Golden Anvils are no way a healthy failsafe

[_TM27]

So I’ve had a humorous post about destroying Cannon-chan but the underlining subject was to get more people talking about how horrible our enhancement system is. Something that is absolutely terrible and subjugates its player base to petty cash grabs and forcing probability on progression.

I destroyed my Solmiki Cannon and it was liberating

+16 7 Potential left. While farming in 340 HG last night there a silver anvil timed in my inventory thanks to the Fedi Mission, 2 days left, 48 hour left of temptation. I gave in, even after being interrupted twice by the mobs. +15 was enough to tip the scale. I chewed through it’s potential with regular anvils and it bounced back to +15 at 1 potential after a devastating trip back from +12. So I did it twice again. Rest in peace lil’ guy. Cannon-chan was only trans 3. You awakened twice out…

My saddest thought isn’t just the amount of players we’ve lost because of the frustrations that this simple enhancement system causes, but how it truly reflects a lifeless design that eventually mirrors Tree of Savior as a whole. Instead of utilizing resources thousands of useless mobs, making a huge 100% success cash sink or even giving us a failsafe/failstack/pity system. The ending result is that your progression in terms of enhancement is 100% govern by luck and the insanity it is to fight it.

I’m pretty sure I’m past the 100 shining golden anvil mark, every event and other may have pushed it there or even further.

I’m instating that this is not a good system, even if people consider it to be better than another game’s. It’s an absolutely abysmal journey of frustrations and defeat beyond our control. D.A’s were a way to help you fight the terrible system but with the community backlash either frowning upon paywall systems and non equal gear progression it was eventually removed. It was the only way and they were extremely limited in our game causing ridiculous inflation on D.A’s. The reality though, D.A’s were just another piece of random probability of poor game design.

I can suggest a quick fix of having failsafes for Golden Anvils at +6, +11, +16 and finally +21 stopping it there by letting you only have to fight probability within those small brackets, because for whatever reason the developers think it’s okay to have probability in gear enhancement. You can adjust variables making it more but at least at the end of the day it’s a more workable experience. I can tell you how many times it’s gotten to +4, a lot. However, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard or seen the disappointment in someone’s gear roll. It is surely more.

There should be no reason why a random huge ceiling purely governed by RNG is the deciding variable in terms of our attack and defense. You can keep watering down poison with enhancement reworks, but at the end of the day, poison is still poison. It’s killed off a huge portion of our player base already, it needs to stop.

A long term concept I can suggest is bringing back rare drops and the use of resources from older monsters for different materials and recipes to further push your gear to a final stage and keeping it there. Trying to involve our lifeless world that’s been reworked and blown passed by so many times. There’s literally so many other things you can do to make upgrading a weapon more exciting and healthier.

The under utilization of our world is seen through enhancement, it’s hitting an anvil and hoping your coin flip succeeds. What does it take to create a better system that’s healthier and doesn’t force us to think that IMC does not care about players, about the frustrations that it causes, the suffering of the people that want to support and love your game by just not being a paycheck to exploit? You had primus stats that slapped interesting recipe design in the face, you have 5% ichors that make you LOATHE even playing because once again it takes your progression in either silver or time farming materials and then dumpster it.

Do your developers play and care about the competitive nature of your game, or is only randomly telling me I’m done with gear progression with probability the only way that you’ll develop content nowadays. I want a system where I can make my shield shine that isn’t randomly buying thousands of Golden Anvils. Not having to rebuy the same shield over and over til it gets it right. I did that with 6 Emengards where it should of only taken one and a journey where I could feel like I earned it. Getting lucky in every aspect of your game is horrid, absolutely horrid.

You’ve reworked and given so many good things this past year and it’s the only reason why I stepped back into ToS. We have to push the nail on the coffin for terrible designs and slowly work within whatever limits. You have to make a better enhancement system, you have to set limits to gear and over-scaling to design challenging PvE and even PvP content. You need to understand the player’s tools and set a high bar that we can work towards, not hey congrats you randomly were able to get a +30 legendary weapon and now content is a breeze for you the next 3 years.

I’ve sang your praises before and have loved the adjustments you’ve made in your game recently. However RNG enhancement needs to be stressed, it needs to be reworked, it needs to be gone. You’ve made game better from a year before, it can still be better.

