In-depth article regarding kOBT (in Korean, translation needed)

[Kiblaster]

http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=148027

Also a similar article in Japanese: http://kultur2.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-3303.html

There seems to be a lot of good infos, but with Google Translate it’s hard to understand everything.
If someone could translate the good bits, that would be much appreciated.

Edit: Thanks to Altariel for the translation.

In-depth article regarding kOBT (in Korean, translation needed)

Translating from the link in Japanese. I’ll attempt a literal translation so you get a sense of the biases/emotions involved. Note that there will be some inaccuracies since I’m working off a Japanese translation of the original text in Korean. (Begin translation) “The ToS kOBT will commence from 17 Dec. Vice-president of the game developer IMC Games, Kim Seyon, and head of the Nexon business team, Park Sanwon, were interviewed on inven (some Korean website I presume).” “In this post, we summ…

[Sciguma]

Sounds good.
But it still looks like they don’t think that the current monster density on most maps is a problem.
I actually like having more instance dungeons for Exp, Parties and Talt. But without higher monster density more than half of the maps still feel boring and wasted.

[Nirimetus]

What i am about to say by any means is to bash or flame your post, me and others appreciate the effort you put to post those info translated for us.

Now back to what i want to say, in the end, i don’t really care what Nexon does in Korea, it won’t affect me here on Int version, unless IMC come here and say they will apply the same bullshit Nexon is planning to apply there, then i won’t be bothered by Korean version.

The waiting for the next test will be a hellish one.

[DiscKZee]

There’s also a mention in that article that Switch Gender for Oracle C3 will be the only way to change your character’s gender.

[Altariel]

Translating from the link in Japanese. I’ll attempt a literal translation so you get a sense of the biases/emotions involved. Note that there will be some inaccuracies since I’m working off a Japanese translation of the original text in Korean.

(Begin translation)

“The ToS kOBT will commence from 17 Dec. Vice-president of the game developer IMC Games, Kim Seyon, and head of the Nexon business team, Park Sanwon, were interviewed on inven (some Korean website I presume).”

“In this post, we summarize the main points of the interview.”

• Our foremost concern in the OBT is server stability.
• Many problems that went undetected in the Korean server were confirmed by the tens of thousands of players on the global server (yay us).
• The game’s frame rate (fps) will become way better than what it is right now.
• Recently we’ve been checking character synchronization (?). Even though your character has actually moved, you may still see it in its previous fixed position (sounds like rubberbanding issues).
• There are new classes which you can job change into upon fulfilling certain conditions.
• Classes which require these (slightly) difficult conditions are hidden classes.
• Thee hidden classes are by no means way better than regular classes.
• The intention is to get players to find out how to unlock these hidden classes without any information (sounds like more exploration stuff).
• We will give hints if players are unexpectedly unable to unlock these classes on their own.
• The main characteristic of these hidden classes is their rarity. Their abilities and roles will be similar to those of other classes (so no OP bs).
• The kOBT will allow advancement up to rank 7.
• Players should be able to achieve rank 6 by base level 186.
• Players seem to take a long time to master their rank 6 classes (hmm?).
• The maximum base level in kOBT will be 280.
• We are unable to tell you when official service will commence.

“Instance Dungeons”

• Though we had many level 200 instance dungeons in the test server, for OBT instance dungeons at levels 40, 70, 120 will be provided (no info on whether these will be additions or not).
• A level 217 dungeon will also be implemented in the OBT (that’s an oddly specific level).
• We noted that there were certain intervals when leveling (i.e. grinding) in the field felt slow. Instance dungeons will be continuously added to these intervals (hope the exp’s good).
• We won’t put in too many instance dungeons.

Hidden Recipes (header mine)

• Part of our plan is also to see how many unknown recipes players will be able to find on their own given no information (more exploration stuff).
• In the Japanese ToS community, finding hidden recipes is considered part of end-game content.
• We intend to give far more hints during OBT.
• We will give hints through the shapes of items or NPC dialogues. Wall paintings and maps will also give hints too (sounds good).

