves, at least it shows that he has not forgotten the “no”, “I do not accept” or “cancel” button when he asks us one Web (surely, an inaccurate analogy) to accept their conditions of use or cookies. Sadly, each of the points he makes is correct. Now, my grain of sand … Whether to promote a debate, improve them or at least, an alternative:

*About points 1-7-8-9-10-11. There are very interesting formulas, perhaps as old as some role-playing board games or role-playing forums, that offer that diversity of gameplay in an RPG (often Western) versus the “meta” formula, or at least one way to reduce its influence. To give an example that could work, how the online Path Of Exile (Passive Skill Tree), what if instead of dividing the game by trades, ranks, classes and the like, everything is unified? Some skills you learn (at the level you want) open others, combinations of several open some more. For example, if I learn one ice magic and one fire magic at level 1, enable the learning of water magic; if I learn the handling of swords (a single point, I would not necessarily have to invest so much even though it improves the damage I do with it, because I may also want to handle as an alternative weapon -or several- for when I am at a distance or another works better against a certain enemy … a bow? a magic wand? You may want to invest points in sword forging), enable learning one-handed sword skills. Of course, you would not need Rank LVL or anything like that, simply a limited number of skill points at each base level (in total at the maximum level it would be several points, but that would have to be available at the expense of others).

Why not? Make the abilities depend on their recharge times (more powerful = more recharge) and not energy, that the basic attacks are the same abilities similar to Guild Wars 2 (in consumption); remove the unnecessary and annoying SP bar.

Even the parameter system (stats)… Why not return the old one similar to the RO? Leave each point to the player’s decision, after all, it would be necessary in a system such as the one I propose. With these two things, not only is the system simplified (the capabilities, now ARTS, would be activated according to their level without any type of secondary system); It becomes more fun and diverse, and as Hillgram says, the player’s decisions would matter much more, what would be the goal? Of course, but it would be playable even by those who do not like to follow the leader and like experimentation. That the player decides, that he does not decide (BMI and friends) the game for you … We have enough of this in real life (in the end, deep down everything depends on the decisions of second people and our environment, not our free will, it is a fallacy that of “you can be and do whatever you want in life”).

Of course, this would not kill the system that IMC and company have to earn money, without being harmful, it would encourage the purchase of spaces for characters without limiting the experience of those who do not invest money or are not so much; and of course, except exceptional case like drastic change of abilities etc. NO to any reset of any kind (or pay), bad day when they were put up for sale by four whales who do not know what the real RPG game is about.

*About points 2-3. One of the serious problems, yes absolutely right, the casino tables and the mountain of tasks that you must do in order to have fun, after all, there is the invisible wall that decides what content you can do and which one you have blocked. An interesting idea, the one that I take from some games (Kenshi, and to a lesser extent Black Desert), to reduce the amount of non-sense equipment and “improvements” that the game has and simplify it to a varied list, but clear and simple; each team, depending on which weapon, independently, will offer benefits over others (for example, a greatsword that has the highest damage rate against a more defensive greatsword, a magic wand that improves fire versus another that improves ice or lightning) and works with simple multipliers on the Stat of our characters; x1 would be normal, x0.1 would be negative (a magic wand of ice can be terrible in fire, then in fire apply a negative) and x1.X would be the improvement … In similar armor, even give interest to the type of damage physical depending on the weapon (a rapier is not the same as a knife or a hammer).

The only variable that could alter these benefits (and penalties) upward would be the quality of the piece of equipment or consumable item; (Legendary; only as a prize for events, and not necessarily better than masterpieces)> Masterpiece> Excellent> Good> Average> Mediocre> Horrible> (Props; as the name suggests, for plays, rusty borrowed equipment to fix …), of course, the NPCs would only sell the horrible ones … The rest, it would depend on other players specialized in forging or goldsmithing (according to the system that I propose) and buy it in the store (here we can propose the system that it handled RO, people made their shops in each place (with a search system; it would be fun, having to go to a dangerous map because whoever has the store and sells that is there … Or someone selling potions in a place where they would have sales success), or apply the current market … But without stupid nonsensical limits to the quantity of products and the high tax charged by IMC and friends).

