Hello there.
Currently I have a level 106 thaumaturge and level 60 swordman and since it’s a beta I think I should give my feedback.
The main dev from RO is managing this game so I feel like
he should know what made RO successful and that he could do better than a game released more than 15 years ago.
And sadly this game is beyond disapointing. So many things are wrong. I think they are still fixable yet it’s almost one year of beta and the only fix I could notice is XP X3. IMC either works at snail pace or just don’t understand their incoming doom. This game is inferior to RO by an order of magnitude.
First of all the linearity of this game. Seriously? If it were not for XP x3 it would be just impossible to level up by killing monsters. Well it is but would you grind 3 hours to level up ( 9 hours with normal XP) rather than doing 5 quests taking you 20 mins asking you to pick up 3 items on the ground? This game is not an MMORPG. It’s a railroad game asking you to do quest after another. And that’s around level 80 it gets worse and worse after.
Well If quests would be interesting why not? But no. Killing x monsters, picking x items in the area is incredibly boring. Not even RPG from the NES era managed to be this dull. Boss tries to hold a bit of our interest. But boss are supposed to be rare, difficult, memorable and original. Sorry after the 100th boss in 100 level it’s getting a bit too much. They nearly all have the same attack pattern, are not memorable, come out of nowhere and are not even that hard. You can almost feel IMC designers are doing burn out creating them because. they start recycling boss at lv 80.
Ok I can cope with the boring quest if I could explore the world. Oh wait this is not possible my dear.
Only 3 maps are available at your level every time. Obviously the map in your level range you re supposed to be in, the previous map that you already grinded/quested to death and the next map you re gonna visit anyway. The game is like that from level 1 to 100. Occasionally a dungeon opens up preventing you to fall asleep. But there are only 2 dungeon from level 1 to 100 and those aren’t even true dungeon but instanced railroad. Maybe I missed some but I could only find 2 real dungeons from level 1 to 100 ( constructor chapel and the graveyard).
And should you wish to explore maps outside of your range IMC even punish you for that. If you explore low level area for mobbing low level crap you get punished by xp penality. If you explore high level area you get punished by damage penality. Monsters one shot you for no reason and you re gonna hit them for 1 damage anyway. Come back several levels later and suddenly monster do next to no damage to you even tough you invested 0 point in defense and you re blasting them with few skills even tough you didn’t increase your attack. IMC why do you punish people for exploring your game?
And If by miracle you manage to kill a high level monsters : lol it’s not even worth it. A level 40 monsters will give you around 250-300 xp. And a level 100 monster 400-450 xp. Hardly worth the trouble. IMC seems to have trouble balancing xp tables and monsters. Indeed it’s easy and lazy to base your xp tables around quests. But please make an effort and introduce grind and killing monsters into your formula. Diversity is always good.
Diversity totally absent from the game. Monsters in every maps are dull and bland. Since you cannot explore maps you re always stuck with the same group of monsters. Monsters that every class (except full support cleric) can kill in 1 or 2 skills and that all give the same XP. Where are the occasionally dangerous mobs that reward you with more xp? Where are the mobs that some classes must avoid at all cost? Where are the mobs that some classes have to hunt because they can hit their weakness?
Diversity that could be seen in maps itself. Come on it’s not 1990 anymore. You can make maps more interactive. Various device to trigger to mess up with the environment, waking up monsters, unlocking door or path? Possibilities are limitless and I even think you can do it. Some are already implemented but I could only see that through moving plateform and occasional device triggered from quests. But for some reasons IMC are rather shy with that.
Also the game is overally to easy . I could face tank everything with my wizard (what?). I won’t even mention swordmen, They do the most DPS and cannot die. I didn’t test archer but from what I have heard they have a trouble doing damage but they still won’t die anyway. Cleric are unkillable but do no damage. The only way IMC can kill you is throwing an overtuned boss at you.
Maps monsters do no damage. You do too much damage to them. Nobody needs to abuse monster weakness because it either take 1 or 2 skill to kill anything around your level. And SP is the only thing preventing you to go into rampage.
