Tree of Savior Forum

Grind: Thoughts and Suggestions

Suggestions Game
#1

I will start by saying that I am new to this forum, yet I feel a need to express some concerns about this game and the way it was structured in the iCBT. These are just my opinions, and may contain some unpopular stances on what I believe this MMO should be. Take it as you will, and don’t be afraid to give your own two cents.

For some background: I only entered the iCBT after the second wave of keys were handed out. I grinded casually since I knew any progress would be wiped soon, and I used the opportunity to get a feel for the game. Just a couple of bug reports and still unsubmitted real-time translation edits aside, I didn’t get to do too much. However, I’ve been following this game for quite a while and it’s been something that I’ve been looking forward to.

But rather than write my entire life story, I’d prefer to get to the point I’m trying to make: the grind and exp curve need some adjustments, but not extremely so.

What does this mean? Well…

  • Grind should be alleviated for the early levels, up to rank 3 or 4.

This is without a doubt the most important fix that should be implemented. Whether or not the rest of the curve is affected at all, the early levels of a game leave the most important impression on a new player.

New players should not have to struggle with leveling or suffer through grinding with hardly any means of doing so besides the auto attack. The grind starts unexpectedly early, and that can easily be disheartening.

Instead, a “honeymoon” period where leveling is easy enough and a player is allowed to come to grips with a large chunk of their planned build would greatly help the leveling process to come. Grinding should only ever kick in when a player has all, or most, of the tools they need to grind effectively.

This would also have the side effect of making some more unorthodox builds viable. C2/C3 Wizard and STR-based Clerics come to mind, as otherwise they are a huge pain to actually level early on, with the iCBT exp rates.

  • A “soft” cap should be implemented after the final rank is attained. Grind should remain in some form.

This might be controversial, but stems from my belief that this game is built on the grind itself. Why do I think this?

Well, besides the fact that the areas in the game are beautifully designed and the effort put into them would go to waste if the player just blazes through them effortlessly, I’ve gotten the impression that this game is about the journey and not the destination.

Grinding in a party is an inherently social activity. I’ve made many friends and happy acquaintances just from killing monsters monsters for hours alongside others. This sort of interaction is good for the game and its players.

It’s a distinctly different context of interaction than, say, sitting in town and talking to people there. Mixed in with exploring the areas and finding optimal spots to grind in, it can easily be a vehicle for memorable experiences and strong bonds.

However, this sort of extreme example should be reserved for late-game grinding, where the players involved have nearly or entirely fleshed out their character builds. There should be a place for those who wish to pursue a grindy endgame and those who just wish to “complete” their character.

Of course, I’ve no idea how the very high end class balance or progression will work, and am assuming that the rank 10 classes will be available well before the true level cap. The point remains either way. The grind needs to be there for the endgame.

No, I don’t think endgame should be structured around the level cap itself. Far too many MMOs follow that system and it rarely works out to anything more than a WoW clone. This game has the potential to be more than that.

Lastly, this should all go on top of a global experience gain increase that puts the leveling speed in between the iCBT and kCBT. The experience rate in iCBT is no doubt painfully low, but I also feel that kCBT’s is a little too loose. I’d say something leaning closer to kCBT’s exp rate, though.

  • Any actual grinding should be smooth and hassle-free.

This is another important point, and it basically boils down to the number of channels available and the ravenous competition over mobs. Tenet Garden, while a good leveling spot, is a headache to actually grind in due to the overpopulation in a relatively small area.

This could easily be addressed with a dynamic channel system. If there are too many people in any one area, more channels should be created on the fly to support the number of players trying to level in that area. Some competition is expected, but to have people fighting tooth and nail over stray mobs or, heavens forbid, a blue mob just hurts the soul.

If this isn’t possible for whatever reason, simply increasing the base number of channels would work as well. Parties and solo players alike should be able level freely and with peace of mind.

  • Challenges should be rewarded.