Of course, you must return the money in the field, among others, or at least bet on the system that RO used to obtain money (it was based on selling objects - to the NPC or to the people - that the bugs released). To avoid casinos and luck, do not fall for the same thing, make everything safe, of course, with their corresponding numbers of required materials; You will need more (apart from the skill, if you are the one who forges, weaves or manufactures) and stronger bugs to make a Good weapon, than a Normal one. You will save materials if you only improve it and not make it from scratch. With this I would add more richness to the diversity, and above all, greater decision and way of playing RPG online, than not just going to do what everyone else (I can also specialize in making high-quality potions and different types than in weapons and pretend to focus on the usual game of killing monsters).

*About sections 4-5-6. I thought I remembered some interesting tips about the AI ​​in this forum and the behavior of the enemies; that there are various types of behaviors, for example, some monsters run away as soon as you see you, others rush at you like crazy (as most are now), some are measured and flee if they are very hurt or face if they are healthy, others that go in packs or groups and are challenged by your leader, some who help or protect their peers, etc. Even that from time to time they face each other or with others of different species (food chain, predators and all that). At the player level, it even allows you to tame them, anyone, and tame them, use them anywhere according to their AI -skills according to the suggestion-, sell your “Pokémon” in the market or your bird shop, go hunting, cook their meat or vegetables, etc. (it doesn’t have to just be alchemist potions).

Of course, for this, as Hillgram says, they would have to reduce the combat speed, among others, such as limiting the maximum level and the time required for each character to progressively reach the maximum (they would have to review and redo the experience curve , Among many other things).

*As a bonus, they would enrich the game if each building or structure in the set can be bought or rented (to another player owner) as a house or guild barracks, including skills to make functional furniture to store objects, etc. Set up a business alone or together , an inn or a consumable store in that house lost in the middle of a dangerous map. Etc? And no, I don’t mean this or what they have in other games like Black Desert. Fall in love with an NPC and marry him? Do it with another player? Enable adoptions between players or NPCs? Give a player the decision to organize a family tree together with other players - or among his own characters - that gives his puppets a historical “base”? It reminds me of what could be done in TES Skyrim. Of course, this does not depend on paid items … And if there are, they are merely for their unique design or aesthetics outside of the lore of the game itself, whose functionality would be equal to its normal equals.

If 64bits really works for them (it is not an optimization of the game, for that many more things would be needed), also take advantage of it to solve the PVP (why not, a tournament or coliseum mode, organizable anywhere, among those who sign up in different modes of play, free or limited by the sponsors -either in an event by the Staff or by the players themselves who have excess objects and money- or bettors -it would be fun to bet some Silver on who or who will win- put the prizes) , even add a PK system (well controlled and limited to avoid abuse) and “searched” for PKK to these.

In missions, I would bet on a system of free missions without history, random ones that depend on who your NPC boss is (yes, and there are as many as maps, or else, that there are several specialized in different things … Why not? Let them be our favorite goddesses, city mayors, guild leaders, and demons - crafting missions, killing missions, transport missions, “wanted” missions, barter missions, etc.) And with this, open a system of factions to organize big things (total wars or battle royale).

Anyway, a lot of text and a lot of useless ideas (they won’t put into practice) … I know very well that no one of importance will read this and will apply nothing minimally, after all, ToS is a Korean video game, and we know that culturally they follow other different models . We will see when they put the 64bit, depending on how everything is, I will occupy the 25gb again or I will simply leave this game as impossible. Im not english, so I need use a translator (my english is poor)…

Emm, another theme, localization of the game. Not all people talk and write english, that should a good improvement in business view.

2 Likes

It’s the usual, they do the same as our rulers in reality… Instead of solving the basic problem, they only make it worse with more patches. They would rather patch up old asphalt than lift it up and asphalt with new material. You just have to see how the world is today, “how wonderful humanity is”.

Right now ToS is not a video game, it is a casino with a lot of work and luck behind it. People want to be entertained, have fun, they don’t want to become addicted gamblers. Well, except a lot of Korean and not-so-Korean people…

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It is the unwritten law of least effort; less investment, higher profitability. A cancer that for years has matured, not only in video games, sadly … Painful but certain words that you point to.

