Let me start by saying that I am about as supportive of this game as it gets. I’ve been on IMC’s side in so many arguments that one person actually accused me of being an employee. I have been waiting for this game for over 3 years and I am thrilled to be playing it now that it’s out and to actually have a suitable replacement for RO. I have 3 characters above level 100 and have spent $100.00 so far. So this criticism/concern is definitely coming from someone who is concerned about the welfare of the game.
Scheduling this game for F2P release while dungeons are still broken is a huge mistake. To explain why, let’s back up and talk about what dungeons mean exactly.
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Dungeons/Missions are a key means of XP gain. Packed with elite mobs that give bonus xp, multiplied by a 600% for using “Search for party” (or 4xx% for a premade featuring 1 of each base class).
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Dungeons are the MOST important means of loot farming for all levels, but especially so once you have unlocked 175, 190 and 200.
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Dungeons/Missions are severely limited. 2 runs per day. (Down from 5 in KTOS)
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Dungeons/Missions are a key part of token benefits. +1 run per day.
With all of that in mind, wouldn’t you agree that it’s really important that dungeons work as intended? And yet here we are a FULL MONTH into game release and they aren’t. They haven’t worked well at all from day 1.
First there was the Commander Loadfail and his hatred of premade groups. The bane of static parties and boss rushers. That lasted from release until 2 weeks afterwards. Then that got fixed at the cost of search for party:
Resetting queues bug. This problem introduced on April 12th still exists today. I personally have waited in these resetting queues for up to 30 minutes, but I’ve heard of people waiting in queue for up to an hour. Completely unacceptable.
Furthermore, somehow during server transfer maintenance this week the problem got SIGNIFICANTLY worse. So bad, a server wide announcement was made to tell people to stay out of dungeons:
This system announcement went out 1:41 AM on Wednesday. Since then there have been 3 dungeon/missions resets which means if you are an active player with a token trying to get the most out of it you have missed out on 12 stable dungeon and mission runs. In my 2 attempts at a dungeon run last night, both ended in a hard disconnect that ended the run, and 1 of my missions last night ended in a hard disconnect before we could even kill the first boss. This is an unmitigated disaster.
#How do you expect to handle F2P launch with all the issues that it entails while still fixing this issue?
Dungeons have never worked in release. In a full month, not one single day have we had fully functional dungeons. This is awful. You designed dungeons to be a core, integral part of item hunting, of xp gain, of the token benefits which you are intending to use for income, they need to be functional and working!
The only communication from you is to “not enter instanced dungeons”. How is this an acceptable solution??? The past 4 days have been by far the most frustrating experiences I’ve had playing ToS. Even more frustrating than launch week’s questing delays. Entering a dungeon to be booted a few minutes later consuming your run is toxic and needs IMMEDIATE resolution, and hopefully compensation for the worst bug this game’s dungeons have ever seen.
Furthermore, this needs to be fixed 100% before F2P goes live and you are shooting yourself in the foot. Can you imagine being a F2P player, hitting level 50 and heading into the juicy dungeon that is going to give you a +5 level boost only to get booted 2 pulls in and having 1 of your 2 runs consumed? It’s a nightmare. How can this person possibly feel motivated to save for a token when its primary benefit is broken?
Also, if somehow the problem still persists, how will you possibly find the time to work on it between releasing new servers, working with the massive influx of new players + bots/RMT and keeping existing players happy? The F2P release should be a time for celebration when skeptics and patient players can join us and community can be whole once again, but right now it doesn’t feel like that at all.
I understand that self publishing an international release is difficult. In fact, difficult is a drastic understatement, but this dungeon disconnect issue wasn’t a problem until 4 days ago. Please restore confidence and fix this issue that you somehow introduced during the team transfer 24 hr maintenance.
Thanks for reading.
We spending weekend with no dungeons?~