Are we getting fewer players?

It’s a repetitive thing with our population, but it’s been straining more and more. Everyone’s waiting for that big fix but like people have mocked it’s gonna take a while. An update happens, people come back, few stay then leave. Whether it’s just the class builds and not having the freedom our game lacks a lot more depth in comparison to other competitive MMOs. We have balance issues everywhere. PvE can be pointless because it’s extremely casual and lack luster, there’s too little variety in…

[xboxdemotri]

It’s pay to win ,It’s sad but it’s the truth, who can pay for the points is who wins in this game

[nick.kovacs]

I agree wholeheartedly.

So few replies. Probably because you are calling out so many players who are guilty of loving this slot machine MMO, and loving the bullshit rewards of Lady Luck & RNGesus. These players get such jollies when RNGesus blesses them with success, that they are blinded to the joy this game could bring if it wasn’t a pay2win gacha festival.

It is a truly horseshit, boring progression system that highlights the money-grab nature of this company.

[myself]

they already fixed it by making anvil enhancement negligible compared to rarity+transcend. Only old player who cant move on from the past that let anvil decide their rage quit reason… and some shiny weapon fanatics

[Aotsuke]

Not to defend the system, it’s horribly trash and IMC knows it but got a market around it instead of fixing it, but don’t put this much effort and resources into anviling.
Some items are just downright cursed, you know they won’t be past +X when it fails 9 times at this precise number.

It’s not worth frustrating yourself so much and wasting this much silver for a 600 def increase at +11, maybe arguable if you’re a peltasta but that’s stil unecessary minmaxing.

ToS enhancing system is hands up the best worst system I’ve seen through all games I’ve played, and for a while I thought Elsword’s was the worst, imagine the shift.

[kashoucanavi]

I have no real problems with the system. If you gamble with your only weapon then you deserve what you get. You play it safe with your first one then gamble to make another one higher.

In fact, it’s partially why I play. Items have high potential but you need to grind forever for it, unless you just p2w or cheat with multiple accounts. But then again I’ve long given up on PvP in games that don’t have equalized gear/stats for it. Otherwise I don’t even spend money outside of char slots and the odd wig.

[_DrRM_]

[Remiri]

For weapons I agree but you really dont need anything above +11 armor. Heck even +6 armor is OK

[Azusagi]

Tell that to Peltasta, Rodelero, and Murmillo. Shield Attack is superior because 1h Swords and Spears have lower values than shields do (atk vs def).

For shield at least they should handle like weapons during enhancement as they are treated as such for Solmiki, Velcoffer, and classes that use them offensively.

I understand needing item sinks but the arguments here are unbelievably stupid. ‘You just get another one and try again.’ Velcoffer is about to be capped to 5 per team with IMC enforcing no funneling which is going to severely hamper how much top end equipment comes into the game. Ignoring that you still have get passed the fact that there are plenty of players ready to use diamond anvil alts to bypass a substantial amount of RNG.

Believe it or not there are games like RuneScape that have item sinks enough that top tier weapons have retained their value for a year now while being some of the most popularly farmed gear (not time-gated either) all without having to RNG your weapons for higher stats.

TM isn’t upset over not being able to trade it Mr. ‘If you gamble with your only weapon then you deserve what you get. You play it safe with your first one then gamble to make another one higher.’ None of this would be an issue if Tree of Savior wasn’t a gear based game, but it is. Do not justify a poor system’s attempt at an item sink when gear is everything and can be circumvented with diamond anvils alts.

Going back to what I said in the post about his Solmiki Cannon…

I destroyed my Solmiki Cannon and it was liberating

I don’t have a great solution. I do think making diamond anvils more readily available (replace golden anvils in HG with diamond) would solve a lot. It makes +16 a fairly safe bet for nearly everyone and eats silver at an insane rate which keeps silver in high demand. But I know this doesn’t solve the issues that are being brought up here. Diminishing returns or a soft cap might be better.

I stick by what I said before but they would need to soft cap the damage as well. Make weapons shiny by 15, max attack by 16 or 21 and anything beyond just amplifies the red shine.

