To start, I had been lucky during the CBT and landed on a beta key during CBT2 and very eager to try the game out. Sad to say the game wasn’t as I expected it to be. As a newcomer with no knowledge of EXP curves and whatnots, also going with archer as my starter char(Archer>Ranger>Wugu), it wasn’t exactly a smooth and fun experience. Maybe my expectations were too high, as I was too quick to write off TOS from my will invest time and resources games list without even reaching end game or close to that with the limited time given.
This was arguably a bit unfair on my part. I entered the game with a bias, comparing it to something else. TOS never claimed to be a successor to some other game despite some of its devs have previously worked on a popular title, one that had updates upon updates in a course of several years until it reached its prime popularity. It wasn’t an honest review of the game as it is. TOS lost even before it had a chance to show what it can offer.
Then came open beta. My friends who weren’t able to access CBT were very excited of course. Reluctantly, I gave it another shot as I am able to play with friends now. This time, armed with more knowledge, experience and less expectations. I managed to reach R7 with my Cleric (Cleric>Kriv>Diev>Kabba) and did most of the quests and finished all maps up to my level (up to Evac). While not exactly end game yet, I believe it’s enough to write an honest review of the game. This time, I played the game as Tree of Savior, not a sequel of some other game. And it paid off with me enjoying the game more this time around, being able to get through the little hiccups that turn off a lot of players.
So how exactly is TOS fairing?
I will only highlight some features that I believe had the highest impact to enjoyment and some important differences between CBT and now. And I noted that while some features were adjusted to overall make a better gameplay experience, much of what makes the game fall a bit flat is still left untouched.
GAMING EXPERIENCE
Leveling
Leveling experience was actually improved this time around with the addition of Orsha quest line and the increase in EXP cards given. You are rewarded for 100% completion of a map and as reward for grinding for a bit before progressing. This made the 160s and 180s “wall” a bit more bearable. I had no trouble leveling until 230 just by doing 100% map completion and completing quests. Of course, I made sure to accomplish daily missions and dungeons at my level.
Monster hunting EXP is still generally bad compared to quest EXP save for very high levels where you run out of quests to do and must grind. Even then the EXP is still generally bad, but you have to do it anyway since you have no other options other than grinding. The spawn rates of some maps are also horrible that makes doing certain quests a chore or making grind options impossible.
Newbie Friendliness
TOS just isn’t a game you can pick up and play. The class system is already a headache if you don’t want to end up rerolling. The leveling “trend” itself is simply frustrating to new players since they wouldn’t know anything about exp walls and exp card saving etc. This has been left untouched although it’s been partially remedied with giving out more exp cards. The not so obvious “optional quests” is also of concern especially since players would tend to just progress with their story quest and ignore NPCs unless it has a big flag on top of its head. For optional quests, they’re pretty much mandatory as well if you don’t want to fall behind in levels.
A simple insert like “How about talking to the other residents, maybe they have a job you could do?” to the very first quest NPC would already alleviate much of the “I missed a quest so I fell behind in levels” argument.
Linearity
You go through each and every area available within your level to progress. There is no difference if you roll an archer, mage, cleric or swordsman. All of them follow the same path. And you must, or risk falling behind in levels. No alternative spots to take advantage of your class to improve your leveling experience. This is especially evident on higher level maps as you have less choices to quest in compared to the abundance of maps during low level.
Cash Shop Token
Token (cash item) is almost mandatory to not hit those “grind walls” despite the overall improved leveling experience. I held on to my free 15 day token for as long as I can before burning it during the early 180s out of desperation to reach that 186 reset and really noticed the difference. The extra dungeon & mission run, and the increased monster hunting experience really made a lot of difference comparing to without. Add the other benefits like faster walk, increased max buff count, and the reduced market tax (30%->10%) is pretty much the game telling you to buy token or forget about selling things in the market. Token is just too good and almost makes it a necessity.
BALANCE
Scaling
I believe the most important aspect to touch upon. Both monster and player scaling is really bad in this game, with its linear and flat number nature.
Monsters
Monsters in general have horrible AI. To compensate for this, monsters are overtuned to the point of one-shotting players giving no capability for counterplay. This is especially evident in higher maps, but start popping up during the early-mid 100s. Monsters almost 10x as hard to kill, while still giving pathetic EXP to compensate. This caused players to actually prefer grinding low leveled maps with high spawns in comparison to maps their level but with monsters 10x harder to kill that awards minimal increase in EXP compared to the ones they can mob and 1-shot.
Making encounters more difficult by giving monsters smarter AI, but moderate damage is more enjoyable to an overtuned monster that 1-shot you.