This worsens with what you say about the player of before and now, but from the point of view of demand or criticism. Now people, sadly, move by fashion and what one or the other says, not by itself. It’s very sad how I am having fun with games like Stardew Valley, and I can’t stand half an hour in front of a blockbuster AAA bestseller.

I wasn’t planning to get back on this thread yet but your reply touched me, i’ve been doing these for a while and most of time i expect it to be more shouting into the void with some fun (and sometimes productive) discussion about the game with the few lads that still have any opinion on the game aside the META. It’s even interesting to see how some of them changed over the years, to cases in which their perspective took a 180. It seems like the people that really love this game are the ones that left it and only look it from afar, the few that still play are too numb and/or tired to even start a conversation.

I’ve with ToS since it was known as project R1, amazed by every trailer, reading every single dev post, applying to every CBT, counting the days for each CBT and release, being heartbroken that the founder pack would still let me out of playing with my friends because i couldn’t afford any higher pack (later changed to grant any pack full early access), hours of build theory crafting, going through the early bugs (specially Hunter), class change quests (also hidden class quests), time based attribute learning, merciless rank 8 monsters, hunting the old field bosses that had stuff like Audra and Trinity Sword as top tier drops and then the process to craft it. The multiple times i tried to get friends into the game and other multiple times they asked how good it was and i was confident it was still on rise but not there yet, it was just a matter of months for it to be good enough (it was fun enough at least).

I had faith IMC would eventually get it to be a big hit, it had the potential for it, despite thinking IMC was taking ten steps back for each nine or so steps forward. Even when they announced Re:Build, the patch that butchered a core aspect of the game, i had faith it was a sacrifice worth taking as long as they had good plans to follow up, but that never happened… I remember that one of their goals with Re:Build was to control the power scaling, i wonder what happened to that…

It’s depressing to see this child, that had everything to inspire others and conquer the world, to end up in the dumps, cold, sad and void - the kid that i watched grow since the womb… Worse, the family just keep quiet whenever you try to bring up the problem, you can’t even know if they care, they will just not ever admit it or they will just ignore the problem and hope it will magically solve itself (but they may reply you if you talk about something else). All that ambition and potential to end up here? That the best ToS can offer is to be a PoE/Diablo cassino? And people are fine with it? Without even trying to use what they got??? I just can’t accept it…

Project R1 deserves justice, it doesn’t matter which direction IMC takes it to as long as it follows the core principles. If anyone from IMC is reading this (which i highly doubt), specially if you were working on it for as long as i know the game. I will never blame any individual for bringing the game to this state, i surely i don’t have nearly the same idea of what happened along the way nor why and won’t even pretend i can, people are just doing their jobs. All i want is this game to do better because i know it can.

That’s a great alternative. A dual wielding mace user casting lightning magic is closer to the ToS essence than anything we have here.

Almost sure it was me.

These are interesting additions. If IMC ever fixed the core aspects they could expand the game to other avenues like that. I’d love to see some sort of event that players can fund a service/building to gain access to a feature, and it stops working if it runs out of funds. There’s just so much room to grow on the immersive side, unfortunately that not even on sight for now.

Indies went back to the roots. Treat the players with respect and focus on delivering a fun and/or new experience, games made by people that really love games. Some may not be great, nor have massive reach, but they will be remembered.

In case you didn’t read that. I know you said it as a joke but there’s no way in hell that will happen, IMC doesn’t even want to reply me with “we’ve read it”, let alone talk to me (maybe i’m black listed). It’s a shame cause i love discussing about game design. I would try giving the world building, lore and story sides some love though.


I’ll reply the other interesting points later, this personal semi rant will likely be flagged as off-topic.

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I think I’ve also been “black listed” by them, especially ever since the weapon design drama.

While my intentions were to help the game improve and grow, it seems that IMC doesn’t like to be told the truth, but rather be sugar coated by the white knights. There’s no “pretty” way to tell the truth. People don’t know that I, as you and Kiyo, have dedicated a lot to this game in many ways: we brought the Wiki back to life with information that nor even the official sites can provide.

I tried to give feedback regarding on the management of Fan Art Festivals because the way it is now, it makes veteran artists years of hard work and experience a waste; even an insult. Tried to affiliate with ToSJP in the creation of fan arts and small events (with ToS RP) to promote the game (even proposed an Art Book project that wasn’t supported by IMC).