Cash Shop Items (header mine)

• Regarding cash shop items, to some extent, we currently only have a general direction (the Japanese was incredibly wishy-washy).
• We will not put in items that will destroy game balance, as many players were worried about.
• Once indoor maps are provided for character lodges, we intend to turn them into accommodation facilities (interesting).
• There is a possibility of us adding more skins to these indoor maps (I think they meant the lodges themselves).

Optimization (header mine)

• We will continuously optimize the game. The recommended PC requirements have been even lowered.
• If the game were in full 3D we could have lowered the spec requirements, unfortunately running the game in a combination of 2 and 3D is technologically difficult.
• Creating a 2D environment using full sprites would lead to memory issues, whilst combining 2 and 3D leads to many operations (the Japanese is very weird).
• Though there are problems everywhere, we will solve them bit by bit.
• The recommended PC requirements for the OBT will probably be i3 and above, GTS 250, 8GB RAM.
• Internal graphics cards will work to some extent. There will be no difficulty playing in areas outside of town and without intense action. There may also be people playing the game on Windows tablet PCs.

Auto-attacking (header mine)

• We don’t find the name “Auto-attack of Savior” a dishonour. Rather, we think of it as praise (lol).
• Having variety in attacks while auto-attacking is rather, more fitting of this game.
• It is difficult to satisfy all players.
• Because ToS is a low-tempo game, it may become an extreme bore to people who don’t find it suitable for their tastes.
• We want to appeal to people who wish to play at a slower tempo (i.e. casual?).
• We also do not intend to change the game into one that focuses on skills.
• In actual play, while there are classes that focus on auto-attacking, there are also classes that don’t.
• ToS is a game with many classes. There are combat classes and supportive ones.
• For balancing sake combat classes may be strengthened, but making supportive classes equally strong is a little difficult.

“Different progressions leading to different characteristics among players of the same classes”

• A character’s class is not his identity, but merely a part of the character.
• The notion of class is partly the process of customizing one’s own character from level 1.
• For example, one could go through Barbarian and become a combat-oriented Templar, or go through Squire and become a Templar that focuses on a more supportive role.
• One’s own character is born out of making many many choices. There will also be characters that will differ despite having the same classes.
• Productive and supportive classes will have weaknesses compared to combat-based ones. Because we felt that these classes may sometimes be excluded from (i.e. discriminated in) party play, we have made some changes.
• We improved such classes so that they will have the minimum survivability whilst having roles that are suitable for the class.
• In this manner, Warrior-based classes will have endurance, Wizards and Archers, DPS, and Clerics support.

Statuses (header mine)

• We got criticism that the statuses (i.e. STR, DEX etc) were not intuitive.
• In our initial version, we had “Attack Power” as opposed to “STR.” Increasing “Attack Power” also increased magic attack (i.e. they only had one attack stat).
• After that, we realized that this conflicted with INT and so had to separate “Attack Power” from “STR”.
• We divided it such that DEX would affect both evasion and critical rate.
• Right now we know very well the benefit of DEX.
• Though we know that there are many players hoping for the same system as in Ragnarok Online, ours is fairly different from that.
• We received much feedback on the status system and are currently in the process of adjusting it.
• Characters who have more than one skill with no cooldown are advised to invest a little in SPR (boom, there ya go).

“Players search for their own roles”

• ToS is a game that was developed against a fair amount of opposition.
• The idea was that we tried using 2D graphics despite other games being in 3D, and that we made up for low-end graphics with high-end servers (graphics are def not low-end lol).
• We think of ToS as a game that would appeal to players who don’t like just hitting the cap and running around farming items from instance dungeons (i.e. less focus on end-game?).
• ToS is a game that focuses on the R in RPG.
• Because RPG standards for Role Playing Game, having everyone participate solely in combat is not correct.
• ToS is not meant to replace other MMORPGs currently in existence, but because nobody was making such a game we decided to do it (i.e. they think that their game is unique enough).
• Players find their own roles.
• When you enter town you see Squires sharpening knives, Alchemists making potions… if we see that happening, we can say that our intended role-playing has successfully taken foot.
• When releasing bosses in the test server to test boss mechanics, we saw players setting up base camps behind the battle supporting the fighters for free. This is how we envisioned our MMORPG to be.
• Oracle from the Cleric branch has undergone some skill changes. C3 Oracle now has a skill that allows players to change their genders.
• Besides this skill, gender change is impossible. Players now have to rely on Oracles for gender changes.
• In this way, we entrust certain roles into the hands of players.
• Because the only new C3 Oracle skill is this gender change skill, this skill becomes a C3 Oracle’s hallmark (this would be true even if they got other skills lol).
• We did not design classes based on pre-determined unconditional roles.
• Because there are so many skills you can try combining this and that for some unexpected spectacles.
• Combining certain skills with other factors, like a puzzle, may give rise to interesting things and phenomena (i.e. skill interactions).
• We anticipate the things that players will make while searching for their own roles.
• ToS is a game that will clearly be liked or disliked by any given player. Our objective is to reduce the amount of pushback from players.

