Thanks to @think-of-name-later and his thread:
I have decided to nominate and henceforth elect myself to be your official TOS community representative. The reason I have done so is because I like to take initiative and you guys would just spend thousands of pages wondering about who to nominate and a decision would likely never be made. So here I am. Thank you very much for your support. I will give a brief introduction to the features of my well-honored responsibilities given to me by you, the wonderful players, before I outline our first community review.
Community Representative Role
Iâll put it simply. My purpose is to properly and adequately represent the revelators, bringing to light all of the current issues as seen and foreseen by the community at-large, and do so in a way that consolidates all of our vocalized issues in an easy to glean format for our (whoever does this now with Julie gone, who knows!) pals at IMC to read thoroughly and, of course, take in to consideration! Previously I have been known to be very opinionated, and Iâm also have not always been very nice to people I disagree with, but this is a different ballgame. Iâm here to represent you, which means no opinions, no frills, just a pure and simple community outline meant to make our voices look prettier, and more sophisticated, all in one convenient place. The format will be as followsâŚ
- A brief statement on the issue.
- A link to a related thread displaying someone affected by the issue.
- Proposed solutions, extra questions and inquiries.
- At the end, a weekly round-up of all issues spoken of for the TL;DR crowd.
Each community review is subject to peer revision, and will be written on a weekly basis. It is acceptable for you to speak in this very thread on a subject that was missed. If you do so, please provide a link to a related existing thread discussing the subject, along with a succinct summary of what it is (so I donât have to read your essay or whatever essay resides within your link just to get the point). The issues will be in no particular order. Linked threads with more likes will tend to be more favored use in the outline. With that being said, letâs get this party started.
Tagging @STAFF_Max for visibility!
Community Review the Week of May 10th 2016
The day F2P beganâŚ
South American Server Issues
This section identifies what is current a hot-button issue for players on the Silute [SA] server. Many players seem to be reporting a general un-playability since they were moved there.
Hereâs a well written thread from @strigoimare detailing his experience since moving to the new server. He describesâŚ
- Some details regarding the type of issues he is experiencing
- His disappointment with the level of customer support he has received since these problems began to arise after his transfer.
- A perceived neglect from IMC to address the issue over a long period of time.
Questions the community has surrounding the issue
- What is currently going on with the SA server and is there and ETA on when it will be fixed?
- Is it possible to give more updates showing that youâre aware of the issue?
World Boss Design
This section talks about an issue that gives light to a few issues concerning balance of how credit is taken for killing world bosses.
Thanks to @Skogarna, we have a concise description of the issue. This problems are summarized as the followingâŚ
- World bosses are too easy to monopolize in small parties. Should be tougher to kill, requiring a larger number of players, preventing small parties from controlling maps without contest (as there is no open PvP).
- [Controversial] Support spells and other friendly-targeted abilities should not affect those who are out-of-party as it greatly inconveniences those in the playerâs actual party (using cleric tiles, etc).
This also ties in to other perceived issues such as how credit is claimed for a mob, with the idea that highest damage is a sub-optimal method of distributing loot when it comes to mobs with very large amounts of health. This can be controversial, as tagging also comes with itâs own set of gripes depending on the player. Mob credit functionality in TOS has led to other previously popular issues in the community such as kill stealing, which is also highly debate as to whether it should be allowed as a form of the gameâs design.
Inquiries?
- Is this an inherent vision of TOSâs design or is it recognized as a potential issue?
Poor Client Optimization Issues
The following section covers what has been a very widespread and talked about issue since the game went in to early access. The current thread where conversation on this subject seems to be centralized is here.
@dehrox123 tells us about his experience dealing with Tree of Saviorâs seemingly very poor optimization. This is is not a unique or uncommon experience, as many users have cited similar circumstances with high-end systems. Such circumstances consist of the followingâŚ
- Low FPS in âbarelyâ crowded environments on systems that might otherwise have optimal performance in more demanding triple-AAA style games.
- âFreezingâ and ability lag that can often lead to in-game inconvenience such as character death.
The community has a few questions surrounding this issue that they would eventually like addressedâŚ
- Is there anything being done to better optimize the client so that it runs better on any type of spec machine?
- Are there limitations to Tree of Saviorâs optimization that prevent the situation from improving?
