Tree of Savior Forum

I worry that IMC's approach to area design will make it hard to pump out new content

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#1

In RO, zones were made to accomodate players for dozens of levels.

For example, you could probably stay in Glastheim’s various areas like Prison, Castle, Armory, Sewers (Stings), Caves (Majorous), etc. from level 40 until like 99. Hell, even trans classes still leveled there to some extent, and if you were an ME Priest or a GC 'Sader, you pretty much settled in and made GH your permanent home until you got geared enough to do Nameless Abbey. Same with places like Turtle Island, Gon Ryun Dungeon, Bib 4/5 (drops/spawn rates), etc. Most of these areas were designed to be leveled at or farmed at for huge lengths of time.

Meanwhile, each zone in ToS is designed to last for about 5-10 levels. That means that, for a planned 600 level game, they’re going to need to pump out an ungodly number of zones to keep things progressing at a decent pace.

I think now might be the time for them to re-evaluate their design philosophy and design areas that encourage players to stay longer and choose where they want to grind rather than shoveling them from area to another at rapid pace. This would also allow classes that have extra strengths against particular enemy types like large, mutant, devil, cloth, etc. to take full advantage of their class’s strengths rather than just hoping and praying to the RNG gods that the next area has monsters that are good for their damage type.

Think about how many awesome tilesets in Orsha get wasted because you’re there for less than an hour.

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#2

A very valid point, if you don’t mind i’d like to add a link to this on my list of suggestions thread.

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#3

I would have preferred areas to be designed how you describe (mainly because I am so used to RO), but I think ToS’s area design is fine as well.

Yes, they will need to pump out an ungodly number of maps - but they seem to have no problem doing that. They already have maps all the way up to level 450, which is probably around 2/3 of all the maps they need for end-game.

They could just reduce the EXP penalty to +/- 20 levels, but they seem to want to make more maps - and even if it seems odd and inefficient, it does work.

#4

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#5

I just wonder, if now, for 279-280 we need ~40million exp, how much will we need for 599-600? Like billion of billions? xD It will be unreal to level

#6

The real problem now is that the latter map don’t seems to have much thought in it compared to the earlier map.

#7

While i would like to have lower level areas be useful even for higher level people (and i wouldn’t mind if enemies with a lower level would still give EXP) there is the problem that if staying at a certain area for dozens, if not hundreds of levels, is more exp-efficient/convenient/less dangerous than the new areas then there is no reason to actually visit the new areas.

In RO (at least before the renewal update) for example there was the problem that certain areas that were absolutely deserted (like Glastheim Cave with Majoruros, the expanded towns like Amatsu or Ayothaya, Odins Temple, Clock Tower 4, Thanatos Tower, many world field maps) since it wasn’t worth hunting there because staying at already established grinding spots was more efficient, less dangerous and more convenient to reach.

Sure, i’d love to have iconic central grinding points, like ROs GH churchyard, Nameless Island or Biolabs, but at the same time i fear it would make newer maps less worth visiting/grinding on. And if the new maps are too good and overshadow the older grinding spots then the older maps will get abandoned.
It’s a hard balancing act. :sweat:

#8

They should implement something like Granado Espada’s pioneering memorials to reduce the quest numbers for new maps:

In GE there are some statues called memorials in each map and they give you a task to kill X amount of monsters of the map (i.e. kill 100 spiders) and it rewards you with Exp. cards. Usually they give you like 5 different targets at the time but after claiming the rewards only 1 or 2 are repeteable.

Imagine something like this:
[NPC] Dina Bee Farm Memorial:

  • Kill 50 Rabbee. Repeteable. Reward 1 Lv8 Exp. Card
  • Kill 75 Honeybean. Reward 1 Lv8 Exp. Card
  • Kill 50 Siaulamb Lagoon. Reward 1 Lv8 Exp. Card
  • Kill 75 Orange Gribaru. Reward 1 Lv8 Exp. Card

So when you are grinding in Dina Bee Farm after 50 kills you get 1 free Lv 8 exp card. Something like the journal but repeteable for certain monsters and with less kills required, also, they can give you money or something else for doing the quest.

#9

I like this idea but I think it should be like daily quest like a few times a day or something but maybe have them in a bunch of areas to give incentive to go back to earlier areas. defnetly need something to help out with the deadzone

#10

Those areas being deserted is more about bad design/map balance than it being a core problem with having more permanent leveling fixtures.

Also, the problem with the caves was that:

  • A) It was very difficult and pretty much restricted to wizard parties.

  • B) Getting down to the Caves was a massive pain in the ass because you had to walk through a bunch of Sewers maps, so no one wanted to bother.

#11

This is similar to FF14’s fates or GW2’s random zone events.
They definitely need something like this.

#12

The biggest issue is:
In RO you could level up in almost ANY place, not just 1,2 or 3.
Here, you are forced to farm specific areas.
So your leveling will always be: 1-210 quests/dungeons, and then you are forced to farm only truffles -> evacuation -> storage. Because there’s no other way to level up.

#13

Yes, but everyone needs to stop comparing this game with RO. It is a really different type of game and even a lot of the good “old things” of RO changed with renewal.

I think that first we need to see if IMC can deliver more maps in an reasonable time frame. I prefeer that they polish the original designed way of level instead of creating more alternative maps. To be honest, Orsha was the alternative to Klaipeda but it ended in another map to do in-between. They need to focus on adding more rewardings things to do to the maps. Events, hunt quests, maybe more minigames that rewards exp like fishing or mining. I’m sure that if they implement more maps like OG RO it will be the same that we have right now.

#14

People will continue comparing the game with Ragnarok because Ragnarok has a great world system, no one can deny that and thus it’s a reference in the genre.