Tree of Savior Forum

Fun Time - How could you make the game lore/story more enjoyable?

General Discussion
#1

I believe everybody has at least one small nitpick towards the game story and quests development and has something to say about it, however the purpose of a story is to be fun (or educational) and it would be pointless to just go bash on it for its low points. The reason i bring this discussion here is to have a fun time to have everybody interested in sharing thoughts about the game narrative and point out some personal small to medium changes towards them, all for the sake of making it more interesting, immersive and/or enjoyable.

As a fellow player that haven’t dived deep on the game story i will restrain myself to comments covering things beyond my knowledge, i encourage everyone to give speak up even to give their two cents. Anyway, let’s have some fun.

My issue with about what i experienced with the game world building and quests is lack of agency of other characters, there are few ones that have a spotlight moment here and there but most of time the player is the one doing all the hard work, sometimes giving the impression that either no one in the world is really capable or those that are have more important stuff to deal with.

That said i’d love to see class masters having more screen time (since they’re sold as important characters), be that by showing up on quests (both main and sub) with some active role or even with new quests that reveal more about the world, the political and military structure or even explain some of the oddities in the story. We had something similar with Vaidotas (alchemist) and Valentinas (paladin) but in both cases they don’t feel really powerful for their status, which is quite a shame as you’d expect them to be people to look up for when you start playing the game.

Here’s my list of “not so complicated” changes to promote class masters

Vubbe Fighter in the East Siauliai Woods - The boss goes rampage for a final stride right at the moment the player would defeat it, then Walder (barbarian master) appears from the woods doing a Stomping Kick on its head and finishing it with an Embowel, he later says that his help wasn’t really needed and goes back to the camp. After that he and the officer request you to go to the Miner’s Village ensuring that they’ll protect Klaipeda from any possible monster attack.

Vaidotas and the Crystal Mine - There are three things that could make the current Vaidotas’ situation more believable and interesting - demote him to the Alchemist Master assistant, replace him with an assistant NPC or turn him into an homunculus clone of the real Vaidotas (revealed later on). In addition to that, he can give the player a special item to finish out Mirtis as he already knows about it being sealed inside the mines and prepared in advance.

Dame Circe (Sorcerer Master) and Demon Lords - It would feel natural for the sorcerer master to study demons and seek for subjugate and the strongest ones, on that matter she could take part in the Royal Mausoleum quest line in the end sections, chasing Rexipher to make him a new pet. Even better if an additional boss appears in some of the quests once you’re about to defeat the first and she takes control over it in a “kaiju fight”. She could be a recurring character in any quest related to demon lords.

Aleister Crowley (Cryomancer Master) and Froster Lord - The first time i saw froster lord i thought it was oddly similar to the cryomancer master, being even weirder by the fact the boss doesn’t have an actual name. It could be a fun twist to have these two characters as the same, either the froster lord reformed as a class master or him getting the position in disguise, the latter requiring a new character to fill the position later on.

These are just some ideas that may add some spice and make these characters more remarkable as people, there are other ways to explore them such as having a “raid” in the inner/outer walls with multiple class masters, connecting Zanas to the sadhu or even possibly killing one of them in a mission (we have two outlaw masters right?).

If you have any twist, spice or change in mind, share it bellow.

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Once again an absurd difference from the Korean server
Why is ppl quitting ToS?
#2

idk, the story and lore is pretty good for an MMORPG. But ofc it’s no Final Fantasy or JRPG.

Playing Dungeon Fighter Online sort of gave me a different perspective on demons or monsters in general. Especially since demons or monsters always seem to come from another world or dimension lol. It applies to ToS too because it’s almost the same situation. Albeit DFO goes way more in depth about it and in ToS we’re sort of just viewing everything as outsiders or picking up pieces of the story through hearsay.

