Please elaborate and provide proof or example.
Erm, I do see plenty of various Monk builds on kToS. Some tend to go Priest path, some take Diev, Paladin, honestly theyâre all valid choices for Monk.
Leveling (I agree but there just is no alternative)
Any game with levels is going to be grindy. In fact leveling is the experience IMC is supposedly focusing on. Leveling also saves IMC on the development side because it prevents players from burning through their content. Remember that article where some Japanese players reached 200 (lv cap for icbt2) in a couple of days?
Classes (I agree with a few exceptions)
People either forgot or are simply unaware. Excluding classes added after icbt2, all these classes were designed to STAND ALONE (no interaction at all with other classes you can choose). Any cross class combos possible at the time were DESIGNED to be done using at least 2 different players.
âWTF u smokin c2?â
- icbt1 locked you out of skills if you change class. Clerics lose [heal], [cure], [safety zone], and [deprotect zone] when changing to either a priest or a krivis.
- Not much in terms of design was changed in the skills. What changed were the numbers (damage, duration, cd, that stuff).
Now as far as diversity in skills is concerned, they ARE indeed boring (with very few exceptions). Skills are either âdamageâ or âbuffs/debuffsâ. Just look at the dragoon (post icbt2, rank7 swordsman class) skill list. They have 4 damage skills, 2 of which are âbasicallyâ (note air quotes <- they mean something <- read between the lines) the same. The only really interesting skill (mechanically) is [gae bulg]. There are a lot of skills that do âthe same thingâ (again, air quotes <- some people just really miss these when reading) just with a different name and animation.
Then there are the truly unique and interesting skills like [snow rolling]. Why is it interesting?
- You have to move to deal damage.
- It puts you in harms way so you have to think about what you are doing.
Indistinguishable classes is what you get when you go for quantity without giving each piece an identity. I got some flack for that thread I made saying saying the swordsman has no identity, what more for each individual subclass. When you analyze the swordsman objectively it all boils down to 1 rank and 1 skill (pelt [swash buckling]) that makes it unique. Everything else is damage, buff, damage, debuff, damage, damage.
World map exploration (I disagree.)
This was my 1st impression when playing through the 1st time. I was literally blinded by the chain quests. After my nth character a friend of mine was showing me a bug he discovered and when I followed him to the LEFT of [miners village] I was like âwe could go to the left?â
After that I made another character and decided to not do any quests and just get lost. Stuff WASNâT quest gated (tenet chapel). It was amazing to be able to get lost, to run through a map 2x my level and play tag with the monsters in it because ⌠âIt was the shortest path map wise to get to where I wanted to goâ.
My personal disappointment is IMCâs lack of decisiveness and inconsistencies in terms of class design. For example, the chaplain is a c4 priest while rune caster and shinobi can stand alone.
4 Likes
Dunno i dont feel the maps are linear. Mb the problem is that if you do quests they force you to go to every corner of the maps?
Example of what. You can lvl up cleric to get cool armor shred and safety wall. You can lvl up priest to get good buffs. You can lvl up Krivis for crit/str buffs. You can use the guy with statues fot cdr/spammable skill. Palladin for spamable skill+buffs. I only canât see anything usefull for monk in bokor and sadhsmth.
I completely agree with pretty much everything youâve said, and I could definitely see this game being alot more fun if they gave us more freedom with switching class circles and whatnot. During the First CBT I had gone Cyromancer and found it to be quite underwhelming at the time (it might be better now, I wouldnât know) and decided to go Pyro during CBT2. I eventually made it all the way to the Psycho/Linker circle and decided to try out the Psychokino class. It was pretty much the same situation with me being unhappy with that class, I ended up having to make yet another character and level all the way back up to that point just because the class didnât quite meet my expectations. If we had more freedom with mixing and matching skills/circles I could see this system being a lot more fun and interesting, but in itâs current state it feels too restrictive, I feel a more dynamic system might benefit the game greatly.
2 Likes
I wouldnât mind paying for a trial character that would disappear at the end of the day. There are potentially 3 more ranks therefore 3 more instances to screw yourself.
I agree. We need to see and feel an impact investing into any stat regardless of our lvl, class, and items. Otherwise that kills the point of the stat allocation system. Diversity would be ruined by people accepting one build as the most effective for each class, building characters would become linear. This video supports this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv9E9xLFUso
When players decide its best to invest purely in one stat that means stats are unbalanced and need adjustments. Investing pretty evenly between 2 to 3 stats is the only meta we should be seeing. What weâre getting now is our total defense & offense being majorly item and skill based so investing a lot in 1 stat to help scale those items and skills is the best way to build.
As you could tell thereâs already a lot of depth with whatâs in the game, itâs just not polished yet due to its early state. Elemental stats could be a thing the game needs.
source
Damage also scales with elements and can be even further scaled based on specific mobâs properties.