Relatively minor, but still important. There are some things in the game that don’t have a good enough reward for the effort required. The most obvious would be boss fights.

Boss fights can take significantly long, and shell out a very poor experience reward for the effort required. Drops are appreciated, but the player should receive a handsome experience reward for slaying a boss, considering how few and far in between they tend to be.

Some quests can arguably fall into this same category, but I’d rather not get into the questing dynamic, as that may as well be its own topic.

  • Different dimensions should be added to the leveling process. Grind should have more purpose and viabilties.

Basically, grind only serves a few purposes at the moment: getting stronger, HATS, and perhaps the adventure journal.

In my opinion, players should have more reasons to work hard and things to look forward to in any extended leveling process. Hats are a nice example, but what about something akin to RO’s cards? (Sorry for dropping the RO bomb, it was bound to happen sooner or later.) Reasons to go back to old zones and explore more thoroughly are always welcome and make sure that all of the beautifully designed areas stay relevant, even to advanced players.

This is a difficult subject to expand upon, and would certainly require creativity on IMC’s part, but the result would be worth it for the player base.

Sorry for the unusually long first post. I was going to make it even longer at first, but I might as well limit this to just the topic of grind and not anything else. I really wish for this game to succeed, and I don’t want it to fall into irrelevance. I’ve already fallen in love with the game and it would break my heart!

With that said, please remember to take it easy. I welcome any discussion over the points I’ve made.

5 Likes
#2

[WALL OF TEXT ALERT!]

You make a lot of valid points and I agree with you on some of them but personally I’d say most of your suggestions would make this game more of a solo grinder (which you, yourself are against). I think the experience rates are good the way they are and as a strength cleric I don’t think it’s a hassle to level up at all seeing how you are taking the path of most resistance for the huge reward you get once you hit Monk or Paladin. Increasing experience so you can reach rank 3 or 4 with in the first 5-10 hours(can hit rank 3 in 16-20 hours currently) would make the ranks feel cheap and less rewarding,

Also increasing the experience rates that high would make the early game of this game into a theme park quest grinder(WoW) which will put off people once they finally hit that grind wall miss leading them they won’t be that attached to there characters at that point they only spent 5-10 hours on it didn’t work for anything since quests did it all. I personally think that showing off that this game is a grinder in the early stages of the game will help people understand what they are getting into.

I also think that getting into those grind group earlier rather than later would be easier for the new player while they are still learning the game and getting to know new people earlier rather than later helping them make it into those late game grinding groups with friends they already made along the way.

The game needs more experience but just increasing the rates all together would hurt it more then help it. I personally think that zone bosses should give a ton of experience a long with other means of gaining experience over just increasing rates.

This is only my personal opinion of course no fact behind it.

TL;DR: Increasing the experience rates for release would hurt the social aspect of the game.

1 Like
#3

I don’t mind wall of texts, and thank you for your response, but I disagree.

Any of those problems and expectations can and should be explained to the player by the game itself. The game already does this in a way with those “you should party up with this similar player” prompts that tend to pop up. It just needs to be more clear on everything else, like the fact that you’re considered a newbie up to a certain level.

You need to remember that the level cap will be somewhere around 600. There is little reason for the grind to start so early when there are a heap of levels that the grind can instead be spread over more sensibly. Those early levels are just suffering for the majority of people

I never touched on what questing should be specifically, but you understood me wrong. I don’t think quests should at all be the primary means of leveling, for exactly the reasons you stated. However, that does not mean that the experience curve for the early levels should stay the same either.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually like the grind, but I’d rather play a game with a strong player base. I speak for the sake of the average player coming into the game with no expectations or information, who might very well be put off by those early levels. It’s safe to say that most people in the iCBT gave up early on or didn’t even try to level, considering how low the cutoff point for the second wave of “top 1000” keys was.

