Missing fun PvE party play

[darkexiler]

Hey! I decided to share some of my feedback regarding ToS gameplay.
I love the game for many things and I am quick to forgive most of it’s flaws, although there is just one thing that I am desperately missing: fun PvE party play.

First of all, I’d like to explain that I have not reached end game content yet. I’ve been playing for a long time now and I have multiple characters, which are level 300 at best.
I heard that situation with party play is quite different at end-game, but that’s not what I’d like to talk about. I would like to discuss party play before level 300, which includes ~90% of game’s content. Content, which I believe, is currently completely wasted with nearly no players wishing to experience it.

The basic goal of ToS (and most other MMORPGs) is leveling up. Players will always aim to level up as soon as possible. That’s understandable. They want to access and check out new regions, gear, skills and classes.
Grinding up levels is natural in MMORPGs but what these games need to win over players is making sure that process, and not just the result, of earning levels is fun.
We are all feeling rewarded when we get that next stat point/skill point/class but it’s not ok that this comes after nothing else than a long time of repetitive, boring actions.
Well, grinding levels is grinding levels. It can’t be helped (due to limited content and development time) that this has to be repetitive and time consuming.
There’s one thing that can make simple grinding really fun though - other players.
With other players you can socialise and cooperate. You can feel impactful, needed, appreciated, proud, grateful and many more. Even if you’re the loner type, you surely want to be noticed and approached once in a while.
People are the reason we are playing a massive multiplayer game and not a single player game.
That’s why I believe that lack of fun party play in ToS (or any other MMORPG) cannot be overlooked.

As I mentioned, players will always want to level up quickly. Ironically, they want it so badly, that they will do it the fastest way even if it’s the most boring process ever, ruining the game for themselves in the end. Optimal ways of leveling need to be fun.

As far as I’m aware there are two most efficient ways to level up in ToS: instanced dungeons and high-star fields. Both of these got their own problems in supporting party play.

Instanced dungeons:

• (+) are challenging enough to have to be done in party.
• (–) are not challenging enough to force party teamwork. This might possibly not be so bad however, to not make these too hardcore for casual players.
• (–) have a start and an end - players will rush through them. No time to waste, no breaks, no talking, just try and keep up!
• (–) have no random drops during - this cuts down potential for player interactions related to item drops - to discuss, exchange, congratulate etc.
• (+) let players easily and quickly form parties.
• (–) formed parties are temporary. They will get disbanded as soon as the dungeon is over.
• are limited in time and number per day.

High-star fields:

• (–) are easy. You don’t really need a party. Soloing them is efficient. Looking for party is time wasted, which could’ve been spent on grinding instead. Even if you do form up a party, players will feel irrelevant in it because fields are easy enough for a single person to grind at.
• (+) have no start and no end. There is nowhere to rush to. Take breaks and socialise whenever you feel like it.
• (+) have random drops of various items - good potential for reasons to socialise.
• (–) provide no easy way to form parties. Party finder could be helpful here, but still takes some time and effort.
• (+) formed parties will remain as long as players wish it.
• (+) you can grind in fields as long as you want. If you’re having fun, nobody is stopping you.

Because of all the listed above negative aspects of instanced dungeons, I hate them.
They are just a quick cash/exp grab with a bunch of other players running silently along.
There’s no teamwork, no socialising, no fun.
I would wish that they are removed or significantly limited. Just by being there, they will make competition to other leveling methods and draw players away from them, even though those could possibly be more fun.

I can imagine only two ways how instanced dungeons could be a positive thing:

1. Make them limited to 1 (!) run per day (and per team?). This one run would be meant only to help boost casual players who have very very little time to spend on ToS. Any other player with spare time should look elsewhere.
2. Make instanced dungeons super hardcore difficult challenge. They would not be fit for casual level grinding. You’d really need to have a reliable party with perfected teamwork. Preparing for such a challenge would take effort on it’s own and players would need to socialise and organise to get ready.

In any other case, I don’t see instanced dungeons as a positive addition to the game. ToS would be better off without them, imo.

