Tree of Savior Forum

Endgame Rework & Content Reusability

General Discussion
#1

Introduction

I’m dedicating this thread to ideas related to endgame improvements and re-use of already implemented content. I understand many people just want rank 9, new skills, classes, instances, etc, but making new stuff requires a lot of work. As much as I want to see entirely new content implemented, I also see a lot of potential on already existing content that goes to waste.

I would like to suggest, and also open up this discussion topic for others to suggest/feedback ideas of new contents that don’t require too much effort to implement.

Rebirth System

As much as some people hate starting over in infinite grinding games, I feel like reborn/rebirth (go back to char lv 1 with some advantages) is a very very simple mechanic to reuse content and make the endgame actually much longer.

My proposed system is very simple: when a player hits the current content level cap (lvl 330), he’s allowed to go back level 1 with a diminishing return on extra status points. At your first rebirth, you get 20% extra status points, at your second rebirth, 10% more, and after your third rebirth and thereafter you get 5% more status points.

This bonus adds up and applies on your current base level to define your total status points. In example, a char with 5 rebirths would have 20% + 10% + 5% * 3 = 45% extra status points. This bonus would be a buff, similar to team level buff, but unique to each character. Keeping the bonus this way assures there will be no issues when new level caps are introduced.

Once you have rebirthed, you need more exp to level up. The additional exp you need is equal to the status point bonus you get (using the example above you would need 45% more total exp to reach 330).

Having explained how it works, here are some advantages of this new proposed system:

  • Very easy to implement. In fact, it could use the exact same code from Rank Reset item with the addition of the status points bonus and extra exp requirement.

  • Incentive for players to improve/fix their builds. Switching some class you disliked after a rebirth, or simply trying out a whole new build without the hassle of making a new character and having to spend more silver in attributes and transcended gear.

  • Revisiting lower level gears. Needing more exp to level motivates players to invest in lower level gear before they rebirth. Lower level gear becomes more useful when you spend more time being lower level and have the money and capability to farm before you actually hit that point (you can farm low lvl gear as a high lvl before you rebirth).

  • Revival of lower level dungeons. People who prefer to focus on their main characters rather than making alts would once again populate lower level dungeons.

  • More build possibilities. While I believe there should be some soft cap to focusing on one stat (i.e. after 400 STR one point in STR starts costing 2 status points instead of 1), extra status points may always motivate you to no longer make full stat builds and instead dish a few points into secondary statuses.

  • Setting new objectives. With this system, IMC may also decide to release classes that require a certain amount of rebirths before you can become them. If Centurion requires 4 rebirths to be picked (as an example), this effectively quadruplicate the game time while also giving an objective to rebirthing for those who wish for this class.

  • Better scaling of some skills. If you play Chaplain or Thaumaturge, you may feel annoyed that your buffs hit a cap (since they depend on stat points) while dps characters can keep improving their dps by adding more transcedence stages or over refining gear.

Things to consider:

  • Should quests be reseted? While most people would logically answer “yes”, I think things can be kept much more interesting if they aren’t reseted. The reason for that accompanies my second suggestion for the Hunting System.

  • Why would I rebirth if I can make an alt and have more saalus runs? Indeed. My solution to that would be adding 2 extra cubes to your saalus run with that character (considering saalus upcoming patch) for each rebirth you have. I mean, you already leveled all the way to 330 again with the hassle of needing even more exp… This also incentivates players not to make alts they don’t want to make just to farm the cubes. Effectively, this also diminishes afk players in saalus because they have to do way less saalus runs a day and they can do it with only their main characters.

  • Great, but endgame still needs more content. Of course. The idea here is just to improve current game duration with very little effort. New dungeons, items and instances will always be welcome.

Hunting System

I see very little incentive for players to do lower level maps quests and Wings of Vibora hunting achievements since those do not share between other characters of your account (only exploration does). The idea here is to increase every exp card exp by about ~30% and allow players to re-claim their hunting/exploration exp cards once they rebirth a character.

With this, you can expect players to:

  • Look foward completing hunting achievements. If you want to rebirth many times, you’ll invest into hunting achievements to get extra exp cards everytime you rebirth.