  • There are dimensional cracks. Allowing other-worldly creatures to storm into our world. The demon world is actually just an anti-world of sorts. Normal people = grunt monsters or demons. Super powerful people = leaders or destroyers. So the Cryomancer, Shadowmancer, etc. have anti-counterparts and we fight them ofc.
  • These demons come over and disrupt the natural order, causing nature to turn against the humans. Demons can disrupt how our world works but our world can’t fight the demons easily… Basically “other world plot-protection” shenanigans.
  • The goddesses could stop them, which is how Giltine easily controls them and they like destroying the humans so it’s all good for them anyway. The goddesses use their power to stop them, Giltine uses her power to enable them and shove away as many of the goddess’ protection plans/spells.
  • Revelators have the power of the goddesses in them to some degree so they can also fight the demons and aren’t as effected by them as other humans… Or perhaps they’re the children of a human and demon, giving them the ability to wreck demons as well as creatures from this world.
  • It could be possible the “Goddesses” are actually just from the other world to begin with. Which is why they’re easy to capture or weaken just like any other demon, creature, or human. And the only reason they say the’re sisters is because they come from the same land and have the same power levels, but aren’t blood related ofc.
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#3

You just wait for @WarNux to spam the OTP gay arts, fan fics and headcanons till people start questing and joining his hype. :))))

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#4

alright kids here’s me opinion on the story and why I’m not invested in it at all. i came from ff14 so my standards are a bit high and i just woke up so my thoughts are all over the place but still

the lore is good but it’s so hard to sit through, all the npcs are two dimensional as heck!! i still don’t understand nux’s fascination with byle and ignas and everyone just isnt memorable enough (except hauberk but im a huge furry so take that with a grain of salt), i don’t think i ever caught on ignas’ reason to betray the group other than “more power” which is… really shallow. i think the time i came closest to liking the story was the kateen story arc and hauberk

hell, at least all the npcs in dragon nest, wakfu and blade and soul had their own unique personalities, with all their quirks and stuff.

ok going back to sleep see ya

#5

We already know that Lore is not the priority of IMC, since most MMORPG expect endgame content, keeping in mind that most of gamer population don’t like to read.

I do agree that characters are too flat and it takes you a lot of analysis to understand characters background, yet its not enough to fully know them.

As long as IMC don’t priorotize lore, it will be hard to gather interest from people within the game. Another thing IMC can do is to bring separate contents (official art books, graphic novels, an encyclopedia, etc.).

This is also a main reason why I decided to take over the Tree of Savior Wiki Fandom along @Hillgarm and @Kiyoshiro , and other contributors: to gather all the possible information about the characters of Tree of Savior, but most of them are theorized due to lack of lores.

This is one of the areas IMC is weak at, along their art contest criteria. If they would expand their team to get more lore contributors, I’m sure they’d come out with something great, but for now, we’re alone in this.

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#6

@charredh since you got a lot of good points

I got to admit that the presentation is weak, the fact quests are too heavy on dialog doesn’t do them any service, specially when the NPCs leave you do all the hard work most of the time. Even on visual novels, that are almost all about dialogs, use other multiple sprites and full screen illustrations to sell their point, can’t blame people for not sticking to it or even forget about it completely.

I haven’t got too deep into the game plot and quests to really know it but it really gives me this same feeling, as if most of people are just super diligent and got nothing else going on (i can understand that from Zanas and Grita considering their condition though). The issue with a multi media approach is that you got to sell it somewhere for people to seek the other products, they can’t sell a book if people only see value in the gameplay part of the IP or do the opposite without considerable marketing.

It’s a big shame though cause they’re missing a big hook for players to really get into the game outside the gameplay sphere. A whole sales point of a RPGs is the world and story you can dwell into, the whole reason i made this tread was because i thought “dang, if made just that change into the narrative, even if just this detail, i think i’d be sold on it”.

#7

New Arts system:

I’ve never understood how they present these “arts” as non-conform (i.e. they are created by people who never interacted with the goddesses or the Class Masters curriculum).
So how do they explain receiving them from the goddesses lottery after Moringponia died or as rewards from the Saalus clergy for protecting the holy torch from monsters?