[Resource]

Hey you guys can simulate this on my simulator

r/treeofsavior - Enhancement Simulations in C++

In order to simulate it input

1 - this sets weapon
1 - this sets DA but it doesnt matter because its only 1 pot
1 - Set to 1 potential because you cant fail at all.
11 (?) - set your starting point. anything above 11 works.
16 (?) - Your goal. I assume most of u guys want shiny or the 16 bump so 15 or 16 here. once the enhancement reaches this number it will count it as a success.

It will give you a %. This is the chance of you actually obtaining the results you want given that you run it until you fail OR obtain your goal results.

so with those inputs i put above, start +11, goal +16. It came out to be 3.53%. So on average out of 33 trials you succed +16 about once. Note that it is not 33 golden anvils but more like 70~100.

Also this is assuming you start at +11. You will most likely dip below 11 and it will take way more chances.

[Umineko]

Tell that to Peltasta, Rodelero, and Murmillo. Shield Attack is superior because 1h Swords and Spears have lower values than shields do (atk vs def).

At T10 +40 both shield and one-handed sword have ± the same values (~15500 average attack/defense).
Shields only have a higher base value so you don’t necessarily need to attempt an over-upgrade (unlike e.g. Ragnarok Online where you try to +15 or +20 your shield, with them breaking already at +4 or a little later unless using premium items).

To be honest the Golden Anvil system is nice for armor, but a pain for weaponry (at least till now) simply because it sucks to wreck your weapon again and again after farming so long for it.

Yes, +11 is already a decent weapon, but at least for mace there have to be some changes made so you’re not stuck with a low base vale + on average less attack because of base stat spread (Cleric Class tree exclusive), unable to ever catch up with the other weapons because low potential and transcendence widen the gap even further.

Imo the greatest problem is that all weapon types have the same growth.

Broken weapon types like Muskets can get away with far lesser upgrade values and still cap damage while other weapon types like mace are so far away from capping damage that they can’t even dream of it at T10 +40.

This is the real problem the people face and why they want to overupgrade their weapons so they can at some point catch up to the cap damage of others.
If I could go with a +11 T10 two-handed mace and cap damage on skills, why would I even bother?

The upgrade system is all in all just a hunt of the damage cap, possibly with all skills.

[Azusagi]

At T10 +40 both shield and one-handed sword have ± the same values (~15500 average attack/defense).
Shields only have a higher base value so you don’t necessarily need to attempt an over-upgrade (unlike e.g. Ragnarok Online where you try to +15 or +20 your shield, with them breaking already at +4 or a little later unless using premium items).

I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt that this applied to Sevinos Legba (new 400 Legend gear) but I checked sword and shield to make sure. It applies on Savions Legba but +40 is a poor example as +16 is the stretch goal for an average player (and going to be substantially harder without golden anvils on 400 gear as it has 8 potential).

The difference in the sword average attack compared to the shields defence value is 1,823 at +16. This is a non-trivial number and only decreases at higher enhance.

This is the real problem the people face and why they want to overupgrade their weapons so they can at some point catch up to the cap damage of others.
If I could go with a +11 T10 two-handed mace and cap damage on skills, why would I even bother?

One-handed weapons + shields offer survivability in defence, block, and more green lines. Where a single 2h weapon might get green lines that roll for 90, a one-hand + shield could roll for upwards of 110. It is unreasonable to complain about damage difference between one/two handed weapons when they serve different roles.

Why bother going beyond +11? Even if I cap with half my skills at +16, I know 21 could edge the other skills into that area. Even if the game caps my hits at 999k in PvE, the damage reduction in PvP means that higher enhance will bring up the damage I do there.

And no- musket isn’t broken. They sacrifice everything in movement speed to obtain higher DPS, something you argued was reasonable when debating dragoon in another thread with me.

Back on topic…

The upgrade system is not a hunt for damage cap, it is the only way to stay relevant and competitive. While a shield doesn’t need to be +16 on this particular player’s build to remain relevant, this could have just as easily been a weapon and that is what it is all about. Enhance matters for too much and no, +11 'aint going to cut it when you want to play in the big leagues.

unable to ever catch up with the other weapons because low potential and transcendence widen the gap even further.