Classes
Class choices are dominated by certain “builds” solely due to one fact: the class combinations offer good scaling and a % based damage. Giving certain classes % based skills only serve to widen the gap between those with and those without. It also makes the game very difficult to balance. If balance is achieved around flat damage, then all classes should be flat damage. If on %, then all of them should receive % based damage. Certain classes are tagged as bad just because they don’t scale and fall off during end game when fighting versus enemies with tons of HP.
Due to the flat scaling, it gives obvious benefits to % damage skills and multi hits. This makes it obvious to pick skills only capable of one or both of the previous criteria. This also makes additional damage items like Arde dagger and Cafrisun that much more powerful than normal. % skills still come out on top in the end as they are the only ones that are able to scale with the player.
I don’t know if this is what the devs intended but it has very obvious issues with regards to class balance and viability in the long run. And with higher circles to be added and no capability to reset, it just puts the whole system into question.
Skill Mechanics
First, “overheat” based skills. The skill cooldown is based on the last charge of the skill. It would be better to have a constantly running cooldown so you don’t waste charges and can space your usages depending on your preference without losing DPS.
Example: you gain a charge every 20 seconds regardless if you use it or not, max you can have is 3 (that’s 3 charges per minute), but at current, if you use for example 2 charges, and use your last charge sometime later, you still suffer the full cooldown, effectively wasting your “stacks”.
Second, false AOE spells. Especially evident in clerics (cure, zaibas) and certain classes. Having an AOE with a hitcount limit that counts a hit for each monster affected is just too restrictive and effectively makes the spell a single target. hit count is fine, but at least make the AOE a true AOE, meaning the hit count is intact, but all enemies in the area can be hit for the same amount of damage.
Status Effects
Status effects are too powerful and provide little counterplay. There is little when it comes to condition cures and breaks. Deadly effects like freeze, sleep and stun last too long with available options to resist or counter. This cause imbalance not only in PVP, but PVE on monsters as well since only a select few classes have access to condition cures. Either distribute more status recoveries to more classes, or make the effects less crippling by lowering the duration or offer counterplay in the form of equipment/resistance.
Stamina
While useful to a select few classes, it is generally a useless stat and only brings inconvenience during movement to majority of classes. Remove the stamina drain during walking and adding a new option for a “dodge” or reposition skill like tumble in newer action MMO games at the cost of stamina would be much better. Make in battle STA regeneration rapid to compensate for the new function (maybe 2-3 points/sec, and each tumble cost 10 STA). This makes the stat useful at the same time open options to equip for it through gears which increase stamina.
I am not advocating a twitch-based gameplay like real action MMOs where bosses can one-shot you if you didn’t manage to dodge on time (which already happens currently), but an added use to a useless stat is very much welcome.
TECHNICAL
Ping reliance
This is very obvious to people with high latency and greatly affects gameplay in general, not only attack speed based builds. I would notice my archer shooting slower, and some attacks not registering a hit at all when using melee chars. Aside from this, the most obvious is the tendency of your character to not register the skill and you will be locked in the skill animation without doing anything, making you open to all attacks.
I don’t treat TOS as an action MMO, as it’s obviously not. But why is a system much suited to action MMOs the one used in TOS (wherein 1 click = 1 attack). An attack cycle/command queue and overlapping normal attacks would be much better suited for a relatively “slow” game like TOS.
A ping sensitive system would work for games like Tera, Blade and Soul etc because they are action based. Many things go on at the same time, and reaction times, initiation and countering is crucial. Stuns and combo chains are the norm. But this kind of system doesn’t suit a top-down game like TOS. At the least, a proper ability queue system so you can input commands even with lag to ensure smooth gameplay would be much better.
Optimization
The optimization is horrible. While the graphical lag is partially alleviated by getting a more powerful machine, I still sometimes experience graphical lag especially in crowded maps and dungeons. And on a less powerful machine, my fps drops to 5 or below even with just 5 people in the screen.
These are the ones I really notice so far. The game still has a lot of flaws despite the efforts in improving it. I am still hopeful that it will be better in the future, but the glaring imbalance between classes, the way things scale, the high spike in difficulty at higher levels and the unfriendly leveling experience just makes the game only appeal to a niche audience.
With a bit more tweaking TOS has potential to be a great game. Just that at the moment with the way the game is structured (little to no interaction early game, forced to party for progression late game) it isn’t very newbie friendly and only really enjoyable if you bring in a few friends to play with you, especially true if you use a more “unique” class combinations that causes you to have a harder time getting pub/grind parties.
To end this long post, it is to note that much has improved in TOS with the recent updates, and the game is at least going somewhere (for good or bad still remains to be seen). Just that most of the major flaws of the game like the odd leveling curve, skill scaling(or lack thereof), and rewards for a difficult challenge (yes, talt!), remain untouched.