That also means that partying is absolutely useless. Who needs a cleric when pots are alreay enough to stay alive. Who needs clerics to buff you when everything melt down as you walk. Poor cleric, their only meaning in their life is ask for help on bosses because they lack DPS and helping in instanced dungeon to kill overtuned monsters.
The game is too easy because the stats system is a complete disaster. and that’s my biggest concern. Build are basically useless. You could put whatever stats you want it doesn’t even matter.
STR and INT are basically useless stats. They add so little damage that people start to realize really soon that +2 damage is useless when you do 500 damage+. The damage only scales from skill level and not your own stats. Now we are seeing funny builds. Archer putting everything in SPR to spam skills. Swordmen putting everything in DEX because multiplying your damage with crit is far better than gaining 1 damage. And wizard rather put CON to facetank even more than INT. Essentially people are playing with 3 stats.
And don’t think your equipment even matters. The difference between a character holding the rarest items in his level range and the one who bought his from the item shop is negligible. Ok when people are level 10 and do 10 damage, a 50 dps increase is huge. But when you re level 100 and hit for 1k that 50 damage is just a joke. The level between each equipments is far too wide too. 15 40 75 120 is rather big. Why such a big range? Why not introduce items along the way? It requires balance but you clearly show you have no interest in it.
The saving grace maybe comes from the market/item system. The way you use gold to raise attribute is interesting. The market is funny. And the recipe system is a good way to make people farm for items in various areas. But all of that means nothing since equipments are useless. Why would people take any effort forging +10 items just to increase their damage by 5%. Why would people hunt the rarest armor when they just cannot die anyway. Why would people hunt specific items to get elemental properties when everything dies in 2 click already. Why would people even bother to use the market when they must switch equipments every 50 level. It may be my personal opinion but the amount of equipments with specific properties is rather lacking. People could also trade for materials but quests items are bound and easy to get anyway, Again equipments are useless so people don’t bother too much with recipes. The item/gold system is good but since equipments are useless it doesnt even matter
Now It’s really personal but the world and story of TOS is really poor and lacking. Only 1 town from the beginning and the second town at lv 100 (lol). From what I have heard TOS takes place in an apocalyptic world. Yet I couldn’t feel it. The story being slow and being just point A from point B. Lack of meaningful characters in the story. Bored of naked godess that spit 2 lines. Dull map design. 30 forest maps. Oh wait there is 5 desert map. Music not being engaging enough. Sound nice sometimes but forgettable and lack emotion that RO 1 music managed to bring to the map. It’s such a waste because you can feel IMC put a lot of effort into the graphics and universe.
And last but not least, because of all those points above, the replay value of TOS is terrific. If you remake a character you will have to go through all those boring quests you did already. You have to go through the same pattern of maps that are boring. You will breeze through a game that isn’t even difficult
Comparing to RO, where are the various town where different people would start their journey? In RO starting a new character at the opposite side of the world made the creation of a new character a new game in itself. Where is the map diversity that made monsters and drop uniques. Where is the player interaction where people had to trade for items only dopped at the other side of the world? Where is the central town where everyone had to gather?
Sure according to some oracle the game may become good and more interesting at higher level ! What level? 150? 200? 500? Sorry in my opinion the journey through an MMORPG must be as fun as the goal but the lack of interaction needed between players and the game lacking in every field is a killer.
I won’t be all negative.The battle system is fun, even more if the game would be more challenging. The class system is odd but diverse and allow some strange builds.
But IMC clearly lack vision. Nowadays games are really bad especially in the mmorpg field so IMC plays it safe and try to be as generic as possible , happy being over average. But better that bad doesn t make good. All those points above can be fixed. Better stats system. Open map. More balanced xp system and gameplay. Smarter map layout and more creativity? Where is this game going. Being an “ok” game and make money? Or being a reference and a game we will remember and play in 15 years?
But facts tells the truth. By opening the adventurer book I can see that not even half people have over 2500 points. Which is around level 30. So people stopped playing after 1 or 2 days ( few hours for a swordman). If this game didn’t had the “RO” aura I can safely says it wouldn’t be as famous.