"Minor (i.e. unpopular) classes will rarely become top characters "

• We have seriously been considering and re-considering the issue of class roles.
• We know that certain classes are unpopular.
• Even if we limit the utility of certain classes, these classes will still give rise to the best characters (referring to popular builds).
• A player is not merely one character. Rather, we want a player to define multiple characters.
• That’s why we designed the player’s lodge.
• Each character in the lodge is meant to be like one component of the player’s equipment (i.e. you are supposed to make use of multiple characters).
• It’s like they were chosen for a very dangerous journey, and the road is open (this part makes no sense).
• But that’s all pointless extravagance. There are very few players who will take a non-mainstream class all the way to its peak, even if it is non-combat-oriented.
• We were bothering too much.
• That’s why in our latest version we have reduced the amount of rewards.
• Because even production-based classes have to rely on basic field-hunting, that a part of one’s combat ability becomes useless (lit. dies) upon changing classes is a problem (not sure if referring to non-scaling skills, or weapon-specific ones).
• We cannot ignore the tedium coming from such a problem. After the CBT we have corrected this problem.
• The new rank 7 classes will have DPS based on this perceived problem.
• To let support classes level up while carrying out their supportive roles, we have adjusted each class slightly.

Dying Class Roles (header mine)

• The problem is that we cannot entrust all roles to players.
• We feel that Krivis’ uniqueness that comes from scroll-selling may die off (did they mean Pardoner?).
• ToS tries to promote party play, which is why with a Krivis party members may receive more buffs.
• If a Priest’s role is to provide various buffs, then a Krivis’ role is to alter the circumstances surrounding buffs (so Daino will never be given to Priests k).
• By the way if you buy the scroll, you’ll solve the buff limit issue even without a Krivis.
• Krivis skills are really often used even in the later half (presumably of the game).
• But, if we give this role only to Krivis, demand and supply problems may arise.
• There is no other way but to find a compromise somehow, and reduce the number of classes whose uniqueness will die off.
• For the moment, the scrolls system will remain in implementation, but upon watching the CBT we are looking into changing it (so basically Pardoners get something else in the future).

Ending Remarks (header mine)

• ToS will probably not be loved by all players.
• We want to try creating a game that is different from those in which everyone becomes strong and competes.
• ToS is not all about stat points. It is a game in which characters have roles.
• Rather than compete based on strength, one’s own characters and the classes that compose them will speak up for the players.
• Ultimately, it is a game in which player choices is very important.
• We are creating a game in which a player raises multiple characters to form a team (omitted second half which didn’t make sense).
• ToS may not be suitable for players who want to play a lot and release stress (the stress part seems odd but basically referring to hardcore players).
• ToS is a new means of communication, and intends to become a game that caters to such people.

(End of translation)

So there you go. Some of the points may not sit well with some of you but this proves that they’re at least listening.

[EternalDream]

Many problems that went undetected in the Korean server were confirmed by the tens of thousands of players on the global server (yay us).

We da best.

The game’s frame rate (fps) will become way better than what it is right now.

No more 10 fps on field bosses?

Recently we’ve been checking character synchronization (?). Even though your character has actually moved, you may still see it in its previous fixed position (sounds like rubberbanding issues).