Imo the greatest problem is that all weapon types have the same growth.

Giving one-handed mace a higher growth per enhance would only make the gap between a +11 and +21 one-handed mace more of an issue.

~AzuraSkyy

[Remiri]

Tell that to Peltasta, Rodelero, and Murmillo

You mean that class I main?

Im +11 on my shield and sword, doin fine

[_TM27]

I’m unaware how fast you clear PvE content espicially Irrendian. A lot of things can come down to class mechanics and synergies, espicially Peltasta giving you more defense then the game knows what to do with.

However, partying with Source makes content a breeze I’m sure anyone with an overscaled weapon. Crevox, Palemoon, Vau and Resource all have proven that their weapons show the clear cut problems that our game has. They deserve it, they saved, they work and eventually rolled well, it shows scaling issues whether its trans, attributes that just scale damage and overall enhancement.

even if this is pre rebuild it shows the baseline mechanic issue which is over-scaling from an unrefined refining system.

It reflects poorly in our games mechanics, because having high end armor does not matter at the end of the day, it is souless damage that makes up our content. No one is on an equal playing ground, there’s no cap, there’s no true way for people to work for that without a coin flip.
Armor needs to matter in our world and it’s depressing that they’re only stat sticks (dragon strengths are great design though, not the rng bottles but hey those are getting removed because everyone keeps instating they hate RNG), certain monsters should require more magic and physical defenses. We should have more intensive raids. Requiring us to push our gear further. Not letting +21 velcoffer gear outweigh whatever next set’s +6 and +11. We need clear cut variance that isn’t determined by dice rolls. Maps should require less or more gear curves, providing variances in rewards, setting challenges to overcome them, instead of the lifeless breeze that people initially enjoy then see the end result’s failure.

A lot of korean games even Ragnarok as a predecessor have failsafe systems now. No one can state that Tree of Savior’s enhancement is better than most others. RNG enhancement is wrong, it’s low effort, promotes cash grabs and now matter how much I want IMC workers to live healthy wonderful lives for their hard work. By this time I’m sure they’re salting their meals provided by the player base.

Our enhancement system can even be so much better than this. MS2 does it, Ragnarok mobile. I’m pretty sure it’s catching on, but the thing is there’s so much more underutilized resources our game can creatively make our enhancement a better system.

I’m not going to berate any player that’s fine with Tree of Savior as it is. To each their own but I will stress the foolish design, praying someone’s feedback inspires the workers at IMC to push the game further into a better direction. Our low player base is not okay, the lack of variety and content is not okay, not having organized 3’s for TBL or being able to PvP whenever is not okay and being grindy RNG gear locked contributes so much to it.

[Remiri]

As someone who PVPs in all +11 gear, I rarely feel that someone beat me because of their gear ever since re:build. I think people get blasted in TBL or Gemstone and immediately blame their opponent’s gear instead of getting their armor set to stage8+, getting blue cards like Zaura, or even wearing up-to-date gear (i.e. I see pvpers in top guilds rocking Ausura Plate that isnt even Stage5).

I agree that we need better PVP modes and the ability to form teams instead of being at the mercy of RNG.

[_TM27]

That’s great to hear and I agree, rebuild’s scaling shows healthier results. Undoubtedly it should rely on a player’s build and their ability as metas and different tools are introduced. The fact is we truly can’t see the perfect imbalances through our ridiculous scaling in item enhancements is kinda something I would like to stick with as a thought process.

I think because we have such a low populous we rarely see people geared like Kaenmaru rocking trans 10 +21 everything. How much of an edge would you truly think if your opponents had that sort of defensive bonuses? Even to instate a ridiculously high leveled Demon Lord card was included in their build. Because of some of these unreliable variables on a constant basis we can’t measure them for what they really are.

I’m all for even gear PvP for more lighthearted game modes and having hardcore ones that reflect the time you’ve invested as well if it’s on the basis of reachable content.

Even if someone implies that there’s an average in terms of gear now that’s sadly wrong, and more reason that gear should be capped.

This goes without saying Demon Lord Cards and seals randomly sudoku’ing themselves is a good reason that RNG is terrible progression mechanic.