I consider myself the biggest Lore sucker on ToS, since I dedicated more to the story research rather than the endgame content. My notorious work is the Lore side of the wiki. Who knows if IMC ever looked at it or what. But its a better way for people to know more about the story than reading the books within the game or questing. Let’s be honest: MMORPGs nature is to level up and play, not read. So people will likely skip and ignore.

And never forget the large ass amount of money invested in the game for almost 5 years.

Its sad that the game is slowly falling down due to the management. I know the ToS gamers who would be a good element for IMC to save this game. But that’s the thing. If the company doesn’t listen to those gamers, much less will take them. Its like, they don’t like to be told the truth nor how to do the job right.

I already gave up hopes on IMC doing this. The least thing they could do for the lores is to release small stories with pictures (like before when MAGGI was still here). Maybe release eBooks, manwhas and visual contents, but that would be pricey for them. :confused:


Rant to be continued… xd

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You can’t make money if your game shuts down. We may not be there yet but, in the current direction, not even new episodes can prevent the population drop in iToS (maybe kToS is really stable). The game reached a point in which the direction became too niche to get any new players (and it has two direct competitors) and dedicated players are losing interest on it. All it takes for a server population to collapse is to reach a critical population limit where people think it is dead and there’s no magic number or threshold that can be used to predict it, it will just happen over night (likely not that soon, but it’s a matter of time) and that’s what make it scary.

We can’t forget that iToS covers 4 regions. Shutting iToS down is the same as closing 4 servers, even the most oblivious players on kToS and jToS will question the state of the game after that and if their region is in danger or not, this alone is enough to make unsatisfied players to abandon ship, which can trigger further collapses somewhere else. If your options are limited to keep on life support until you die, pull the plug or go under a heavy treatment with a chance of a comeback, it may be worth taking the risk with the third option even if that may kill it where it stands.

Indeed, however it can increase the server population, bring old players back, retain new players and maybe make active players more willing to (re)introduce the game to people. More players mean more potential customers, it can even drive some players won’t purchase TP in the current state to do so just because the game feels alive and their money won’t felt wasted. The internet proved that the more people like you and/or your work enough they more willing they will be to give you money.

ToS (at least iToS) lost its creative fanbase (fanart, fan comics, cosplayers, RP), all the player created content we have left is gameplay videos. It is vital for any game to have creative content, it’s just too big of gateway to be dismissed and that relies on the player enjoyment of the game. Satisfied players can bring more people to the game and more people can lead to more money.

Surely, IMC may lose money for a while and that has to be factored, yet they cannot get out of their spot if they ignore these structural issues, it is late to take action but they’re still have players and are earning some money. Of course this is all for nothing if such changes drive whales away during the process, but that can be managed with a proper transition plan, regardless of what they decide to do.

3, 5, 7, 9, 10 and 11 are, but there’s still four aspects (1 doesn’t count since it’s a direction/guideline/motto) that can be improved without any major investment, all it takes is a good plan (maybe even address each aspect individually). Other game companies use events to test out new ideas at minimum cost before committing to them (like they did with Assisters), moving forward only if player reception was positive enough. I even made an event suggestion a year ago using mostly recycled assets and mechanics. They have tools to test the waters at with minimum risk and investment.

They’ll never be able to finish it until they address 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10. It’s just impossible to balance classes when the only valuable aspect of combat is raw damage (including ways to amplify your damage) and you can one shot everything in most of the non-legend raid content. It’s exactly because their resources are limited that they should invest on fixing the foundation, it’s just a waste of money, time and energy to rebalance classes every time a new episode kicks in.

:sad:

That’s an interesting case, the concept itself was fine but they messed up on the execution on every single aspect. It had a negative value interaction (player makes enemies stronger), was added too early in the game (before rank 5/advancement 2, when wizards can have pure pyromancer and nothing else), was a permanent unchangeable effect and lacked communication (no visual effects to communicate the heal or a buff to be inspected). The intersection of these elements is what made it bad, if they changed one or two aspects it could have been a memorable fun aspect of combat. If they did it with dark or holy, it would be a complete disaster.

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