First of all, let’s face it: they will not change the core structure of the game. The game is already in the later stages of development (with a rumor of the kOBT starting at the end of the year), and i doubt they will do like Square Enix did revamping FFXIV. So the final product of this game will be not much different from what we have now. (The max they will do is to tweak some numbers and some minor change here and there).
Anyway, beliving in that doesn’t prevents us to give opinions and suggestions. Anyway, i will mention RO for some comparison, but that just to make the idea more clear, i’m not one of those who want ToS to become RO2
The linear progression:
The main issue here is this “doing errands” quest structure. The quests doesn’t really feel like a quest, (talking to a NPC and killing 10 monsters just on his side or just talking with a NPC are not a quest for me).
A quest, for me is something like we have on RO, such some of the class change quest (finding NPCs on several spots of the world, doing things more than just killing X monsters on the side of NPC, such as Assassin quest where you had to answer a quiz, do some tests such as killing the right monsters, and even passing through an invisible labirynth! or the Kyel Hyre or Bio Labs quests).
All those quest indicators also makes quest far boring. The NPC says “search someone on map X” and when you go to map X, the NPC is marked on the map. They should just say what you have to do, but not simply indicate on the map each step of the quest progress. The quests are basically “follow the dots on the map”.
The quest should follow “arcs” and what you do between the star and end of each arc is up to you,
For example:
Arc 1 - Meet with the Knight Capitain in Klaipedia
- What you do between that is up to you, we could have all those “do an errand” on the maps for people to do, but it’s up to them.
- The arc end should end with a major boss fight (so if people just skiped everything would probably lose, the knight capitain testing you could be cool)
Arc 2 - Revelation at Crystal Mines.
- Save the Alchemist Master
- Make all the boiler fixing a single huge quest.
- Save the villagers on the mines.
- Major boss fight against Mirtis to get the revelation.
Other errands all optional
Arc 3 - Revelation at Tenet Chapel.
- Meet the Paladin Master
- Go to Tenet Chapel
- Major boss fight against Gesti on the altar.
Other errands all optional
And so the story goes on. People aren’t locked on the same line of errands, although all must pass through the same major events of the story. People can simply grind to pass through the main challenges or can do the errands to level up (this would require a better balance of the EXP of grinding vs. questing, since as it is questing simply give more EXP)
Item:
This system of items with tiers is simply bad. While i undestand that some items should have level requirements based on their levels, the items should be more “free”.
Also, the flat addition nature of the game makes some items that have extra effects useless on the later stages.
For example the Iron Bow you mentioned. It is a very good weapon, but you know that EVERY single lvl 70 bow will be better simply because their raw damage is higher. For example, if the Crit damage from iron bow was % based, He could be desireable for Critical Focused builds even when there are other weapons with more raw attack. Also they should avoid those items packed with several bonus at same time. For example, Vubbe Figher Gautlet have a huge +10 STR bonus AND +2 AoE. If those bonus were on different items, people would choose between them according to their needs.
On this point RO had also a good solution making weaker items more personalizable (most 4 slot items were weaker, while more powerful items had less/no slots). On ToS, the Gemstone system is just used to make strong weapons more strong. The gem system need to be expanded, the monsters gem only increasing skill level is quite boring.
Also, the fact that weapon attack have too much weight on the character overall damage makes that you can’t simply use an weaker weapon with a custom effect, instead of just using an weapon with very high attack power, the same with armor and accessories.
How to Level Up: Combat & the Grinding problem.
While some alternative means for leveling is good, they must be very careful with it, because this can be easily abusable if too easy, or useless if too hard.
The point about monsters, is not about making them though, but making them not generic. Monster are basically HP, def and atk. Most of them have nothing in special. They just attack over and over until die. Again on RO, we had different monster for different people. We had tad slow monster, ideal for archers, undeads that took damage from healing for healers, High evasion/def with low mdef for wizards, high hit/aspd low base damage for tankers. Low hit high damage for evasive characters. A lot of monsters were more than just hp, atk and def.
Also, before the renewal, there was a true reward for killing stronger monster, so it was not a waste to make a party and go on maps of higher level. (Killin Abysmal Knights at the begin was a worth challenge or low level wizards killing Argiope with fire wall + fire bolt).
Talking about challenge, this is something totally absent from ToS. The bosses are simple (talking about them later) and normal mobs from your level range are laughable. Since there is no reward in going to higher level areas, you just stick on the areas of your level and all you can do is a stream of slow grinding. There should be some high risk/high rewards, such as killing mobs from higher levels welding more exp (but for that the monsters need to be less dumb as they are now)
Also make resistances more relevant. The whole Cloth > Leather > Plate thing seems cool, but makes little difference and elemental resistance are near to non-existant. I just use my strongest weapon no matter the enemy i face, because the reduction provided by incompatible type is not that big.(it seems to be 25% only). If it was bigger (50% - 75%) people would need to think before smashing anything on their front.(switching weapon would be really necessary, and elemental damage more relevant)
Things I also would like to add:
Bosses
The bosses really needs to be different. You can kill every single boss with the same strategy, just circle them and attack while they’re using their attack. They all have exactly the same attack pattern and behavior with the only difference being the AoE of the said attacks. The bosses needs to fell more unique, with different action patterns and behaviors.
All bosses are just huge monsters that follow your character, and when in range, use a skill with a very long animation (that gives you time to leave the AoE) and repeat this process over and over.
There are many ways to make bosses few different and interesting, as the bosses are now, they are just the same, they are exiting at the begin, but when you have fought 20-30 bosses, it’s become very boring.
Classes:
The problem with the classes are all the math involved within the game mechanics.
They just make that no matter what gimmick your class have, it will no be better than just smash everything with a two handed sword.
We have sappers with traps, peltasta with his tanking and provoking skills, clerics and priests with their healing and support… this all is cute but is never as efficient like just getting a highlander or berserker and smash everything.
Also they made the classes in a way that their attacks gets outclassed by higher rank classes, so this make build the class far less interesting, you will end just choosing the classes with better support skills and skip the rest until you get the high rank class of your choice.