Overall, I’m against “casualizing” the game, but you need to make some concessions here and there for the sake of the game’s future. I’d like for there to be lots of grind, but the game is undeniably more fun after one obtains a variety of skills to play around with.

#4

I don’t agree, no more channel system. If you have enough maps with good social mechanics this is useless, channels destroy open world feeling.

I played 43 hours, and reached rank 3. And 30% of the time i was lost in quests or just exploring, learning game mechanics and socializing.

I think is not good enough, because at the moment grinding party is the only you can do together. We need improvements here.

I will left this here. Feel free to read.

Yes, but where any really hard challenge on the CBT?

I agree, and that RO mechanic is explained on the text i left you above.

1 Like
#5

Thing is, we don’t have enough maps. At least not early on, which also coincides with the toughest leveling period for new players. The channel system is already there and is unlikely to be removed at this point, so we definitely need some sort of solution for the overcrowding in popular leveling spots. The ideal solution would be new maps, but new maps take much more effort than a simple channel system.

If we removed channels entirely with what we have now, that would result in terrible overcrowding in almost every early area.

That’s fine and all, but what if someone wants to try out a variety of builds? What if another player doesn’t enjoy the punishing grind hitting them so early on? These are also things that should be considered.

I agree, but that’s totally up to IMC to design and implement. More content is an important part of keeping a MMO alive.

That’s more of a problem with the bosses themselves often having broken AI and uninteresting mechanics. There’s a boss in the mines that I thought was really neatly designed, the one with the spinning laser merry-go-round. A good example of a boss right there.

This is beside the point, though. I doubt the bosses at high levels will be as easy as the ones at low levels. (If they are, this should be addressed.) Boss fights should be overall more rewarding.

I’ll give your link a go, but it seems to be quite a read. Thank you for your response.

#6

Once again personal opinion.

I remember playing maplestory long time ago… And I remember the first personal to hit level 200 was 2 years after release his name was “Fangblade” reason why I remember his IGN? Because what he had accomplished was something epic and not easy to do.

So when people say “Keep in mind there is going to be 600 levels so the low levels shouldn’t take too long” I think “So what? That isn’t a real reason”, don’t get me wrong though I understand where you’re coming from when you say “Those early levels are just suffering for the majority of people” but me personally I think that there will be an audience that will enjoy this game nothing like WoW levels but this game will be popular even if leveling is a little hard early on.

You may be right my opinion is pretty biased right now since I really enjoyed everything about ICBT, I thought they could do a better job explaining different things like [how weapon types worked].

I think that the games leveling curve is pretty smooth since I was casually playing and got to level 42 in 16-17 hours and the top players got to 100+ in a week, I’m worried that increasing the curve even if it’s the lower level curve will make hitting level 600 something you could do in the first 3-6 months of play time which isn’t really appealing to me.

In the end I think the game isn’t about the destination and what ever IMC decides to do I’ll have to live with it.

I’ll give that a read.

#7

And i hope you enjoyed the RO vs WOW/ToS reading :grin:

#8

I also played MapleStory and remember that guy. Do you also remember Tiger? I don’t think Tiger ever even hit the level cap. However, that is besides the point. The level cap is its own thing.

The level cap can still remain that lofty goal that is nigh unobtainable, but that doesn’t mean those early levels should follow the exact same pattern of grind.

The grind itself wouldn’t matter as much if it weren’t compounded by the fact that the leveling process itself is a pain for a number of other reasons, like the crowded leveling spots.

That isn’t appealing to me either, but the amount of experience required to hit level 300 is actually only a small fraction of what you need to hit 600. The experience curve isn’t exactly linear.

@FreeMan I flat out disagree with that suggestion because the level cap would take years to even reach in the first place. I’m more partial to the sort of curve where you could have a bunch characters sit at level 300 (just an example) and then one “main” that you can push farther than that if you so wish.

Anyways, I don’t want this game to be anything remotely like WoW. That is for certain.

