Tree of Savior Forum

Discussion for the direction of TOS - Linear progression needs to be changed

General Discussion
#1

The importance of freedom of hunting, replayable maps with great rewards for grinding in. Without these magic in the game, all these will not even matter:

1)pvp
2) class balance
3) pay to win (whats the point of people have advantage over others in terms of leveling if the game is so linear, the further they go, the lonelier they get and less things to do with friends)
4) class variety ( whats the use of 80+ classes when everytime you play a new class you do the same quest over and over, same linear progression, however in RO, each classes have suitable places to farm in more than the other, like priests do well in undead areas, etc etc)

All these, along with many other concerns listed by players will not even matter if there is no magic of attraction in the game. People will just get bored and start being unhappy with the game after ages of quest fetching linear gameplay. It doesnt give life to a game. I think many players either have not experienced the magic of RO and what made it successful, due to the influence of recent generic linear quest mmo trends being the norm for a long time.

I have played RO for many many years, and i can say that i had fun even though i barely did any quest in the game and if i did, it is because i wanted to, not because i have to, and those quest has to be found and completed with effort because i wanted the reward, class change, equips etc. Not because questing is the only way to level efficiently.

What i think would have been a better system: Remove the linear quest and obvious quest benefits exp cards, change them to optional story quest for those who wants to do them with some gear rewards for people who take effort to complete.

Add multiple regions for people to explore and grind level, do not let questing become the obvious option for leveling, make grinding equally rewarding. Regions that are replayable regardless of level, a good way to do this for example:

Dungeon level 1: lvl 10-20 monsters
Level 2: lvl 20-40 monsters
level 3: lvl 40-80 monsters
lvl 4: lvl 80-100 monsters
…
…
final level: Random world boss spawn

This would make maps replayable and also you will be able to meet all sorts of players of different levels walking around in that dungeon instead of just people of your level doing quest. You will find yourself returning to the same dungeon but grinding in a more difficult area. This actually makes developers life easy, a dungeon developed once but players can play it over and over, and when developers create even more new dungeons players will have even more choices to play with but they wont forget old areas, instead of the current TOS, nobody goes back to maps that quests are completed, you make the map for nothing soon they will be obsolete and empty. New players will not even want to join due to lack of social aspect in newbie areas once majority of players have passed that stage.

Also, maps in RO have various themes to it, if you are feeling like christmas, you can go to lutie, if you feel like talking to people or shopping, you can go to a big city like prontera, etc etc, however, after playing kTos, i felt that the theme of maps and town do not really have variance. (i really cannot recount how many times i have decided to revisit a place based on my mood)

I am not trying to bash TOS by comparing to RO and i know that TOS is not RO, however, i just want to list out some of the points that made RO really successful, and it does not hurt learning from successful points that made a game great. This is because kTos for me so far was a very linear gameplay which can easily be compared to many generic mmos where you will never revisit a map once you passed the quest, since there is no merit in doing so. Monsters will not drop something awesome irregardless of level, valuable gears or cards.

Conclude:
Players must not be dictated by quests. They should have the freedom to choose where they want to go, base on merit and feel.

Drop system needs an overhaul. Equips and gears.

Maps need to be replayable, even if there is just a handful of replayable ones people will visit over and over again meeting friends inside. And instance dungeons are not what im talking about.

Please correct me if i am wrong, and feel free to disagree. I merely stated my personal opinions and feel free to share yours, and i may not have much experience playing TOS, so you guys may share whats good or whats bad.

7 Likes
#2

you should move this to the suggestion section of the forum

#3

you should translate it to korean, and move to developer forums :smiley:

#4

That’s okay the devs do speak a little English, and the staff pushes things like this over to the devs here. One of the benefits of having a self published game.

#5

By this you mean, have multiple dungeons that have floors in them and the futher you go, the stronger the enemies are. Lets say you can get to floor 4 of this one dungeon, but past that the enemies are to strong and you can get to floor 3 of this other dungeon and floor 6 of this othe one. This gives you 3 options on where to grind.

If thats what you mean then i really really like this idea. Reminds me of this other game i used to play. Put one of these dungeons near the starting area and the lowest floors can be for really high levels, which give players a reason to go back to these lower level zones.

I really hope they put something like this in. each of the dungeons have a certain theme so each class could be better at soloing a different dungeon than the other. You could make a party just to get to the lowest dungeon floor possible. Even then you might not be able to make it with all max leveled party. And theres multiple dungeons you can do this on. Lots of ideas. I hope they make this happen.

Edit I decided to link an example of what im talking about. This is the layout and monster levels of the dungeon thats right near the starting area. The game is dead, but I liked many parts of this game.

Dungeon Layout
Monster LvL and Floor location

The max level in this game is 99 until you ascend

If this is how they were in RO then i guess im just saying stuff people already know. I’ve never played RO.

1 Like
#6

You’re right… Let’s hope IMC realise that

1 Like
#7

yes yes thats what i meant. Dungeons, caves, castles, mazes, pyramids all kinds of places with different themes and floors in them. Each of these floor is of different difficulty level consisting of different monsters for different players.

The problem with linear quest progression is that maps do not leave any heavy impression on players. Once you are done with the quest, you basically forget everything about that map, what monsters were in there, how the map looks like, everything is forgotten because you were only there to complete the quests, and certain quests were irritating you just want to get it over with, the surroundings is often forgotten.

In contrast, if you were to visit that map by your own will, to find a certain monster, to grind for items, after going back many times you will find yourself being able to memorize everything in the map, you know which part of the map had a river which part of the map bosses usually spawn, which part of the map has the most crowded mobs and how to navigate around there. Players feel attached to the place and it becomes their favourite spot. That is the magic of attraction, just the love between the game and the player. Then this player would want to bring his friends there.

1 Like