Hope this applies to mobs too. Nothing’s more infuriating than knocking a mob back, casting a skill on them, and finding out they’re nowhere near the place they visually are.

There are new classes which you can job change into upon fulfilling certain conditions.
Classes which require these (slightly) difficult conditions are hidden classes.
Thee hidden classes are by no means way better than regular classes.
The intention is to get players to find out how to unlock these hidden classes without any information (sounds like more exploration stuff).
We will give hints if players are unexpectedly unable to unlock these classes on their own.
The main characteristic of these hidden classes is their rarity. Their abilities and roles will be similar to those of other classes (so no OP bs).

Sounds good. Too bad only Swordies have a hidden class right now. RIP the other 3.

Players seem to take a long time to master their rank 6 classes (hmm?).

Buuuullshiiiiit

We will give hints through the shapes of items or NPC dialogues. Wall paintings and maps will also give hints too

Oh neat. Now the map itself will give you ideas of what to do. Sounds interesting.

Regarding cash shop items, to some extent, we currently only have a general direction

Dev response to Cash Shop questions 101

We will not put in items that will destroy game balance, as many players were worried about.

STARES AT MARKET

We don’t find the name “Auto-attack of Savior” a dishonour. Rather, we think of it as praise

Really IMC. Who even likes auto-attacking all day anymore, this isn’t 2005.

It is difficult to satisfy all players.

No kidding.

We also do not intend to change the game into one that focuses on skills.

You kinda gave us 80 different classes with 3 circles each. That’s a whole lot of skills there.

In actual play, while there are classes that focus on auto-attacking, there are also classes that don’t.

Then make the auto-attack actually WORTH using.
Muffled screaming

[Nirimetus]

I’m going to highlight what i expect fixing and implementation:

Our foremost concern in the OBT is server stability.

I do hope they at least make the channels stop crashing, tho, i think it was mainly fault of the exploited chars which make the server go “crazy”.

The game’s frame rate (fps) will become way better than what it is right now.

This, also optimization of the graphics, glitches (missing textures or corrupted ones) and the map design was out of alignment in many areas, i got stuck on some areas where there wasn’t any object (rocks, plants or holes).

Recently we’ve been checking character synchronization (?). Even though your character has actually moved, you may still see it in its previous fixed position (sounds like rubberbanding issues).

I may be wrong but this is related to when we was playing and got into a huge lag spike or desync and while everything else move we try to attack and get stuck in place for a couple of seconds.[quote=“Altariel, post:5, topic:125178”]
There are new classes which you can job change into upon fulfilling certain conditions.
Classes which require these (slightly) difficult conditions are hidden classes.
Thee hidden classes are by no means way better than regular classes.
The intention is to get players to find out how to unlock these hidden classes without any information (sounds like more exploration stuff).
[/quote]
Now we are talking about RPG elements, i do hope this doesn’t only apply to classes but for other stuff also, like mounts/pets, items and rare materials.

Players should be able to achieve rank 6 by base level 186.

This mean they are balancing the leveling according to the final objective, i am supposing here but may be max of 9 ranks? If so its fine.

Players seem to take a long time to master their rank 6 classes (hmm?).

May be exp table balancing? I do hope so.

Though we had many level 200 instance dungeons in the test server, for OBT instance dungeons at levels 40, 70, 120 will be provided (no info on whether these will be additions or not).

If they are balancing the exp table depending on how it goes for grinding, then some level distance between dungeons will be ok.

We noted that there were certain intervals when leveling (i.e. grinding) in the field felt slow. Instance dungeons will be continuously added to these intervals (hope the exp’s good).

Just covered what i said before lol.

Part of our plan is also to see how many unknown recipes players will be able to find on their own given no information (more exploration stuff).
In the Japanese ToS community, finding hidden recipes is considered part of end-game content.

Again, more RPG elements, i do love this, and i hope its not only on end-game but during the progress.

We will give hints through the shapes of items or NPC dialogues. Wall paintings and maps will also give hints too (sounds good).

Skipping their (IMC or publisher) hints, the ones in-game are a really nice addition.

We will not put in items that will destroy game balance, as many players were worried about.

I will keep hoping them keep their word for our version.

