It’s not very p2w now since there isn’t any meaningful competition of sort, but when GvG and World Boss changes comes to itoS it will be p2w for sure.
for example this a shortcut to obtain endgame gear:
For now the game is mainly PVE. The p2w era begins when TOS introduces any sort of competitive elements between players.
Not in iToS yet but ktest received an update that buffed all summon/minion damage up to a very nice point. Definitely a great update for all summoner classes.
Sorcerer 3 has been in a bad spot for a long time. After the updates it’s not super terrible but there are definitely better options so it’s something people more invested in the class would go for. Hopefully sorc 3 will get some buffs in the future, nevertheless I really enjoy playing my sorc 3 a lot.
Look here for more in-depth information about sorcerer builds. Sorcerer Info Megathreadval - This is a very good post in my opinion by Valentine. Any questions just ask here or information you want to find you’ll surely get it from this thread when it comes to sorcerers.
The game also has some great improvements coming ahead in the future so it’s really a good time to get back into the game. 
(PvP updates, guild system/templar class updates, rank 9 to name a few.)
Regarding p2w I want to say it’s still p2convenience so it’s bordering p2w but everything can be bought in-game market. All the items from those cubes are usually sold there so it’s very possible to get these items with just silver. Tbh the drop rate is low you’re better off using your silver than wasting your money on those cubes. (Sure whales still waste it on them so they’ll be selling the items on market.)
It’s bad for others and manageable to the rest, you pick your own stance on it.
ah yeah that thread, been around since the longest time., i’ll ask around there.
Welcome back to ToS @LargeBanana.
The game has undergone quite a huge change over the past year, and is definitely a much closer version of ToS we envisioned since last year.
Some of the key changes over the past year which are quite significant.
Improved dungeon queues, it is easier to get into a party now as compared to before. There is a plus-minus 20 levels for parties now. UI for dungeon matching is also improved tremendously and more user friendly to players.
Dungeon restructuring, the dungeons themselves are re-ordered so that they feel more in-line with the overall leveling curve. Previously we have a exp walls in the 160-180 levels and the 230+ levels, now most of the exp walls are gone. At any character level there will be an appropriate dungeon for it. There is also a restructuring of item loots in dungeons (besides the newest 290dg) so that they drop more appropriate gear pertaining to their dungeon level.
General UI improvements. UIs are improved, especially the chat panels. Now we can have 3 chat panels and can categorise between player-to-player (PM) and group chats. Game now feels more user friendly to players
Massive balance patch on damage and skills. All the skills now follow a percentage value rather than a fix number value so that classes which are low ranking are still relevant in late game. This is a huge improvement for the game which wants to focus on class diversity.
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Currently the class balancing is still on-going, with the minions improvement patch coming to iToS soon (released over in kTest just a while ago). So do look forward to improvements for classes that focus on summoned minions and pets (like Sorcerer, Necromancer, Bokor).
Improvement of Events. A year ago, ToS was just like a vanilla game with little to no events. Now we have on-going events almost every other week.
Improvement of available quests. Many quests are added into the game, not just to end game levels but all the way from beginning levels to help the player in their leveling.
Market and trade improvements. A majority of items now can be traded unlike previously. There is also no trade restrictions such as materials can only be traded once. Costumes, Stat and Skill reset from the TP shop are now market tradeable. F2P players can purchase them in the marketplace if someone is selling them now.
Graphic optimisation and improvements. They did a couple of rounds of game optimisation and overall it feels better and smoother to play now.
I can’t really say the following are bad though, some do need improvements.
PVP/TBL balancing is lacking. IMC has acknowledged though and am working on it. This will probably be the next in line after the damage balance patch.
Costumes model over at TP shop is switched to Gachapon style as compared to the 199TP purchase what you want style. This is probably a result from costumes being market tradable now. With costumes being ‘recycled’ in the secondary market, they probably will need some way to earn more grub for the company.
There’s a few P2W elements in the game now, namely the 7 day rent bracelets and necklaces. But generally the P2W for this game is still low. Example of such an item. https://tos.neet.tv/items/600008 which can’t be obtained by a F2P player. Impact of such items are still low though.
Game is still linear in terms of replayability and content. This will take some time to improve on, we do have many excellent suggestions put forth by the community over in the forums here. Hopefully the devs can take notice of the suggestions. :3
DPK problems. Some of the new items have too high dpk making it a frustrating affair for item grinders, since the DPK is shared and there is a chance other players will get away with the loot which the player puts effort in farming.
Some server disconnects and latency issues.
Besides the website/forum revamp, there are some changes in the community over the year.
A couple of old staff left and new staff joined our community too.
HUE Brigade/Knights has dissipated. General outlook of the General discussions section has been improving (at least that’s the case until the DPK issue happened)
That’s what I can think off currently off my mind. :3
now that you have completely excited me, prepare yourself for questions LUL.
since the skills are based on percentage, does that mean for example energy bolt spell from wiz level 3 would still be relevant when we are a warlock 2 for example?
exp walls are gone? oh my lord what a tear jerking words.
can i ask something a little out of topic. you see, i can play iToS but well there is a localized kind of ToS in my country which has much better ping, and it’s not kToS. do you think these fantastic patches came to there too? i might want to start fresh in my own countries ToS.
Biggest mistake is coming to this forum for an opinion on the game.