Now, high-star fields seem like a fun candidate for party grinding but there’s two necessary conditions to be met:

1. High-star fields should be rewarding enough to make up for players’ time wasted on finding and maintaining a party. In many cases they are already quite rewarding with good gear drops (especially hunting grounds) and nice exp rate.
2. High-star fields should be very hard.
   Soloing them should not be an option (of course, as long as they are providing you with reliable exp = are in your level range). Players must need to have a party to grind at them.
   It would also be super welcome, if player parties would be required to execute some minimum level of effective teamwork in order to grind safely - this could be a more impactful factor at deeper levels of these fields.

Recently I realised that there might be one “hidden culprit” to the issues with high-star fields’ difficulty - player buffs, especially Pardoner’s.
I can notice huge difference in difficulty of grinding high-star fields when using player buffs and without them.
Some fields might even be too much to solo efficiently for a player at their level if he/she is not using buffs and imo, that’s a very good thing!
Player buffs are cheap to buy, last long and are powerful enough to allow you to beat monsters dozens of levels above you, even with poor gear.
It seems, that player buffs might be breaking game balance from allowing having fun in a field PvE party.

I would love to see high-star fields and buffs looked into and rebalanced, with Pardoner shops nerfed down to the ground.

These are my opinions about the game and how I feel it could be improved.
I would be very happy to hear what other players think.
Perhaps there is something that I am overlooking or someone simply experiences the game in a different way.
Please, feel free to share your insight and feedback as well!

[Kepler]

I agree about the whole situation that GM needs to make low and mid level more sociable. I find it more sociable with guilds and end game content. Usually my guild host a boss card parties every once a week but usually we need to gather a certain amount of boss album to make it last awhile. There is HG dungeon where you can party random players. Not gonna lie but alot of the players who socialize are in guilds. My guild owns a discord and we chat alot in there and post announcement for our next group up. Even new players join and they socialize so, the only best option for now is just join a sociable guild even if its small is better than nothing. From there the guild can grow if you add new players to the guild.

[Asriel]

Tree of Saviour isn’t a socializing game to begin with, sadly, it’s a game that starts with : “there are tons of trained people out there who just suck at fighting demons, but you’re the singularity of those who dreamed about Laimas prophecy that can just lay waste to the rows of demons that noone else could ever dream to defeat”.

From there on it’s a lonely path, (as stated in the lyrics of Ra Reina “you’ve come down a lonely road, and all this path shall be yours forevermore”) as the game is concepted as casual now, so everything non-endgame should be considered soloable content.
Casual gameplay that requires time just to do normal stuff can no longer be called casual, especially since hardcore games like RO are out in the same field to compete (and RO has a lot more reason to socialize, especially a well thought-through WoE and effective party grinding in certain quest-related dungeons, as well as MVP spawn via Abracadabra/Hocus Pocus [you just need enough yellow gems&luck]).

In TOS, there’s basically only guild stuff for PVE&PVP, but the main point of non-socializing is the problem that the trade restrictions set. Basic trading is a huge concept of socializing between players, but in TOS it is still locked behind Tokens (which is strange since there are untradeable itmes, RO never had this except for maybe some quest items and later on some special gear and stuill had free trading nonetheless, even zeny!!![i.e. the RO “silver”]).
I know a lot of people sharing items, and when I still play RO every now and then, i also mostly trade with other people, e.g. handing out some lowlevel equipment to newbies,hand over selfmade pots&weaponry to friends for WoE&instanced dungeons.

Another point is the party size, which is way too small. Even Dragon Nest made different party types for different content (e.g. Raid parties for 8 players and normal parties for 4 players) so that more players could interact&play together, depending on the content.
If I’m locked with 5 players, of course there are strategic choices I have to make [which is fine], but there is pretty much way less human interaction.
Maybe the group chat feature could become a new feature where different parties could form a bigger group, so you could actually coordinate what you’re doing (the guild chat is too dark and you’d still have to differentiate between people participating and those who don’t)…

[darkexiler]

I’ve been to two guilds already. Both turned dead by now. (I guess in the end that’s just a matter of time with so much responsibility depending on guild leader’s activity.)

Album parties are indeed quite fun and a good opportunity to socialise (even though most players end up just sitting back and watching). It’s been some of the better days I had in ToS so far.