Once indoor maps are provided for character lodges, we intend to turn them into accommodation facilities (interesting).
There is a possibility of us adding more skins to these indoor maps (I think they meant the lodges themselves).

This is hell interesting, remind me PoE hideouts. I do hope also we can put in furniture in the future.

We will continuously optimize the game. The recommended PC requirements have been even lowered.

Good news.

If the game were in full 3D we could have lowered the spec requirements, unfortunately running the game in a combination of 2 and 3D is technologically difficult.

They could fix some problems if they put 64bits and DX11 support, but at this point in time only 64 bits seem easier and cheaper.

Creating a 2D environment using full sprites would lead to memory issues, whilst combining 2 and 3D leads to many operations (the Japanese is very weird).

Hell no, if i want that kind of stuff i will go play the “other” game.

The recommended PC requirements for the OBT will probably be i3 and above, GTS 250, 8GB RAM.
[/quote][quote=“Altariel, post:5, topic:125178”]
The recommended PC requirements for the OBT will probably be i3 and above, GTS 250, 8GB RAM.

Again i think they could lower the RAM requirement if they add support to 64 bits.

Auto-attacking (header mine)

As this section i they seem to plan on add basic attacks variation on char movements, i think its nice.
As for game pace, not sure it could be called for casuals, but since many people act like the world is ending and want to go faster as possible they might start to pull their arses hair at some point lol.
This part:

We also do not intend to change the game into one that focuses on skills.
In actual play, while there are classes that focus on auto-attacking, there are also classes that don’t.

Could be referred as you see in some anime where the characters can’t spam skills or they get tired or something? Not that at certain level in-game you can’t spam, you will have a good variety of skills to use, but in the end you will run out of SP, so balancing basic attacks could be a good idea too as they point out in the case of combat classes.

“Different progressions leading to different characteristics among players of the same classes”

I may got this party wrong, in fact they made kind confusing, at the start till the line before last they said each char will be unique at certain point, and in the last line they kind said that it will be something linear for each class lol. I do hope they don’t do the latter.

Though we know that there are many players hoping for the same system as in Ragnarok Online, ours is fairly different from that.

Tell me who and i’m gonna kill the bastard!

Characters who have more than one skill with no cooldown are advised to invest a little in SPR (boom, there ya go).

Just by this i can imagine what will happen lol, Thank God.

We think of ToS as a game that would appeal to players who don’t like just hitting the cap and running around farming items from instance dungeons (i.e. less focus on end-game?).

Not less end-game but an immense end-game, why the ■■■■ i have to kill myself to gear up and then poof, the game get boring.

When you enter town you see Squires sharpening their knives, Alchemists making potions… if we see that happening, we can say that our intended role-playing has successfully taken foot.

You can be sure that it already is.

When releasing bosses in the test server to test boss mechanics, we saw players setting up base camps behind the battle supporting the fighters for free. This is how we envisioned our MMORPG to be.

You guys already gave us the tools, now its up to us how we use them.

Oracle from the Cleric branch has undergone some skill changes. C3 Oracle now has a skill that allows players to change their genders.
Besides this skill, gender change is impossible. Players now have to rely on Oracles for gender changes.
In this way, we entrust certain roles into the hands of players.

More of these please!

Combining certain skills with other factors, like a puzzle, may give rise to interesting things and phenomena (i.e. skill interactions).

Now this i want to see, shi.t it will be hella fun!

It’s like they were chosen for a very dangerous journey, and the road is open (this part makes no sense).

I think he meant its a risk to go a path with the unpopular classes and…

That’s all pointless extravagance. There are very few players who will take a non-mainstream class all the way to its peak, even if it is non-combat-oriented. (no indication of whether this was said by the interviewer or interviewees)

… this is what i did on my Sorc last CBT, i picked Wiz C2 instead of Pyro C1 and gone Linker C2 Sorc C1 and Alch C1, not the strongest but not the weakest.

To let support classes level up while carrying out their supportive roles, we have adjusted each class slightly.

This is important, even tho some goes “Kirito” i don’t see a problem for them to try out support classes while doing so.