If I had made the system, I would’ve gone so far and actually put clues in all these books around the whole world of TOS. There are so many ruins, tombs, monasteries with libraries they made and yet they don’t do the natural thing and make it a discovery content where the community actually has to research on it but instead make it rng drops that make no sense whatsoever.

Basically every single map nowadays is just empty with a lot of monsters.

I remember the post of the 2019 developers roadmap for 2019 where they wanted to expand on the expedition & discovery aspect of the game (even archaeology was mentioned) and yet the very best content to do that kind of thing [and the reason why it wasn’t discovered until now] was turned into another RNG treadmill for no reason other than save time to work on more meaningless grind content.

Discovering and learning arts should be part of the exploration part of the game so you can actually make use of all these meticulously designed maps.

Goddesses:

The thing I don’t understand about the world is how the goddesses work. They say during the mainquest that they lost their power by the demons stealing them, and that they need to hide till they regenerate their power. However, the player, who obviously has divine energy himself, cannot do anything to help them.

The worst part is that even the Clerics don’t even attempt to help. Why can’t they go to their altars, restore them, sacrifice some items and before all, pray?

Why doesn’t this game have a prayer mechanic where you can dedicate your devotion to any goddess and help her regain her divine energy?

I’d like to see the Clerics recovering the goddesses, and once they’ve done enough, the goddesses will become able to be called upon by their loyal Cleric followers to grant miracles and other effects[of course,just for the Clerics, not for the other class trees].

In the same way, the other trees should have similar auxiliary systems, with the Swordsmen bonding with the knights and delving into their lore, the Scouts bonding with the thieves and going through ruins explorations for hidden truths about the past, Archers bonding with pioneers & heroes on the front like Pajauta to learn about how the great cities fell, and Wizards researching on the Pandemonium of enemies with their colleagues, revealing who is behind everything, besides Giltine.

Every class tree path should be different, branching off and deepening the lore and understanding of the world while offering unique support options inside and outside the battle system.

At the end, the player should be granted a profound knowledge of the lore, an auxiliary call option that requires dedication [i.e. the Clerics collect relics and pray to the goddesses, the Swordsmen train the royal knights, the Scouts scout ruins and make maps, the Archers hunt beasts and gather monster information and the Wizards collect books and other clues on the enemies plans] and through that,
a casual but enjoyable gameplay mechanic that helps with both character- and world building.

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#8

Goddesses bless you all.

#9

Unless they make an official Visual Novel of ToS lore separated from the game itself. xd

#10

Correct me if i am wrong…

The goddesses didn’t “lose” their power per se. Just got weakened due to the effect of medzio diena. Vakarine still has enough power to hold part of the demon prison. Lada sacrificed whatever power remained in her to defeat Gesti. The stupid thing was that these goddesses didn’t believe Laima and her prophecies. The revelator’s divine power mainly resides on the ability to reveal uhhh… the revelations (together with some OP qualities like immunity to things etc). and thru the various quests, the revelator does help the goddesses.

Agree on the prayer mechanic, although the game has a very shallow version on it thru the form of Zemyna. On a side note, the whole point of dievdirbys class is worship of the goddesses (although few) and these goddesses (thru their sculptures) shares their power to us.

The class specific bonding thingy, IMO, was a thing before. Way back before rebuild, we needed to do class change quests, in which we DO things that seem a bit relevant to the classes we change to (e.g. fletcher change quest is a gather materials - craft arrow test). Too bad they changed things and made all these class change quests an optional thing that rewards us a measly 100 attribute points. Though this class-bonding still does exist in the form of unlock quests (hidden classes, and unlock “title” for r8 classes) and the costume quests (coz minesweeper is connected to be being a zealot somehow /sarcasm)

About the irrelevance of class masters, yeah this is kinda true. i hope to see them more in the main quests like the Paladin Master on the Demon King Kartas questline.

As an endnote, if they want to make the lore more enjoyable, maybe add some more depth to it, and also puzzles too. and also gimmicks. bring back the relevance of gimmicks

1 Like
#11

Recap of the story so far through YouTube videos and in-game cut scenes every 100 lvls or so.