#9

That’s the point, you want exp boost then wait… And years? i dont think so, as much 6-8months with 8h on average or maybe more (speculation) “WE DON’T KNOW IF THEY WILL CHANGE IT AT THE RELEASE SO IS ANOTHER SPECULATION”.

#10

Here’s the total exp required according to level. The actual experience curve. (Credit to @Garfy for the awesome chart.)

I could post the other charts here so you could make some better sense of it, but it’s probably already been discussed in detail here:

Any way you look at it, this will not take just 6-8 months. Not with the iCBT rates and the current exp requirements. There’s no need to speculate when the information is out there. Your suggestion just isn’t realistic.

#11

Related with discussion of exp and grind this addition could help if you haven’t seen this suggestion.

#12

I do remember tiger he was the highest level of the game for the longest time till he fell off somewhere along the way.

You have a point and I can see the reasoning why you’d want higher experience rates at lower levels I just never really found a problem with it, like I said my opinion is very biassed right now since I’m riding the hype train along with other people.

#13

“WE DON’T KNOW IF THEY WILL CHANGE IT AT THE RELEASE SO IS ANOTHER SPECULATION”.

#14

@FreeMan That hardly changes the fact that your suggestion is unrealistic. I’ve based what I said off of what we already know. Your suggestion is banking on possibility and speculation.

#15

STOP, they will rise the EXP don’t waste your time thinking about it. KCBT have 3x than iCBT so… we might have the same EXP in the future.

I think they are doing more high level content than low level content, for that reason.

#16

Hey, HSGHHH my view of leveling/grinding might be a bit skewed since I played a lot of grind heavy games in the past. I personally think that grind heavy levels (hell levels) should be placed right before expected rank ups. I think the exp curve actually displays it, as it follows a new exponential curve every several levels. But these curves should be slower at onset and a bit more unforgiving at the end.

However, I’d like to note that total exp needed doesnt change but just the distribution.

This brings a bit of a duality- around the levels of rank advancement there is a very gentle exp rate which seems very easy, but harder at the levels before the next rank advancement.

This can help most players feel a sense of progress when leveling a character in the earlier levels of a rank. I kinda liked how Maplestory made the grind before 200 pretty challenging but stagnated the EXP req for a few levels.

It also builds a sense of accomplishment when we finally advance a rank.

What’s your opinion on this? Obviously its not an optimal solution but it provides a headway into questioning the struggle of grinding at a numbers perspective. Which is a very simple fix.

#17

Well, yeah, you already said it. The game already does that and I actually think it’s a clever way of shaking up the pacing while maintaining a curve. I’ll post the graph for anyone else who wanders into this thread:

This is the experience required per level, which is distinct from the graph above that shows the total experience required. Credit goes to @Garfy again.

Besides what you’ve already stated, this sort of curve also helps a player get the ball rolling right after a new rank. It’s a really nice system that I see nothing wrong with. I’m largely concerned with how tough it is at the beginning when one has little more than auto attacks to work with. (Moreso for some classes than others.)

I understand where you’re coming from. I’ve played plenty of grindy games myself, but I just wish it’d be a little more friendly for the average player.

@FreeMan Thank you for your input, but I think I’ll continue doing what I please with my time.

1 Like
#18

Just gonna say this. Koreans are complaining about the grind at levels above 170.

They have 36x of the rates iCBT had by the time they hit 170, and at 185 it increases again to 48x iCBT rates.

If people with 36-48x our rates are complaining, just think what 1x rates would be like.

#19

Where is the source of these rates? And complains evidence?

#20 
if pcLv > 15 then
    value = value * 5;
elseif pcLv > 45 then
    value = value * 7;
elseif pcLv > 85 then
    value = value * 12;
elseif pcLv > 135 then
    value = value * 30;
elseif pcLv > 185 then
    value = value * 48;
end

It’s in the code. Korean beta has massively inflated exp rates. And people still complain about it.