  • Revisit old areas. Players may finally feel tempted to go to forgotten areas such as Topes Fortress to finish their hunting achievements there. This presents a better use of old maps with very little implementation effort.

  • Quest in different areas. If quests don’t reset upon rebirth and exp cards are made slightly better, you can expect players who don’t have tons of instance reset vouchers / multiply tokens / exp tomes to quest in different areas such as Orsha’s main questline.

  • Enjoy more end-game diversification. Aside from doing their daily ET / Saalus runs, high level players can also focus on getting monster achievements to prepare for their next rebirths. This gives players more endgame possibilities to focus on.

Things to consider:

  • 30% more exp on exp cards is too much! Yes and no. While it may seem like a big boost, doing quests atm is very unusual given how easy it is to level in dungeons with all reset/multiply/exp tomes that are given. Also remember the idea is that quests aren’t reset upon rebirth, so most of your exp cards (if you quest to 330) will be given on only one rebirth.

  • Should exp cards be deleted upon rebirth? I believe if cards aren’t erased it’ll make endgame a little more interesting in the way you can prepare yourself by stacking cards for your next rebirth. It also gives a good use for instances that give exp cards (i.e. Uphill) that are usually done with high level characters.

Ideas, thoughts, criticism? Feel free to post them here.

12 Likes
#3

I really hope they do this rebirth thing and get mocked for it.

#4

Instead of pulling out a rebirth system, why not add a proficiency system that lets you improve skills passively while you actively use them?

This system could be endlessly expandable and cause players who play a lot on only a few characters to benefit more.

There would be both Class and skill proficiency.

While skill proficiency increases some aspects of the skill based on the Class the skill comes from (e.g. a skill collects EXP every time it is used in a party and ranks up from Rank F till Rank S), the Class proficiency will grant your character some passive status boosts/buffs while playing.

Dievdirbys e.g. would gain a passive accuracy boost of 1% per Class Proficiency rank and a multiplier of 1 per Class Circle (meaning Circle 1 Diev has max 5% accuracy boost while C2 has 10% and C3 15% max) starting at CP Rank E, and more abilities each time when his CP Rank increases (e.g. a knockdown resistance buff when he’s carving statues at Rank A).

The best point of this system is that it would stop people from just hopping from meta to meta because their characters that they invested time into will be potentially better.

It could also rebalance the missing balance of the game as potentially weak Classes will offer way better abilities if you show them enough love in contrast to the naturally strong Classes that have less useful/hidden potential.

2 Likes
#5

I think your idea is a bit overly complicated and would actually need a lot of implementation effort (a.k.a. go through all skills to give them proficiency). I like games where you need to train/practice your skills to become better (i.e. ultima online, priston tale) but ToS mechanics don’t quite fit that. It could be implemented, but it would need to be a whole new complex system (and we’re trying to keep things simple here).

Proficiency system also has an issue because you can just make a macro and level them up while afk (or hitting a training dummy), making the system easily exploitable. Games that use these type of system need well thought mechanics to prevent these kind of afk leveling. Macros may be illegal but they’re very hard to detect / prevent.

You can, for example, have a “turbo” feature in your keyboard which replaces key holds for tons of key strokes per second (then just place something irl to hold down the key). Not really a macro as you aren’t using any 3rd party programs.

And of course, proficiency being different per skill means a harder time balancing out classes/skills.

Well they can always rebalance classes without the need of a proficiency system… I mean, just rebalance the skills directly.

#6

The rebirth mechanic is so used and unoriginal. Good thing imc doesn’t give a f*ck about players suggestions.

2 Likes
#7

Am not really keen on the Rebirth system though. There are a number of obstacles in which this system needs to clear before it can be considered.

When can a player opt for rebirth?

Currently the level cap is 330, which it will continue to increase as the game updates every year (hopefully). So players who join ToS when the level cap is low will benefit more if the rebirth option is available at current max level. New players who join in when R10 is out will have to “slog” to 400+ levels just to qualify for the additional 20% status points for 1st rebirth. It kind of irks new players from joining the game since they lost the chance to be on par with the early adopters.