[_DrRM_]

[Doddler]

Nice translation! I thought I’d bring up that the interview itself is translated to Japanese too, which is at: http://kultur2.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-3305.html

[EternalDream]

"Minor (i.e. unpopular) classes will rarely become top characters "

> Is going to make a rodelero C3, Dievdirby C3 and WizThaum C3-into-Warlock

I’ll darn well make them top characters. Just you watch IMC!

[Tomazelli]

[Edit]

My bad, misunderstood the post

[Ayalon]

To let support classes level up while carrying out their supportive roles, we have adjusted each class slightly.

What? Is this something that already happened or what? XD The whole interview is kinda unclear to me…nvm XD
I’m not against anything but I don’t get this Oracle gender change either… It doesn’t make me want to make an Oracle or something… I wouldn’t mind if that would be a cash shop feature either.

@felipetomazellicresp I think you misunderstood it. Those are new dungeons and that didn’t mean the old ones were deleted… imo…

@nando20xx We already knew from the blog entries that lodges will be our housing system…that I can’t stop repeating haha… and yes they said back then that we will be able to decorate it… and now it rly looks like those things are still in there plans fortunately.

[Senpaikunchanperson]

A level 70 instance is much needed. So one can avoid the Mausoleum/Constructor Chapel Hell, and channel crashes.

[Tomazelli]

They said they weren’t aiming for having too many instances, i thought those were the old ones with lower requirements, lol, my bad then, i’ll edit the last post xD

[trielav]

ToS will probably not be loved by all players.

It’s good that they understand you can’t be everything to everyone and trying to leads to watering everything down.

I wonder what they have in mind for lodge accomodation facilities, if you know what I mean. Right now you can’t really do anything, but the lodge concept has a lot of potential. The R in RPG really is an underserved niche in an otherwise crowded market. The real question is how many of their plans they can actually implement properly, since the role we were playing in iCBT2 seemed to be survivors in the middle of a bugbonic plague killing off everyone.

[Nirimetus]

We already knew from the blog entries that lodges will be our housing system…that I can’t stop repeating haha… and yes they said back then that we will be able to decorate it… and now it rly looks like those things are still in there plans fortunately.

Ahh haha yeah i figured they would plan something like that in the future, i just hope they don’t stumble trying to do all at once, honesty i want them to fix the actual problems then they can start add content to the game.

[Altariel]

Nice translation! I thought I’d bring up that the interview itself is translated to Japanese too, which is at: http://kultur2.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-3305.html

Thanks for the link. I’ll read through it when I next have time and decide whether it has any additional information not already covered in my translation.

Just off the article’s heading though the title of the interview was “It’s not a quest-based game.” Just wanted to point out that potentially controversial claim for now lol.

Edit: Just read through it and definitely worth translating wholesale (including an entire section on game monetization). I’ll do that when I next have time.

[Divini]

Just off the article’s heading though the title of the interview was “It’s not a quest-based game.” Just wanted to point out that potentially controversial claim for now lol.

Well, compared to other modern MMOs it’s not. The standard formula nowadays is completely quest-based to max level, then instance-based to farm gear. Like you can quest all the way to max level, and still have tons of undone quests in the world.

There’s very very little modern MMOs that you actually have to sit and grind for the sake of grinding, which ToS still has.

[Altariel]

There’s very very little modern MMOs that you actually have to sit and grind for the sake of grinding, which ToS still has.

Yes I just read through the whole interview and I agree with you. It turns out their initial version had no quest lines and they only added quests because their players were pressuring them to. They even considered removing quests altogether for the 3rd kCBT, but decided to only remove the quest markers.

Stay tuned for the translation though.

[Kiblaster]

I disagree, ToS is the definition of quest based, which WoW democratized. And look at WoW, you could also grind, and you could also run instances.

When a game has literally several hundred, if not a thousand quests, not calling it a “quest-based game” is extremely misleading. And I’m not even talking about how the rewards (stats, collection, items, exp cards) make it basically mandatory to do them.

To quote a friend: “It’s like the difference between climbing a mountain or using a sky lift. And then people being like WELL YOU DON’T HAVE TO USE THE LIFT :B”