Actually, lack of opportunities to socialise had also been a very prominent issue I had in guilds. Again, I’m a pre-300 guy. Most of the guildies were discussing or doing the end-game content. I didn’t even understand most of the things they talked about.
With little to no guildies in my level range I was just feeling left out.
I did have some fun socialising as much as I could in this situation too. I’m just trying to say that the solo level grinding issue is also affecting guilds.

[darkexiler]

ToS is a MMORPG. Playing with other people is the very definition of it’s genre. I’m taking that what you say about it’s loneliness is sarcasm and definitely quite an accurate one. I laughed at that remark and irony of Ra Reina lyrics. Good point!

The Token topic gets a bit complicated since it involves game economy management, preventing bot abuse and developer profits.
Surely trade restrictions are limiting player interactions, but at least there’s some excusable logic behind these decisions.
I guess holding players back from socialising through trade is a big issue, although not the only one and not the simplest one to deal with.
Perhaps it would be much different if Token use was much more common. I definitely would not mind a price drop on those. Players would really need to buy them more though to make it a worthwhile change for IMC.
It is also a great pity that so many craftable items are so useless. I think that is super impactful as well.

I don’t feel that party size is so much of an issue. Large scale dungeons would definitely be really cool but I recall many great times in other MMORPGs with 4-5 player parties.

[victormorelli6]

You ask for people, we do not have enough people. People are needed to the very core of the game which you cannot do alone and it is hard to find a party, now, you wish to have a simple field with mobs tough enough to make you do a party, boy!, this will suck the game to the bottom even faster than freezes and lag spikes for a month.

[Timeshadow]

Because of all the listed above negative aspects of instanced dungeons, I hate them.

I would wish that they are removed or significantly limited. Just by being there, they will make competition to other leveling methods and draw players away from them, even though those could possibly be more fun.

That’s gonna be a no from me.

In addition to providing more content (Which ToS is already pretty short on), instanced dungeons are designed to provide an easy way to get an EXP bump when you need one. Taking them away would just add more grind. For some reason, grinding is a big thing in the Asian market but Western gamers have long been opposed to it as a concept.

That being said, I’m definitely in support of making instanced content more challenging. However, the way you go about doing that is critical. IMC tried a more “hardcore” experience when they littered normal maps with high HP “Special” mobs and added a big damage spike at Rank 8. It was artificial difficulty without any hint of fun. The player base complained so much that they had to go back and rebalance the entire game.

More challenge is good but it’s gotta be done the right way. Make mobs smarter (Healing/support aggro, for example), give them skills that synergize with one another, etc. That’s how you foster teamwork and give players a reason to get together and communicate.

I would love to see high-star fields and buffs looked into and rebalanced, with Pardoner shops nerfed down to the ground.

This, too, is a little short sighted.

Shop buffs do give players the ability to handle content they couldn’t otherwise take on alone but it’s a bit of a stretch to say they kill the incentive to team up. The simple fact is, most mobs aren’t dangerous is any meaningful way. You can generally avoid taking damage altogether provided you’re willing to move/block when appropriate. Going into a field that’s well above your level isn’t necessarily riskier without Pardoner buffs; it’s just slower to complete.

To really address power creep, they need to set some limits on the enhancement system. The ability to permanently increase your damage and defenses into infinity is what allows players to do things they really shouldn’t be capable of. There are players running around who can solo what’s supposed to be endgame, group-centric content. That creates a lack of content longevity which leads to people getting bored and quitting the game. It’s especially true when you’ve got some high level characters on your account who can transfer buffed gear over to lower level alts.

The final issue that needs to be addressed is one that a lot of MMORPGs suffer from. There’s no incentive to get out into the world. One of the most important things to do when designing and maintaining an MMORPG is to make sure the world feels lived in. One of the best, if not the best, ways to do that is to have as many players running around in it as possible. To do that, you’ve gotta give them a reason to do something besides sit around in a few central hubs all day.

ToS has always suffered from this problem (Made worse by it’s limited population) but nothing’s been done to fix it yet. Once you pass a certain level, there’s very little reason to ever leave Klaipeda or Saalus Monastery. If you do, it’s usually to do some other instanced content that separates you from the rest of the player base for somewhere between 15 to 45 minutes. When that’s done, you head right back to a hub location and wait for the next thing to start.