We also can’t get a minimum level for rebirth too. If it is set at level X, then what players will do is just to level to the said level X and keep on doing the reincarnation cycle. Since rebirth gives so much more perks in character progression than levelling up past the rebirth level aside from gaining new classes, players can always level up “later when they determine they reincarnate enough times”. It kind of defeats the purpose of going up to high levels since rebirth % gains are cumulative.

2. How to prevent the gap between free to play accounts and TP laden accounts caused by the Rebirth system?

An example, with 3x x8 tomes, plenty of instance clears, multiply tokens and dungeon resets I can get a character from lv1 to 330 within a day. Even with rebirth additional exp penalties it wouldn’t be hard for a player with enough spending power to get at least 10 rebirths within a month, which adds to plenty of stat points as compared to a normal player whom have to earn in game $ to purchase those instance clears, resets and tokens.

3. The need to solve the repetitive~ness of relevelling again and again.

The dev team of ToS doesn’t have someone like Master Yoko Taro. In order not to bore players with more grinds (currently the game is already quite grindy), there is a need for more content to be in especially for those who chose to rebirth.

I do have some ideas on how to rework end game, reuse content which is expandable and valid no matter when end game is, like R8 cap of 330 or R9 cap of 380 it will still be valid endgame. Let me sort it out for a bit first then I’ll post it here.

4 Likes
#8

Interesting to see how this conversation plays out because as much as, I’m all for the rebirth system and see where it could fix a lot of issues and make the game feel like it has more depth, I can definitely see Nekorins point on how the rebirth system could have huge negative effects as well.

#9

You can have a linear progression of levels. I.e. all level you get gives 0.01% additive status points. So if you reborn at level 20, you get 20 * 0.01 = 0.20% stats points. If you reborn at level 330, you get 0.01 * 330 = 3.30% status points. However, I feel that’s not a good option because it’s much easier to level from 1~100 than from 200~300. Higher levels would need some pondering to the amount of stat points they give, but that would overly complicate the system (i.e. one level from 329 to 330 gives more stat points than one level from 1 to 2).

I don’t see much problem with giving advantages to old players. In fact, I think that’s a nice thing to do. Games like Warframe are very successful at keeping their player base (even when whole content is played) because they are very generous to old players in comparison to newer ones (old players can have weapons new players will never be able to obtain!).

An older player could have rebirthed 10 times when lvl cap was only 330 but a new player needs to level to 440 because of new cap (thus take longer to rebirth 10 times). That may seem unfair, but it’s not much different than an older player enjoying a exp event and having leveled to 330 much faster (thus rebirthed much more) than a newer player who couldn’t catch the event (thus also take longer to rebirth 10 times) and level to same 330 level cap. Overall, it’s never going to be entirely fair.

I think keeping things entirely fair is overly complicating them and not really the best. Older players will already have tons of advantages through better equipment than newer players. Comparing some stat points will be the very least of the problems.

I agree with you. I feel like monsters, dungeons, could be made a lot more interesting. But again, that’s something that requires a lot of effort. If they orient players to kill different type of mobs (like I tried to do with my hunting system suggestion) then it can diversificate gameplay without much need of a change. It all gets boring very fast when you’re always doing the same dungeons or grinding the same mobs (alemeth anyone?) everytime you rebirth. There are ways to better use the content than to simply add new one.

Well you’ll never be able to stop someone who spends a lot of cash in TP points from being stronger. Even when the reborn system doesn’t exist, players who buy tons of TP and convert into quick-leveling stuff just level new characters to farm more silver in dg runs / saalus runs / practonium boxes. More silver equates to more gears, which also equates to unfairness when compared to non-tp buyers. That’s not really an issue to the rebirth system but something inherent to the game’s TP shop.

I’ll be waiting! :slight_smile:

#10

Rebirth = Transcendance

We are already struggling with this transcendance on equips, much more you want to put in on rebirth? Or suggesting it?

It’s just a matter of liquidated form of enhancement of a character from each rank. And what else, it will underwhelmed some of ranks. Even if you put new set of skill it wont matter because of the log system.

#12

It’s actually pretty simple and parts of it are already implemented: i.e. the Class&skill attribute system.

By utilizing what’s already there, you just have to define that you earn e.g. 1 EXP for Class Proficiency (for the Class proficiency rank of the Class the skill stems from) and 1 EXP for the Skill Proficiency every time a skill is used.