A quick cut scene upon entering a new area detailing its backstory like it’s done in the introduction to episode 11 news article on the homepage for example, including a narrating voice.

NPCs in towns and normal maps being a bit more animated making the environment feel more alive.

A day/night and weather cycle could be especially add to the atmosphere with the distinct graphic and music this game already has.

#12

the fact that Hauberk of all characters is probably the most likeable, interesting and sympathetic entity in the cast really says a lot about the state of the current plot.

Everything is so predictable and two-dimensional. The Goddesses are very boring, petty and difficult to care about. Their servants are rarely any better and the often awkward translation doesn’t help. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve wanted to out right strangle a Kupole because of how strangely annoying I’ve found their characterisation.

The thing that bugs me is that there is some nuance to the whole diplomatic situation with the demons, which could potentially be very interesting, yet we’re never really given much of a chance to explore or better understand it. We have no actual choices or agency in this story, just puppets for the Goddesses and their somewhat whimsical decisions.

While I don’t want something like a branching dialogue system or a morality system in the game, I would love to have some more class- or choice-specific solutions to certain quests and situations within the game. Let us solve a demon situation diplomatically as a sorcerer, surprising the Kupoles and goddesses with our mercy and earning their respect. Let us cure some of the various plagues, curses and sicknesses as an alchemist or plague doctor in a way that feels satisfying.

I understand this approach may not be realistic, as IMC would have to design many alternate versions of quests and/or possibly overhaul the quest system, but even thinking about this kind of interaction when it comes to designing quests going forwards would make them feel more powerful.

Better translations and characterisations of the NPCs and a less predictability would also do a lot of good. I want to learn more about the demons and their side of the story, and the various beast monsters affected by Metzio Deina, like the Khugeri or Panto who could possibly even become our allies if they weren’t enraged. This world has many cool and interesting character designs and some of the most charming enemy designs I’ve ever seen in a KMMO but they are all just fodder and evil for the sake of the plot. It’s so boring.

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#13

Just give me a grind option to level up and i will not care about quest.

#14

Making a different path for every base class with more participation from their masters as well as interactions and, if it’s possible, a town for each base class, kinda like Maplestory did back in the day, they even made the promotion unlocking fun

#15

maybe a daily that requires thinking similar to the explorer gimmick involving questlines and characters would be cool, IMC did a lore event a long time ago

#17

ya, why not

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#18

huh? the waters dried up on the beach maps for a reason
that’s what the whole questline theres about
everything else ia gree with

#19

there is so much lore in the game but most of it is left unused (unless you frequent the forums and the website),

what’s justina’s future plans for her lost family? where the ■■■■ does grita comes from? how does inesa hamondale feel about holding an entire city on her back? why do the other goddesses not trust laima? why did lucid winterspoon want to become immortal? how old are all the masters (sans the amjinas)? do they have goals aside from “everything we do is for the goddesses”? why do i enjoy the owl statues in kateen forest more than the goddesses? where did the demons come from in the first place?

((addendum because i don’t want to make a new post: all the good characters are so ‘good’ that it makes them stale and not as likeable as the antagonists))

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#20

i just want main npc to help, a good example would be like the barynwell to astral tower questline,
its like, oh hello stranger, oh youre the revelator kill them for us. example the first time you encounter pbeta. the other archer just shoots the arrow and go away and it would be better if he is there shooting arrows while you fight things like that…

and as a lot of you stated above class masters are useless , they should just rename them to class item masters since its all they do now.

#21

They should add more revelators or other npcs that help out in the story.
Most of the npcs act completely helpless and rely on you, and it makes things feel way too one-sided.

I think this is why Delmore questline is one of my favorites, because it brings the idea that there’s more revelators actively helping than just you.

I get when they’re like farmers or whatever that they wouldn’t be suited or used to battle, but revelators, guards, and other military personnel are sometimes stationed or travelling thru these maps… how are they equally as helpless and unable to defend themselves?

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