One way to solve that would be to remove the queue limitation. Let players queue up from a menu in the UI that isn’t canceled when they change maps. But even if you do that, you’ve still gotta give them rewarding, meaningful content that takes place out in normal fields so they can see and be seen by other players.

[darkexiler]

No, no. I think you misunderstood. I’m absolutely not saying to raise difficulty of normal fields.
I was talking about only the high-star fields, which provide best exp rates. Most of these are hunting grounds or puzzle dungeons.
Soloing should be perfectly doable and efficient as well. (Although I would prefferably see story/field quests fill up that role.)
All I tried to suggest is making party play have sufficient advantage to make up for time lost finding and maintaining a party for grind.

[darkexiler]

Just to be sure, I meant to discuss in this topic pre-300 content.
I am sure that players at end-game also have their problems but I tried to avoid getting into that. I haven’t gotten there yet so I can’t really contribute to discussion on that matter. Instead, I wanted to drop feedback on pre-300 play and discuss that.
I don’t feel like there is a problem with enhancement power creep before level 300. There’s little point to enhance gear if it’s gonna be discarded soon.

I’m not sure if you’ve actually played pre-300 content without using player buffs, have you? If not, you should try it and compare. Those buffs make a ridiculously big difference.
They do give players ability to solo all the content and that’s imo the problem. I really think they shouldn’t. There should be content that needs to be partied for and players should not be able to solo it just like that with no effort nor cost.
When I’m not using pardoner buffs grinding in high-star fields I do think that I probably shouldn’t be alone here and I could use a few party members. In some cases because it’s too dangerous to go solo (even with poor enemy AI the damage of casters and archers does hurt when you’re fighting them) and sometimes just because it goes way too slow when you’re alone.
If I go to the same place with player buffs all the challenge disappears.

It would definitely be cool if there were more players out and running in the fields but I don’t think that’s related with partying. Just that there are players around you, doesn’t mean they have a reason to group up. Alternatively, even if the world is empty, players can still form and grind in parties if they have a reason to.

I do agree that locking up people in Klaipeda is one of the issues but that’s why I bring up instanced dungeons. They’re the best way to level up. It would already be better if they were “pretty good exp” but not the best method. Alternatively, as I said, I would see them being very limited per day “just for casuals” or super hardcore hard for tryhards.
Considering that instanced dungeons are few and far between and all the bad things I already said about them, I would call them to be even more of a grind than killing in party billions of mobs out in the fields.

[Goldie]

What you are complaining about… used to be the very opposite.
Back then you couldn’t kill mobs easily and every classes couldn’t solo every maps because things were harder, and buffs were much weaker.
Past 280, the maps were so hard most classes couldn’t solo them at all. The ones who could couldn’t do it by mindlessly hitting their keys and facetanking, they had to be careful, smart, and be addicted to their pots.
Personally, I found it great. It was fun to play with others, it’s a multiplayer game after all. It also made CC/support classes useful in field and questing.
But people complained about it so… IMC nerfed mobs to the ground.
Buffs didn’t scale with stats, they gave a fixed amount of damages. The issue is that it made Priests 3 useless as buffers at higher level, and same for Pardoner shops, which is why IMC made them better. Probably too much though.

I think IMC actually needs to find a balance between too easy and too intense. For fights, for EXP/leveling, for skills/buffs scaling and just about anything. But it’ll take time. There are a lot of things they still need to improve.

[Timeshadow]

I’m not sure if you’ve actually played pre-300 content without using player buffs, have you? If not, you should try it and compare. Those buffs make a ridiculously big difference.

I have, actually. I leveled my main for quite a while (1-200+) before I learned about shop buffs and started using them regularly. That was sometime back when Rank 7 was still the max.

Don’t me wrong; I’m not saying that buffs don’t make content easier. I’m just saying they’re not the crux of the problem. I’d love to see more group play outside of instanced content but I also don’t want to see quick and easy numbers fixed used as a bandaid for the issue. Nerf what’s necessary, sure, but that won’t address the fact that the core gameplay mechanics allow players to solo the vast majority of the leveling content.