The game has definitely improved. Levelling is much easier, combat is less punishing, class/skill balancing has shaken up the meta a little and made a lot of previously unpopular classes much more viable. If you’re a fan of Sorc, summons got a lot of buffs with more to come as already stated. You’ll want to respec to full or high SPR from now on though since summons scale off SPR more than INT (and SP regen doesnt get deactivated anymore!).
It’s not a perfect game, but it’s been going in a very positive direction lately. Yes, even despite the DPK bug. I’d suggest you read the annoucements on that issue yourself since a lot of kids here have trouble with reading comprehension. You can make your own opinions on it from there.
oh melon i miss you a lot, i remember you completely. though i expect you not to remember me.
Yes, unlike previously where skills have a fixed damage value, it is difficult to near impossible for a skill from a low rank to match the dps of a high rank skill. Now it isn’t the case, since all skills now scale via a percentage based off the character’s equipment and stats, each and every skill will grow together as the character progresses through the levels and acquire better gear.
So yep, skills like energy bolt is still relevant. Really good filler skill when your other skills are on CD. 9sec cooldown with 3 overheats (instant cast somemore).
Yep players shouldn’t feel much of an EXP wall now given that so many quests are available now + restructuring of dungeons. Oh btw…
Adventuring journal and Wings of Vibora achievements are now account wide instead of character only. It makes creating alternates easier since they can just go to the Wings of Vibora NPC to collect exp cards.
It depends on the publisher for the localised ToS. So far kToS, jToS and iToS are pretty much up to date, with only a few weeks to 2 months of patch difference at most.
WHAT THE ■■■■? regen isn’t deactivated? OH MY GOD YESSSS.
i completely sure that i’ll settle for a wiz>pyro3>sorc2>warlock2 right now. i know it seems like a stupid af thing to do but i wanna do what’s fun. i hope i won’t get frustrated like i used to.
It’s been long since I’ve seen Melon in the forums too. :3
Haha, that was my reaction to the SP regen change too. My main is built around Sorc and Thau, so it sure was a nice surprise to come back and find out both got nice buffs.
If you’re taking Pyro, lots of pyro skills got changed too. Enchant Fire scales with INT/SPR and Fireball is a one hit aoe now, Flare is your staple damage skill.
wait wait wait? fire ball one hit skill? i need a thorough explanation on this one.
flare the useless skill is now good? lul.
Game remains broken with the same item the same bugs and full of bots/AFK Farms
Unbalanced PvP
This game really died.
I came back and now I’m leaving
No way to play like this =/
Good luck Friends
Let me try to give you the most accurate explanation of this as I almost guarantee everyone is going to give you amazingly biased responses.
There was a DPK (Drops Per Kill) bug where enemies were dropping their items at an insanely high rate. We’re talking people getting 6-7 battle bracelets in a day.
IMC saw this and brought all the servers down with a short 30 minute warning to try to fix this bug and remove some of the bug dropped loot.
During this period of time the servers were down, which was several hours, IMC removed “all but one” of the items people got. So if a person got 12 Elet Monster Gems, for example, all but 1 would have been removed from the players account.
However, IMC still needed to manually go through what looked like approximately 1600 accounts (My info may be wrong) in order to investigate. They wanted to make sure that certain accounts did not attempt to launder (which means sell/trade items in order to ‘hide’ them from IMCs search) or cash out through the market a bunch of these items.
Players that were going to be manually investigated were “temporarily suspended” and unable to play. For the majority, this temporary suspension was from Friday evening till Monday afternoon. That is over two and a half full days of being suspended.
So players who were only offline for the few hour temporary maintenance got what would be considered a generous compensation package.
Players who were suspended for 2.5 days were given what people consider to be an INSANELY good compensation package.
Players who weren’t temp-banned are generally complaining that they “wish they were banned” to get these items and “wish they had abused it”.
However in IMCs own words, accounts that were found to have been deliberate in their abuse and trying to hide the fact or launder their items would receive NO ADDITIONAL compensation, and if they were found to have egregiously abused the bug, maybe even banned.
Hope this clears it up.
i actually laughed at this
what the ■■■■ was my initial reaction lol. i guess if what you said truly is the summary of it then IMC really screwed up there.
Oh… you have lost the best event ever created by IMC.
Now that the event is over it’s the same game as always, with some changes in the atributes. In overall the game is very easy right now. Nothing can kill you, all mobs are giving nice exp, dgs are giving way too much exp. There are new high level itens that does not need recipes to craft.
Incredibly easy. But again, you have lost the best event to test every build you could imagine.
But try to play it for a couple days. I belive that you can rush 2 new characters to 330 with all the accumulated compensation from all the mistakes IMC have comited since your leaving.
lol well i might not play in the iToS account and instead made a new account in my region ToS which means every events goes out he windows.
Hey, as I said, I’m not trying to defend IMC or Players specifically.
I personally think IMC went overboard with the compensation.
I think 20XP tomes (to make up for 20 hours of gameplay over the weeekend) a 7 day event token (instead of 30) and 6 instance multipliers and 2 instance resets (For two missed days) would have been way better.
But let’s try not to look at players as our enemies. Seriously. Be happy that people who got sucked into a weekend long ban got some nice things. Don’t be jealous of it, just appreciate that IMC is, for once, actually TRYING to be considerate of player time (as much so as their ham-fisted BS bugs can be helped) and giving things, instead of just saying “Oh, sucks for you, have one XP tome.”.
I don’t understand where this person vs person mentality comes from.