They should start focusing more on basic attacks. I can see this done if each class had an attribute or skill to change, buff, and scale basic attacks with the player. For example, sapper C1 basic attack would change to planting a trap somewhere. Later in sapper C2 this evolves, not only does the damage get buffed but we can throw premade traps instead of having to set them up. The attributes would scale with the playerâs rank and lvl so its not mandatory to get C2 or 3 to use it efficiently. Exclusive class weapons, pyromancerâs Enchant Fire, and CD free skills like Sadhu OOB is essentially what I am talking about. The only reasons I think this hasnât been done for every class yet is because the amount of time required and balancing. Dievdirbys carve used to have no CD but needed a nerf due to being so overpowered.
Elemental attack could become a sub stat for INT. After allocating into INT you can also allocate the INT into 7 elements (while still getting Matt). They increase resistance and add elemental damage to attacks. They also give chance for some powerful effects to happen on attacks when you invest enough. Whatever they do INT definitely needs something else, only having Matt binds the stat to mages & clerics.
I still have faith IMC knows what theyâre doing. Its early in the games life so its understandable we have our doubts about them being able to correct things and fully polish the game. Theyâve already proven themselves more than capable of making a great game with the existence of ToS. If we donât look merely at the released endgame thereâs also a lot of content factoring in replay-ability.
2 Likes
I donât know if elemental STATS would quite be the way to go, though equipment that enhances elemental stats is something that could potentially add some flavor, like âincreases ice damage dealt by 20%â etc. But in regards to what Iâve been doing this whole thread, which is comparing ToS to RO, RO DID have a âmonster typeâ system where several cards were able to enhance/reduce damage taken/received from/by certain types of monsters, which I thought was interesting, albeit very difficult to take advantage of when it required an item that has a 1/10,000 drop rate.
I think maybe they should revamp the gems system, because while there is a TOOON of potential with this (like increasing elemental modifiers, or damage modifiers based on size or armor-type) they instead took the simple route and only made them enhance basic stats which, while handy, is what upgrading the specific items directly through anvils already does.
Also, I definitely agree that the stat-distribution and usefulness in this game (especially compared to RO) is severely lacking and not nearly as diverse. Why is there no stat that improves attack speed, anyway? I loved that in RO D:
2 Likes
Forgot about gems due to not playing for so long, I always felt they were underwhelming because of how much it took to upgrade one. This isnât even counting the money it takes to remove them and put multiple in one equipment. They should definitely be revamped, increasing certain stats while decreasing others also encourages the invest purely into 1 thing.
Being unable to increase movement and attack speed was probably intended. This way they control how fast people go through content and make increasing them with skills & mounts more valuable.
1 Like
This way they can have unlimited level, instead of having rebirth. Attack speed, increase movement and cast time have their limits, once you reach it, the game needs to re-create.
However, the current stats does not suggest we go over 600 levels and expect to be balanced, which is a shame for all these planning.
They want unlimited level, so they donât have stats to improve attack speed, but they add additional damage on hit, which I believe can replace attack speed to generates more proc. However, this game has not attribute a relation to the additional damage on hit, nor it procs anything (yet).
Yes, I feel ToS somewhat still lacking a lot of things. They come out fantastic idea and innovation at first, but lame implementation later.
^ This is what we hope improvement in future, but disappointed for what we are having now.
To describe it simply, the game is too LINEAR.
The only game tweak is character planning phase, but yet after that it become linear, there is no special job-specific equipment/headgear to tweak your job, eg: Cryomancer Headgear that change modify your normal atk to ice attack with frostchance.
There is not much mechanism to fight dungeon/raid. Just Higher HP, Higher Attack, larger mobs, spam skills and melt all the ways.
(I think most games will fail this, I canât think any MMO have really innovative dungeon gameplay, it become a shortcut to replace grind in open map. Can developer develop something multi-party competitive dungeon? Help each other to solve puzzle in different corner of the map? who solved fastest/better get better reward?)
There is not much mechanism to fight boss. Not epic, predictable, slow motion, stupid AI, unmotivated rewards.
(Compare RO: We have different Boss Type/Element, and predictable KO skill, you need prepare strategy and equipment to counter them, but still it is actually not that fun in hunting process because u prepared and expected, but better than ToS 0 strategy just stand there and let you kill and Tank is not require at all.)
There is not much mechanism to customize weapon. No special effect, no element tweak, pretty like Diablo 3 vanilla.
(Compare RO: I think it is the best part of RO, but the drop rate is not worth to grind, use bot to farm and make it meaningless.)
There is not much motivation to explore map. No random event, no random quest, no random boss, no dedicated BGM, just passby and say goodbye.
(Compare RO: Actually RO also many useless maps, just that there are different type/element of monsters give more choices for grinding spots, it just a bit more meaningful. Compare Guild Wars 2: It also many useless map, but some map yield epic material, the dungeon give special set equipment, random event for karma point, and there are Jumping Spots which make it better.)