[Hillgarm]

A heavy RNG based system isn’t bad if the equipment itself is accessible enough to allow this gamble, IMC seems committed to RNG but doesn’t want to lift up the crafting process as a whole to at least make the failure less painful.

I’m amazed they didn’t changed golden anvil restriction post 12 to be -2 instead of instant +10 (as in +17 -> +15), after all they already have higher cost (if i’m not wrong) and will lock the equipment to the account, ignoring the two cases where potential was restored through compensation.

Personally speaking i think anvil enhancement should be tie to a secondary stat (based on equipment type) instead of adding P/MAtk/, things like block penetration, accuracy, AoE attack ratio, attack speed, cast time reduction, healing and even critical rate/attack for two handed weapons. This shift can make weapons (and even armor if applied properly) more interesting to play around instead of being dictated by classes (as some builds have freedom of choice), in addition the enhancement aspect can stop being mandatory and turn into a bonus. - I don’t expect people to agree with this though.

[Tankhime]

I imagine I’ll get hate for it because lol ms2 xd, but MS2’s upgrading system has been one of my favorite upgrade systems in a long time, and I think IMC definitely could and should study it and reflect upon it v.s. their current upgrading system to make some changes.

I think there are plenty of different ways to force a player to earn power over time, without giving it to them immediately or resorting to mindlessly throwing dulled darts at a wall until one sticks

[Umineko]

instead of adding P/MAtk/, things like block penetration, accuracy, AoE attack ratio, attack speed, cast time reduction, healing and even critical rate/attack for two handed weapons.

That is probably why they remodeled item awakening. It could be a cool approach,though, if not everything in this game was so focused on attack and defense stats, ignoring most of the other stats completely.
I personally would love to get e.g. additional Healing via weapon upgrade (not forced to rely solely on SPR), but the way the game is working right now I simply cannot afford it, because it’s all about damage and damage reduction.

I mean why even play a Class that can Heal and do cool stuffs if all you do is dodge knockdown mechanics and beat the living daylights out of the enemy?
If some Sapper/Taoist can murder the same enemy with 1/10 of the investment in 1/100 of the time simply because of broken weapon & skill mechanics, what’s the point doing something else?

I’m running after damage to cut my time down clearing stuff other Classes just breeze through without a problem.
At that point, removing the upgrade attack bonus would just make me take one or two minutes longer while the broken Classes lose maybe 5 seconds on the kill.

If what you propose would become reality, we’d need a Re:build 2.0 to do away with the attack discrepancy and crappy mechanics (e.g. Pass/Prime & Load) that break the game and make the balance claims seem like a bad joke by IMC.

To be honest, the game is so dead and empty because PVE is dead and empty.
Be it the high damage output, unreasonable attack/damage boosts, weapon attack values or on the other side the high HP pools/defense of bosses that are as stupid as stones.

There is really no need for all the cool stuff that a lot of skills can do/provide for you,
these effects are utter convenience (e.g. attack range not beneficial because monsters not having any uber strong melee skills, AoE not beneficial because of low mob density, evasion only worthwhile on Archer/Scout because of the modifier/buff lack on Wiz/Cleric/Swordsman [i.e. move or facetank !],
block not providing knockback/knockdown immunity and active block being completely useless because every attack ± staggers and only Peltasta having a Class attribute boosting its base effect,etc.) and not required to play the game, most times they don’t even provide an advantage.

And if there is an advantage (e.g. Gohei removing boss invulnerability) it gets removed,
because it just drags out fights meaninglessly.

Why can’t the monsters react to attacks/attack types with certain buffs/debuffs to improve themselves?
In Ragnarok Online this was no problem, making a few battles at least tactically interesting.
Here you are lucky if the monster even uses a buff/debuff at all.
Why is there so much CC on a lot of Classes that dumbs down the PVE experience?

Tree of Savior is at best out of Alpha now, going into Beta-testing. The game lacks so much everywhere, but especially in the A.I.- & combat department, so without having that remodeled in a way that other stats than HP,defense,crit and attack matter a lot more, I cannot see a way to save the upgrade system, let alone overhaul it in a very good way as you proposed to differentiate your equipment more to your actual needs.

[Aotsuke]

40+ GAs by the way.
Got nothing better to do I guess.

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