If every skill has the same amount of EXP gained, it’s actually quite an easy task as you can just add the skill EXP gain to the skills parameters like e.g. the SP costs, so every time you use the skill,you gain one additional EXP.

They could also make the points collectable at the Class Master similar to how you can buy skillpoints, and use them accordingly via an addtional tab.
This would make it much easier to reproduce and offer you more options to customize & easier access to the skill enhancements and the Class enhancements.

However, I don’t like the idea of enhancements that increase the skills attack power,that’s boring and would make strong skills even more strong.

The thing I don’t like about rebirthing is that you need something to make you want to rebirth, e.g. rebirth-only equipment. This sets apart the players even more, and makes the game even more repetitive and boring as you don’t really progress in the game (you’re basically just starting a new game plus).

And without new skills(RO e.g. featured extra skills after rebirthing)&attributes waiting for you, I doubt someone would be willing to rebirth again and again.

About your proposed statuspoint system: I see the clear disadvantage of just spreading your overall stats, making a maxed out character within a few dozen rebirths. It would be neat for some supporter builds, but too strong for those already overpowered Classes like Doppelsoeldner/Lancer.

Instead of adding a bonus amount of statpoints, a %-based bonus onto a selected status would be a nice idea, e.g. if you rebirth, your status points are reset and you get to choose one of the five stats to boost.

If I choose e.g. CON, I’ll get a passive bonus on my CON amount of 20%. If I rebirth again and choose CON again, I’ll have 30% in total, the 3rd time 35% CON bonus and so on.

Meanwhile, if I choose to boost another status, that status also starts from 20% more points. If leveling gets harder and harder every level, you can achieve a well-spread bonus setting (e.g. +20% on all stats after 5 rebirths) or a fixated bonus setting (e.g. + 45% on a single stat after 5 rebirths).

The great benefit of this setting is that it would affect all statboni you gain from equipment and status point investment while still keeping your amounts of statuspoints in check as it “exponentially” grows each time you rebirth and advance to a new levelcap (500-600+ status points as standard with such high boni would inflate your basestats to very high amounts).

Also, the system should lock the effect of status points to the amount equal to your current level, e.g. if you are level 150 but have overall 180 STR(base+equipment stats), you only recieve the attack&accuracy amounts of 150 STR[this excludes the bonus of the rebirth stat%, e.g. if I am level 150 with 150 STR and 20% STR bonus from rebirth, I get 180 STR as a total effective value; meanwhile, if I have 180 STR at level 150 with 20% STR bonus, I’m also at effective 180 STR since I only recieve 20% bonus of the effective 150 STR due to the level-relevant restriction].

2 Likes
#13

It’s a good idea too. Took me a while to understand what you were trying to explain.

Your system is equal to mine if someone focuses on only one stat, but it differs if they decide to spread points among other stats, making it more advantageous to have non-single stat builds (which is something good). Multiplicating equipment stat bonuses can also make builds slightly more customizable.

I didn’t really understand this part. I think it’s complicating it too much if you have 180 STR but only receive benefits of 150 STR for whatever reason. I also don’t think it’s a good idea to hard cap stats according to your base level. If people still want to build full single-stat, let them do it.

#14

they will sell rebirth unlock vouchers for 300USD hope u enjoy it!!

this games is boring.
rebirth might be implement
pay to win might be implement
(aka permanent special weapon)
special cash items will be implement

the mindset of Korean is fairly simple.
they only have three objectives

  1. expensive high end armors and weapons
  2. expensive high end cards
  3. all silver into attributes and rebirths

and to achieve all these objectives, there are three methods
methods 1 , grinding (farming silver and level)
methods 2 , use real cash to buy high end gears.

method 1 usually take months
method 2, if your parents are rich , it take a few click~

method 2 can substitute method 1, and to imc, they always wish players to choose method 2 instead of method 1.

in the end, either u use method 1 or method 2 to reach your goals, u will realized that there is nothing to do when u achieved all objective 1,2 and 3.

so food for thought, what will stop them from implement the rebirth system , where the players can have super characters compared to the newbie?

they might even sell rebirth unlock vouchers!! u all gonna love it , by throwing more time and money into it~

1 Like
#15

Re-using content is almost never a good idea, because generally it makes people burn out on that content, and usually have a much more sour taste about it the 2nd time around, which can negatively impact their long term feelings about it, even if they were fond of it the first playthrough.