But what we like now?
We like 2.5D, just like japanese Anime over 3D Cartoons, it is easier for eyes, it doesnât make me dizzy, the screen can show lot of players compare to 3D games hide them mostly.
The Journey feeling with party, we meet somewhere, join party somewhere, and fight thru countless path/mission end up becoming good friends. Compare to modern MMO which emphasize on Solo Elitist.
Personal Hope:
I hope there will be Musical Class that able to play different instruments, can collect notes in different map, and even write own note to play the song, this will be great addition to town atmosphere and belonging.
3 Likes
I sincerely doubt someone is happy with just 2 towns and 1 class being obligatory to make a guild
Another problem is, if they made it grind people would complain too, on that aspect ToS is ok but they should reduce the exp on instances, ppl just stay there grinding, and instead that giving better drops so ppl still do those but at same time focus on questing/grinding
I love almost everything in this game except for those 2 facts (lack of towns n the guild problem) and also the problematic chat, i suggested some time ago to make it like in C9 (continent of the ninth) or current iRO, a very customizable chat with many tabs and being able to move those tabs into a different window so we can separate normal chat from loot/exp system chat while we look both at same time
There are. I played a Chinese game, and they boss fight would invite players, which becomes PvEvP. A group of 24 vs 1 boss + 12 unknown player (the game hide their names). The game also has some puzzle to move forward, but when you did 5 times of the puzzle, you feel meaningless afterward (since they are essentially the same).
Just finished reading this feedback from a Korean player.
Anyways, I agree with OPâs post. There are some disappointments here and there when I played CBT2, and there may be more when Open Beta comes out (I pray they at least fix most if not all of the bugs that was in CBT2), but hereâs hoping IMC will continue to improve ToS - this game has potential and it will be a terrible waste to see it die off within a span of a year or two after its official release.
I donât understand where those people are coming from, or rather where they got their unrealistic level of expectations from.
I mean, âreviewsâ like these would have been way worse if applied to Ragnarok with that stance, and Iâm not even talking about ROs early years here⌠(meanwhile TOS hasnât even been out for 1/4 of a year, and even that was rushed by the korean publisher)
The biggest frustration I had with RO forâŚbasically the whole decade, was how it stopped being actually improved as years and years passed (and at some point the excuses always seemed to go back to something along the lines of âthe game is too old, we donât even know how to reprogram itâ). So towards the end I barely saw anything but wasted potential in most aspects and features it had <.<
So unless IMC suddenly calls TOS a finished product and stops working on it (seeing weekly patches that include any kind of class balancing at all is so damn refreshing to see), I suggest for those people to go play something else and come back a few years later to see if they like it better.
I think after reading all these replies, Iâve solidified some more precise issues Iâd like to see improved based on what I saw in the open beta, and have heard about the Korean live version:
- More unique/fulfilling class identities.
- Better access to trying out classes/resetting classes
- More open-world exploration in lieu of hallway-maps.
Though a few other things I would enjoy seeing adjusted, but havenât been mentioned too much, are:
- Equipment system (have they changed this, or are there still âtiersâ of equipment, like level 15 gear, level 40 gear, where each tier has clearly superior items for the same level. I always felt that was strange)
- More dynamic gem system with more unique options.
Good read from it.
I also agree, but he only explained the current issues. I see the issue is their core design.
Other games are great because they build around their âgameâ, such as Ragnarok builds around WoE on their character, making use of all their roles. Lol builds around their MOBA game with their character. This is one reason ToS is not a game, it is just an art/graphics, there is no game play value (even in the future, they cannot connect the class to the game plan).
Stats system as he explained is a big issue, and may not be changed. It is basically AGI and SPR get up to their diminish return point, add some CON, then fully invest on STR/INT. No stats diversity, as their stats are not balance.
I donât think the game has potential, I think they will rush this to the market and start another one, as the core design flaw is just too much.
1 Like
i also think there are parts lacking in their core design. class balance, stat, and most importantly of all, skill design.
however, that actually doesnt matter. what matters is if the game is fun and updating. as long as they update, class metaâs will change and it will be interesting. imo they can even rebalance stats even after the game is released as long as its done in one patch. or rather, they might have to when the game develops end game.
classes dont even have to be completely balanced. it would just be the meta and that would encourage people to play more to remake characters that fit the meta. or wait until the meta shifts again
with that said, i do hope they do a major revamping of skillsâŚ
i just want to play now 
I assume they still have less than a year contract with Nexon to finish the remaining ranks, but I am unsure they can turn around things within half a year. I wonder if they change it to B2P, would people be playing? As if those money would help to fix those issues.
I think they can re-use the scenery, so if they are creating a new one (or branch to a new one), maybe it is faster. However, they really need a âgameâ in place, otherwise, seeing guild limited to a class will not work. Some alliance feature needs to be in place.