Swordsman Class Issues
This is a topic of much contention but it has to do with a broad range of subjects centered around the effectiveness of the Swordsman class in relation to the others. Many have voiced concern in the way the Swordsman class is balanced. Such concerns can be found in topics such as the followingâŚ
@acetatsujin gives us a centralized post with a few thread links to people who are experiencing dissatisfaction with the class, and has many likes and views with an on-going discussion.
@Eroica starts an on-going discussion about durability damage for tanks (which is synonymous with being a Swordsman). It is their opinion that durability damage sustained when taking damage is far too high, and thus creates an âun-funâ dynamic of needing to repair too often. The class is also often cited as being too âweakâ compared to other DPS classes such as Archer or Wizard. This can pigeon hole players in to feeling like the only valuable tool they have is Swashbuckling from Peltasta C1, out of the entire class tree.
Ultimately the Swordsman of the TOS want to knowâŚ
- Is the current design of the Swirdsmam and how it fits in to the class Eco-system intended? Repair costs, DPS, and the like.
Circle Resets, possibility y/n?
Haha, I know what youâre all thinking, but I didnât pioneer this issue to the forefront, although Iâve been an active proponent of it. This is an issue that been a hot-button in the community for a couple of weeks now over the plausibility of the game offering a circle reset, limited or otherwise. Threads where this discussion is ongoingâŚ
Most arguments consist of the following
Pros
- Allows players to fix split-second mistakes that might otherwise cost them a large amount of time to correct due to the punishing nature of a non-reversible class advancement system, this bullet also includes changes made by IMC to classes that potentially make players unhappy with their builds.
- Provides a potentially hot commodity item for purchase in the TP shop, IE. profit for IMC.
- In line conceptually with other already-available items such as the stat and skill reset (assuming they continue to be available when the TP shop goes live).
- Covers for the lack of quality information available within the game (on either classes or skill descriptions), saving potentially many hours of work rewriting in-game descriptions or creating tutorials and things of that nature.
Cons
- Goes against the âhardcoreâ style of the game based on its roots in iRO, in that you should be well researched enough to have a solid idea of what your build is before you make the mistake. Mistakes = consequences.
- Potential abuse, where âabuseâ is described as switching to builds that are buffed in order to have an advantage, or switching away from builds that get nerfed. This also includes switching builds in order to level more efficiently before switching to a better performance build at high level, diminishing the accomplishment of leveling as a tougher-to-level build.
(If you want me to add to the cons list, please let me know politely with the concise bullet point you feel Iâve missed).
Players who are pro-reset have expressed interest mostly in limited forms of such a reset, such as once every X months, or one circle at a time, so itâs important not to interpret this subject as wanting to swap every single circle in the build whenever one freely chooses.
Players are interested in knowing the followingâŚ
- What is the possibility of a circle reset of any kind, limited or otherwise, being added in the future?
Mob Spawn Rates
This topic continues to be a topic of paramount concern, both for the immediate future of the game and the long-term health of the game. A lot of healthy discussion can be found here:
@Wiwin lays the groundwork for a heavy discussion that goes in to the negative experiences one has when dealing with the current mob spawn rate.
- One can spend minutes waiting for quest mobs to pop up without channel swapping often, combined with competing against other players to out-damage them, this can be frustrating for support classes or non-damage-based builds.
This topic has about a ~99% agreement rating, with an occasional dissenter that claims âitâs fineâ. I have no notable cons of increasing the mob spawn rate from itâs current form to list, however.
Itâs worth noting that the mob spawn rate was buffed by 50% already according to IMC, but complaints still persist that the rate is still much too low, based on actual experiences in-game.
The community would like to know the followingâŚ
- Is the low mob spawn rate something that IMC is intent on addressing?
- Is IMC content with the current mob spawn rate?
WEEKLY ROUND-UP (5/10/2016)!
- SA Server Issues!
- World Boss Design!
- Optimization!
- Swordsman Class Balance Issues!
- Circle Resets!
- Mob Spawn Rates!
So there it is! This has been your friendly neighborhood Zipzo, with "the people"s very own first community review, posted the week of the âF2Pappeningâ.
Again, if there is an important issue you believe is missing from this outline that you believe is a hot-button topic, and/or is of immediate concern to the community and or the well-being of TOS, please do not hesitate to post it here, providing with it a succint summary of the issue and an existing thread where there is (hopefully) on-going discussion on the issue.
Iâm so proud to have been elected your official representative and I look forward to helping to voice our issues loud and clear to IMC in the near future! See you next time!
âDonât forget to hit the like button and subscribe!!!â - aâla YouTube