I do agree that locking up people in Klaipeda is one of the issues but that’s why I bring up instanced dungeons. They’re the best way to level up. It would already be better if they were “pretty good exp” but not the best method.

I won’t argue with you on that point. Instanced content, be it dungeons or whatever, shouldn’t be the outright most efficient way to level up.

That being said, they shouldn’t be tossed aside or so limited as to be pointless either. Taking an example from another MMORPG that just recently revamped its leveling content, players are encouraged to spend their time questing while they wait for a queue to pop. Once it does, they run their instance and go back to questing for a while until the next one is ready. That’s the kind of content balance ToS should strive for.

[Composition]

hard maps with some good rewards tied to them would be good.
Making the whole game hard? not a good idea, having hard content? yeh do it.
But I guess a definition of “hard” would be good, hard is not HP sponges… btw I have no definition to give.

[Goldie]

When the game was hard, mobs weren’t just HP sponges. They hit hard and had high defenses. It was a bit too much since some people couldn’t do any damages. But being a pure glass cannon with close to no HP and never fearing for your life is also ridiculous. You got no gear, you got no damages (if you’re support), you just need Blessing+Sacrament and you can still solo groups of mobs… It’s lame.
If your basic field maps are a brainless facetank + take buffs and mobs will fall like flies then what’s the point of the game ?
Nobody’s saying to make it really difficult on basic contents, but make it a minimum interesting.
To be honest it was good enough before 280 maps. Mobs got stronger bit by bit, you still could solo everything, but it was much faster and funnier to do it with someone rather than solo (and you didn’t have to waste pots), it’s how it should be. Not either so difficult most people can’t solo or so easy any character can solo with absolutely no issue.

[Composition]

I just hate HP sponges and the game did go through an HP sponge phase at some point, they remedied it, I guess.
But really I’m not agaisnt hard content, it’s just that IMC goes all or nothing sometimes. I hope they come with a definition of “hard” that fits their game soon, because the whole design would have to be tied to it.

[Nekorin]

If I remember correctly, during that period the damage calculation was based off subtracting the defense from the attack prior to damage multiplication. Hence if a player’s attack is below defenses of the monster, he or she will also deal 1 damage until a skill that he uses has attack over defense.

Wrote a lengthy post about it too back then, talking about for games to be/remain interesting to players, it has to give players a sense of progression. Players need to feel that their characters are improving the more time they invest in it. Hard challenges start to get easier so on and forth.

IMC did a great job in changing how the skills factors from flat to % and implementing the new damage calculation. The game now feels much more balanced than say, 1+ years back during the R8 early days. But I feel there’s is another system that is upsetting the game’s balance, and that is the anvil and transcend system.

For players who would like to experiment, I would like to suggest to attempt the PvE content (questing/dg and such) equipped with just 350 blues without any anvil and transcend upgrades. You will pretty much find that the content is actually quite balanced to that level of gear.

It kind of goes to show that without a lower cap (not +40 and lv10 transcend) for equipment upgrades, it is hard for IMC to balance general PvE content as players have a big range of attack and defense due to anvil success rates and blessed shards acquisition speed.

To regurgitate what I said previously, games need to give players some sense of progression in order to keep things interesting. But increasing damage values to players when the players are already strong for that level isn’t progression. When a player can already chop almost everything like tofu with a +11, giving them a chance for +12~16 doesn’t make them feel anything much since they still mince the same tofu with it.

One thing which I feel that IMC is improving is they are slowly undoing things which are implemented poorly in the past (due to corporate decisions, design planning maybe?). The best example is the Transcendence system.

We can see they are slowly reducing the need for transcendence with each revision. From the initial absurd 550% to the current 200% and in the near future, 100%. They have to do this change slowly is mostly due to, imo, the player base being deeply rooted into the current transcend system. This is to prevent a back lash since most players invested a lot of time and effort to get the shards. No one likes to see their effort gone to waste. Hence we see IMC putting up efforts on making blessed shards have another purpose in game, to use as an alternate currency to trade for items.

I just hope they will do the same for anvil enchancements, like introduce a new, lower enhancement cap to future R10 equipment. Lower cap means a much narrower range of damage players can do, and with it, content can better balanced to suit a wider range of player power levels.