A good example would be hard mode content in WoW from Wrath on, where every boss (early on) had a gimmick in which you could change PVE raid content slightly to make it more difficult, and then later they were just more finely tuned (overtuned in most cases) and you effectively were just doing the same bosses again, only they were harder. It was a poor excuse for content when they could have just done something completely new.

Rebirth wouldn’t really work for this game and there would be no need anyway, as we all know that the level cap will continue increasing as new circles come out, and balance would be come very difficult since it’s so hard now to balance classes given the vast amount of player choice.

There are many ways, however, where maps can be reused tastefully. Phasing is one way–when a set of quests is completed on a map, NPCs are in a different location (other MMOs handle this differently but the idea is the same). This game also uses cutscenes a lot, which could ensure that a high level player on a low level map will never damage or negatively impact or spoil a new player who happens to be walking by. New quests could very easily be added, scaled up in level, and ensure that players have to return to some maps to discover new things (absidium/paper quests already do this). Adding a hunting system as OP states would also be interesting, or perhaps even have the levels of monsters scale with the player on some maps (harder to do/implement), or have some kind of event trigger for higher levels on various maps (whale is one example, but I don’t mean monthly timed/scripted event, could be something else).

The bigger issue is that so much content early on is utterly wasted, as players do not need to visit even half of the maps to hit max level, maybe not even a quarter of them. The story quest itself and its various branches only encompasses a very small handful of maps, introduces a very small set of meaningful/memorable characters, and I think a ton could be done to either expand upon unfinished story lines independent of side quests, or perhaps just more could be added. edit: To hammer further on this point, think about the NPCs whose story lines interested you the most, and how you can be sure that almost all players who started in the last 6 months probably don’t know who most of them are because they didn’t need to do it.

#16

no no no, rebirth will work, to imc and to the players. imc make more money , and players spend more money to build super characters ~ it is all love win win situation.

imc no need to spend money to throw out useless and boring contents with no creativities, they can cut cost and make money at the same time… it is brilliant~
either way, content for lvl 330 above will be the same as well, all of us will have to do the damn chores~ they will just simply put a mob on a freaking shiit map~ that’s all, more high lvl dungeons with brain dead mobs~ and brain dead play style~

1 Like
#17

As I said, the leveling game is too short and most of the content is too unnecessary. It makes more sense to continue the leveling game and add interesting things to old maps, rather than force players to begin again until they hate everything about the old content so they first stop leveling alts, and then stop playing altogether.

There were a lot of things about RO that were compelling. The rebirth system wasn’t one of them.

1 Like
#18

lol, u are talking about IMC, a korea company here, where their Main character is a perfect or above god like figure~ do u expect them to throw out theme like ~
dragoon cave, machine town, ghost town, sky cities, and creative theme, playing mode and play style ?
i 100% guarantee they will suck our money dry~ amen
Ro was successful due to the help of Japanese!!

1 Like
#19
#20

oh, u are right, we players who play this brain dead games , will definitely be brain dead, happy retarded together!!

1 Like
#21

@hayashiyuui Interesting the rage and frustration coming from you. You don’t have to play the game, if you don’t like the company or game. Also, if they ever did come out with a rebirth system, I’m damn near positive it would be FREE and through some in game quest since it needs to be accessible to all players.

#22

I always thought of a system like nightmare on Diablo:

As I was always a fan of old style leveling (doing all quests, visiting most maps) I thought it would be interesting to revisit those maps with a much increased difficulty. A map wide instance with monsters with above ET stats, hitting really hard, CCing you left and right, and in wich you need to complete harder versions of the original quests of those maps.

It could have some extra complexity by making it a series of maps in a single run, with rewards increasing with more maps cleared. Also throw some purpleish filter on everything for good measure.

Very simple and very easy to implenent (most resources already in the game) and would cater to the people that really enjoyed the core game back when leveling wasn’t done in 5 hours.

1 Like